The Daily Signal - Shooting at FSU, Polls Bring Reality Check, Federal Grant Fraud & Abuse | April 18, 2025

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Starting point is 00:00:25 We'd love to talk. Business. Tragedy at Florida State University, the shooter is alive and in custody. Despite political drama, a swath of approval polls continue in the administration's favor. And a whistleblower discovers massive waste and fraud in federal medical grants. I'm Tony Kinnett from the Daily Signals, Tony Kinnett cast, syndicated nationally at 7 p.m. Eastern. It is Good Friday, April 18, 2025. This is the Daily Signal's top news in 10.

Starting point is 00:00:55 A terrible situation yesterday at Florida State University after a 20-year-old shooter opened fire on a crowd killing two, whom are not students at the university, and then injuring five more who are still in the hospital. The shooter has been identified, is in the hospital, and in custody. Here's law enforcement from Florida on the situation. And we understand that you all have been devastated because of this person's action. The question as it relates to who is a shooter. The shooter is 20-year-old Phoenix Echner. Eichner.

Starting point is 00:01:40 And he's a son of a Leanne County Sheriff Deputy. Our deputy, Deputy Eichner, has been with the Lear County Sheriff's Office for over 18 years. She has a tremendous job that she's done. Her service to this community has been. exceptional. Unfortunately, her son had access to one of her weapons, and that was one of the weapons that was found at the scene. And we are continuing that investigation into how that weapon was used and what other weapons perhaps he may have had access to. Though the shooter's political history is a bit checkered and messy, it doesn't necessarily mean that this particular shooting was

Starting point is 00:02:28 politically motivated, will get you updates as the investigation continues. That didn't stop members of the media from asking the president yesterday if this meant that Trump's perspective on gun laws and gun control would change. Here was the president's response. I'm a big advocate of the Second Amendment. I have been from the beginning. I protected it. And these things are terrible. But the gun doesn't do the shooting. The people do. It's a phrase that's used probably too often. I will tell you that it's a shame. I'm just hearing about it now. I just hear about it. I know the area very well. I know the school very well. I know everything about it. It's Florida. And we'll have more to say about it later. I'll have to see what happens.

Starting point is 00:03:14 There will be more to say about it. Only in terms of what happened. As far as legislation is concerned, this has been going on for a long time. I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment. I ran on the Second Amendment among many of the. other things, and I will always protect the Second Amendment. Amid all of the political controversy, the second Trump administration has been embroiled in both inside of the administration and in the national media, it hasn't appeared to have a major effect on those in Trump's approval ratings, as well as a lot of single issue polls across a variety of pollsters. For example, although there's been a lot of congressional and media rhetoric about how

Starting point is 00:03:55 the Trump administration is handling illegal immigration and the deportation of those here in the United States unlawfully. The Trump administration does not seem to have lost a lot of favor on this particular issue with Americans. Here's Harry Anton explaining. Deport all undocumented immigrants. Voters favoring the government trying to deport all 11 million of them. Back in 2016, just 38 percent of voters wanted the government to try to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants. Compared to where we are in 2025, 56% the majority, the American people have come a long way on this issue much closer to Donald Trump. And I think that's a big part of the reason why Americans are increasingly saying the country is on the right track when it comes to immigration

Starting point is 00:04:41 policy and why Donald Trump's net approval rating on that issue is in the positive. This isn't limited just to illegal immigration. This also drips into the economy and the Trump tariff policies, which may not have been as unpopular. outside the Beltway, as many pundits originally claimed. We sat down with Josh Hammer of Newsweek to talk a little bit more about this in detail. Every few months, maybe maybe every few days, frankly, depending on the news cycle, we're told that the walls, as you said, are closing in on Donald Trump. And the walls just never just never seemed to close in on Teflon, Dom,

Starting point is 00:05:14 because the guy has more lives than a cat, frankly. I mean, you know, the tariff issue and his outspokenness against the so-called Washington consensus, this post-Berlin wall post-1989 notion. And really there's one quote that I used to encapsulate what is known as the Washington Consentist. It's his quote from Michael Boscom. He was a George H.W. Bush White House Economic Advisor. And this is the infamous quote where Boskin, the economist, says, computer chips, potato chips,

Starting point is 00:05:44 what's the difference? And this was a quote that was considered to be an ode, a PN, to free trade by any means necessary, to free trade at any and all costs. But unfortunately, there have been very real costs of trade that is oftentimes labeled free trade, but is typically not particularly free trade. Funny how that works there. And Donald Trump, if you go back, Tony, to his 2016 campaign, this one of the issues that he ran against. He ran very hard against the bipartisan consensus on the trade issue. He ran very hard against the bipartisan consensus in many ways on immigration, foreign policy.

Starting point is 00:06:17 Those are the three issues. Those are literally the three issues that elected Donald Trump the first time back in 2016. Those issues in many ways were the bread and butter of his 2024 successful campaign as well. And he's doing it yet again there. So when it comes to the approval ratings, I'm not particularly surprised that his approval rating has only gone up actually since the Liberation Day announcement. He obviously has changed his game plan a little bit since then. He basically punted on a lot of these reciprocal tariffs for now. But most important, he is not only keeping them.

Starting point is 00:06:46 He's escalated them on China. That's the key issue, Tony. I mean, China is the issue. It is an issue that Donald Trump has been very, very. very outspoken on for decades. I call him a clash. He was like memed into hell and back for the China. I mean, that's literally been his schick since, you know, time immemorial.

Starting point is 00:07:05 Totally. I mean, and I call him a class traitor on this issue. That's the verbiage that I like to use because he comes from the, I mean, Donald Trump was born to a very wealthy man, Fred Trump. He made a lot of his own money too, of course. But he comes from from a wealthy background. And he has always been an outspoken dissenter to his own class, to his own ultra-millionaires, billionaires when it comes to the issue of China.

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Starting point is 00:07:59 holiday season with Pandora. Shop now atca.pandora.net or visit your closest Pandora store. And the exposure of waste fraud and abuse in the federal government continues, and not just through the Department of Government Efficiency, whistleblowers who were long sequestered to silence pressured into keeping quiet about certain elements of waste, fraud, and abuse in the system through fear of retaliation are now coming forward about certain things that are costing Americans a lot of money and supporting causes that many Americans find rather distasteful. We sat down with Dr. Isaiah Hinkle, three-time bestselling author and CEO of overqualified.com, to talk about the rot inside the National Institutes of Health and their grant system.

Starting point is 00:08:45 I'm amazed consistently. at how fluffy a lot of these grants are. It's downright fraud, you're right. And they do it on purpose too, so that the average American taxpayer will have no idea what they're talking about. And they can claim, oh, you're just not intelligent enough. You don't really understand. So if somebody tries to call them out and be like, wait a second, you said you're going to

Starting point is 00:09:04 use the grant for this, you used it for this, they're like, well, there's some crossover in fields. It's actually all biology because we were working on the udders, right, or whatever. That's part of the strategy. And what there needs to be is oversight. You know, the example that I like to give is for trading firms, like stock trading firms. The SEC can go in at any time, just walk in the doors, look at whatever they want to look at. And of course, this provides pressure to where they have to keep the data clean, make sure they're doing

Starting point is 00:09:33 things with best practices, or else. And that's a big or else because they can walk in at any time without having to notify them. Now, if that was happening in academia, you would quickly see a lot of changes for the better. You'd see the grants being worked on that were supposed to be worked on. You'd see people only applying to grants if they knew they could follow through on something that actually would be translational, would actually help human health. If somebody could come in, walk in at any time to any lab, any university, let me see the data. Let me see what you worked on this past month, quarter, year. Are you actually working on what you're supposed to be working on? These people that you hired, what are they working on? None of this happens at all, not even close.

Starting point is 00:10:13 The full interviews with Dr. Isaiah Hinkle and Newsweek's Josh Hammer will be up this evening on the Tony Kennedcast, and we of course encourage you to tune in over there at 7 p.m. Eastern. You can find a link to subscribe to that as well as this show down in the description, and we the Daily Signal hope that you have a wonderful and reflective Good Friday and a wonderful Easter weekend. Because this show is typically recorded at about 10 p.m. 11 p.m. the night before, there will not be a top news in 10 on Monday or on Tuesday because we're taking not only Easter Sunday off, of course, but also Easter Monday. We look forward to seeing you bright and early Tuesday morning.

Starting point is 00:10:52 I'm Tony Kinnett, and this has been the Daily Signals, Top News in 10. Have a wonderful Easter. He has risen just as he said.

The Daily Signal - Shooting at FSU, Polls Bring Reality Check, Federal Grant Fraud & Abuse | April 18, 2025

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