The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Follow the Money

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Could it be that Florida first lady Casey DeSantis committed wire fraud as well as laundering money? Billy Corben asked Alexandria Glorioso and Lawrence Mower from the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times about it. Billy also asked Florida state representative Alex Andrade, who questioned the potential illegal activity on the dais. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Cuervo. State lawmakers asking tough questions about how $10 million was funneled into a nonprofit called Hope Florida and not into a state bank account. The charity was spearheaded by First Lady Casey DeSantis. The money was baked into a $67 million settlement between health giant Centene and the Agency for Healthcare Administration. $57 million went back to taxpayers. $10 million went to Hope Florida, a welfare assistance program to help people become less reliant on taxpayer-funded programs.

That cash quickly went out the door to two nonprofits for five million dollar grants and promises that the money would be used to further hope Florida's mission, not politics. But those nonprofits later gave millions to a political committee fighting and defeating last year's recreational weed amendment, Keep Florida Clean, a group chaired by former DeSantis chief of staff turned Attorney General James Uthmeyer. Follow the Money, that was the great lesson from Deep Throat in the movie version of All the President's Men. I don't think that happened in real life, but it was a great line that the screenwriter came up with.

And that has been sort of the mantra of every investigative reporter, particularly in political corruption stories. And no different here. Over the last like 10 days or so, this story has metastasized into a full-blown scandal here in the state of Florida and turned the Republican Party against each other into this wild kind of internal battle between what appears to be kind of the Trump Republicans

versus really the DeSantis's by themselves both the governor Ron DeSantis and the first lady Casey DeSantis who's planning a run for governor in 2026. And this Hope Florida Foundation has been like her pet project as the Florida first lady. And it's turning into a possible investigation into money laundering and wire fraud. And I just, this is a crazy story. And the Woodward and Bernstein of this story

are Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reporters who cover the state capital in Tallahassee, Florida. Alexandra Glorioso and Lawrence Mower, who are joining us now. And they broke this story about this, we'll call it the questionable. When I say questionable, I mean possibly illegal, $10 million donation to Casey DeSantis' foundation.

First up, Alexandra, what is it that you guys first found that kind of led you to ask this question here about like, what was this money? Where did it come from? Was it legal? What happened initially? So I got a copy of meeting minutes from October 2024. And this is a charity sanctioned by the state in state law.

So the meeting minutes are supposed to be public, but they haven't been. So when I saw the meeting minutes, I was really intrigued. And what the meeting minutes said was that there was a $10 million allocation to the foundation due to a long standing dispute between what eventually came out was the state agency for healthcare administration and the state's largest Medicaid contractor, Centene,

which had been over billing the state for prescription drugs, essentially. And they were settling over it. And we didn't know everything when we got those minutes, but we knew that the foundation was getting $10 million. And that was the first donation that we knew about to the foundation because everything has been so secretive. And this was a settlement between the state and this

provider of which the money was, I guess, supposed to go to the state, but this 10 million was kind of diverted to the first lady's foundation. Generally speaking, does this foundation take in that kind of money? Do they commonly get multi-million dollar donations of this size? No, this is basically the largest donation they've ever taken in by far. And we just got a copy of their 990s.

They've never filed their taxes. They're gonna approve their taxes on Thursday. And it shows that they're by far, this is by far the largest donation they've ever taken in. So let me ask you about that, because it seems like they're by far, this is by far the largest donation they've ever taken in. So let me ask you about that, because it seems like they haven't been following any laws like at all. You just said they haven't filed their taxes.

The minutes Alexandra just said were not available for their meetings. Like what kind of a foundation is this that just like operates in secret? And this donation at first was a secret in fact wasn't it. The donation was a secret. We didn't discover exactly what the details were until there was a hearing in the House last week where the chairman of the committee said that he had

gotten a copy of the settlement between the Medicaid contractors sent in and the state agency and we got a copy of the settlement between the Medicaid contractor, Centene, and the state agency. And we got a copy of the settlement and it showed that as part of that settlement, Centene would make the donation to the charity. But the company clarified on the record that, you know, they were directed to do this as part of the settlement agreement. So this is Medicaid money. It's highly regulated money, 57% of it belongs to the federal government. Any settlement has to go back to state coffers. So, and the state acknowledged that they, or at least the chair said the state acknowledged that they did send the money back to the federal government of the 57 million. So, you know, this $10 million has been in dispute and the origin of

it was a mystery until we, you know, were able to piece it together and report it. I mean, all of this was hidden from the public. And Lawrence, I understand that this $10 million donation, whatever you want to call it, settlement secret money, didn't stay in the Hope Florida Foundation for very long. What did you find out about, you know, as you continued to follow that money? Well, what we learned is that, what we know now is that it looks like DeSantis' chief of staff, James Uthmeyer, who's currently the attorney general, told two dark money groups, one run by the Chamber of Commerce, these are 501C4s that don't have to disclose their donors, Uthmeyer called them up and said, hey, why don't you apply for $5 million

grants through the foundation? And it seemed like with the understanding that that money would then be passed on to a political committee chaired by Uthmeyer. And that seems to be what happened. They did apply for the money. It was quickly given to them. One of the five million dollar donations wasn't even approved in a board meeting. The board chair just approved it on his own after getting legal counsel, he said, and so it went to a political committee chaired by Uthmeyer and then from there it looks like the money went to the Republican Party of Florida to fight Amendment 3 and possibly to DeSantis's own political committee. 1.1 million went to his political committee. We don't exactly know, but we know that they gave this committee gave 1.1 million

to DeSantis's own political committee. Alexandra, I imagine this Hope Florida Foundation has a very specific mission. It's supposed to take in funds and use funds for a very specific mission. It's supposed to take in funds and use funds for a very specific purpose. I guess we don't know because they haven't reported a damn thing in all of the years since Casey DeSantis founded it. But is their money from Hope Florida supposed to go

to these political committees? Is it supposed to go towards political ads to fight, in this case, Amendment 3, which was the recreational marijuana constitutional amendment that got overwhelming support but did not the 60% sufficient support necessary to pass as a state constitutional amendment. Is that where this money is supposed to be going? Well, first of all, if this is Medicaid money and it appears that it is Medicaid money,

it seems very unlikely that it can go anywhere other than back to the state for purposes of Medicaid and back to the federal government for purposes of Medicaid. So that's just like out the gate. Like this is money that is highly, highly regulated. And then regarding the foundation, I mean, okay, so the foundation is a strange creature called a direct support organization that the legislature passed, I think in 2023, to allow state agencies, which are chronically underfunded, to fundraise. And it supports the mission of those state agencies. And one of those state agencies is the Department of Children and Families, always strapped

for cash. And this organization, the Hope Florida Foundation, is supposed to be supporting the Department of Children and Families mission, which it says in its articles of incorporation, something like protecting children, helping children. And so can a political committee that is fighting recreational marijuana say that it's there

protecting children and the mission of supporting children? I mean, that's, I guess, for the public and the prosecutors to decide, you know. But what they said in the committee, what, you know, Department of Children and Family Secretary Taylor Hatch said in the committee is that she wasn't even aware of the, you know, transfer to the foundation, to these organizations and because she hadn't been on the job because she and another agency secretary switched places recently and over this whole thing, I'm sure. And so she didn't she didn't even know about it. And she said that according to their grant applications, which were only a few pages long, that she took it as they were

supporting people in addiction recovery. And therefore that met the mission. I mean, well, Lawrence, let's go back to this. What did you know, James Uthmeyer know? And when did he know it? He was then DeSantis' chief of staff at the time this went down, and he's now the attorney general. He's sending these two, or behind these two kind of identical letters

requesting each $5 million. I have to guess if this Hope Florida Foundation has never received a donation as big as $10 million before, they probably also have not disseminated grants of as much as five million dollars each before. I have to imagine that that was unprecedented as well. So was this was this shady, Lawrence? Was there something about the way this

flow through went that could constitute wire fraud or money laundering? And what happens now? Well, we don't exactly know the legal ramifications yet, but you know, it's something that was noted in the committee on on Wednesday Is that you know, there's a safe rep who runs a charity and asks, you know Why was there no press release about this, you know? You know, usually when chair when people get to charities, there's a big press release, they have letterhead everywhere. You know, the 501C4, they got $5 million. The one that's controlled by the Chamber of Commerce, Mark Wilson, that grant application says, we will not disclose where the money came from, which also was noted in the committee. And that also seems very strange considering,

you know, usually if a charity is giving out money like that, they want their press release, they want their name on letterhead, they want promotional activities, you know, based on it. They want the recipient to say, hey, we got this money from the United Way or something like that. And none of that was done here. And so, yeah, certainly to some lawmakers, that's highly suspicious. And I will say just minutes before this interview began, breaking news, the executive director of Hope Florida Foundation resigned. Eric Dellenback, after just three months on the job,

is now, I guess, scapegoat's gonna scapegoat. Is that who is ultimately responsible for this? This guy? No, I mean, the people who are responsible for Hope Florida are the DeSantis. I mean, this is a vision of Casey DeSantis. She wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about it. And, you know, Eric Dellenbeck, however, has been very central to their mission, which is to essentially integrate church and state. You know, there's an Office of Faith Council that they're trying to enshrine into law,

and he has been the liaison from DeSantis to the faith community, essentially, since he assumed office. The fact that he is gone now is pretty significant, I think. And I'll note that, you know, in the committee last week, the head of, you know, the agency for basically the long time previous secretary for DCF, which is kind of running the Hope Florida operation, was asked repeatedly, who's in charge of Hope Florida? There's nobody in charge and none of the people could answer that anyone was in charge.

They didn't think anyone was in charge. Meanwhile, this guy has had the title since January. So no, he's probably not the one who's been orchestrating all this. Before we go, I wanna ask this. The issue of DeSantis using, I think, an excess of $15 million, Jason Garcia reported in taxpayer money earmarked for

very specific departments in the state government for ads last year fighting against Amendment three, the recreational marijuana amendment fighting against Amendment four to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. The Republican House and legislature didn't really seem to have an issue with any of that at the time. Anything from your reporting kind of indicate why this is now such a big issue that the governor's own party in power is examining with a fine-tooth comb here? Let me take that. I mean, it's basically that, you know, there's really been a handful of lawmakers,

it's the House essentially, that is really raising questions about disengagement spending overall. And these are long-standing questions that, you know, privately lawmakers up here have been whispering for years, but have not felt they have the political clout to really dig into it. And there's been, it's no secret that lawmakers have been extremely frustrated by the how,

by the way, that Sanis has treated them over the years. And so, yeah, this is the culmination of basically tensions boiling over and House Republicans saying, okay, we want to actually do our jobs and dig into this stuff. I mean, they're the ones that the legislature, they're the appropriators are the ones who are supposed to assign the money. And, you know, they're supposed to know where the money's going. Major, major question under the status as tenure is like, where's all

this money gone? Alexandra, last word, can you give us a little bit of a sneak preview? Not to spoil anything, but where is this reporting going next? What are the next steps in this? I'm sure more heads are going to roll. Well, we just updated our story yesterday with images of text messages that were given to us late Tuesday evening by Representative Alex Andrade, which he said were delivered on behalf of the executive director

for one of the dark money groups as part of his request on Tuesday to all members involved for documents. So that's getting a lot of eyeballs. It shows that then Chief of Staff James Uthmayer actually reached out to the executive director of the Dark Money Group and wanted to talk to her around the time that she reached out and got the grant. And when she applied for the grant, the foundation attorney, Jeff Aaron, was coordinating with

her telling her to email him the grant and that he would send it on to the board. And then he immediately, as soon as she sent it, asked for her wire instructions. And then they communicated until, that was on a Friday, and they communicated until she got the wired $5 million into her dark money organizations bank account on, you know, Tuesday, October 22nd. And so that's captured in images now. And that's in our story. And it's going to go on.

There's going to be another hearing, you know, on Thursday, there was a board meeting. There's going to be a board meeting on this coming Thursday, which I think by the time this airs is yesterday. And we just got there at 990. So we're going through them. They're kind of like a who's who of state contractors. So, you know, the documents are coming now. That's the stage of where we are.

Well, keep following the money. Alexandra Glorioso, Lawrence Mower, find their extraordinary reporting at MiamiHerald.com and TampaBay.com. Keep up the great work. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having us, Billy. Thanks. Howdy, folks.

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And don't worry about the move, they'll handle the whole transition for you, no tech expertise required. Just visit Kinsta.com slash Dan to get started. That's K-I-N-S-T-A dot com slash Dan. Still have no idea why this was justified. I have very strong beliefs that this was not legal. Lawmakers were shocked over a number of revelations made in a committee hearing today. What are you all doing with the $10 million?

That is a question for the foundation. That's a question for ACA. They directed the payment. It looks like a creative way to try and, without oversight, send $10 million of taxpayer funds to Hope Florida. The chair of Hope Florida's board tried to answer the many questions directed at him. The public reporting has made evidence that mistakes were made. Hope Florida's chair admitted he was appointed without being told of any goals, that Hope

Florida has no staff, that there are no minutes of any meetings, no financial documents and that no board members signed conflict of interest forms. Is that what I'm hearing right now? Members, I'm sorry, I am a little flabbergasted at this revelation. Chair Alex Andrade has serious concerns thinking the funneling of funds could rise to the level of money laundering or wire fraud. He said he'll now seek testimony from the foundation's attorney, Jeff Aaron, the heads of the two nonprofits that moved the money, and maybe Attorney General James Uthmeyer

himself. And Drani is demanding receipts of all communications involving Hope, Florida, to figure out how money from a state Medicaid settlement made it from there into two political action committees. If they do not provide that information in a timely manner, we may be required to obtain that information with the use manner, we may be required to obtain that information with the use of subpoenas. When I think of the Florida House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, and it's not often, I don't think of fireworks, I don't think of excitement or drama, but that's exactly what's been happening

the past couple of weeks in Tallahassee, in the state capitol since Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reporters, Alexandra Glorioso and Lawrence Mower, broke the story about this $10 million Medicaid settlement that seems to have been diverted to the charity of Casey DeSantis, the first lady of the state of Florida,

wife of Governor Ron DeSantis. And now it is under serious investigation by this subcommittee and its chair, Republican Florida Representative Alex Andrade, who is joining us now. So glad you're wearing a different tie than in the clips that we just showed. By the way, very rare that we have

not just a Republican lawmaker on the show that we just showed. By the way, very rare that we have not just a Republican lawmaker on the show, but any lawmaker on the show. The Democrats didn't like me much when I was in the party, certainly less so since I left last year. But thanks so much for being here live from a bubble on the Florida House floor. Why this? Why now? I mean, there's been a lot of conversations about the governor's use of public funds,

particularly last year over $15 million. It was reported that he was spending directly from state agencies, money that you guys earmarked for very specific uses for taxpayer benefit that he was using to run ads, to buy paid advertising against Amendment 3, the Florida constitutional amendment for recreational marijuana against Amendment 3, the Florida constitutional amendment for

recreational marijuana against Amendment 4, the Florida constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. It didn't seem to be a big issue to any of you guys at the time. So why this? Why now? Your point's well taken, but I think the circumstances are a little bit different, right? It's squishier to say that PSAs with a slant, you know, being purchased by a public agency are demonstrably criminal or anything like that.

In this circumstance, what we have is the executive office of the governor, his chief of staff, James Uthmeyer, involving himself in a settlement agreement for $67 million, shaving off 10 million of that, directing it to Casey DeSantis' charity, Hope Florida Foundation, and immediately getting two dark money groups to go ask for $5 million apiece. And the second they get that money, they send it to his PAC. So there's the distinction there of we have this path of Medicaid money ending up in a matter of days in the chief of staff's pack.

And so that's the big distinction. I mean, we're now facing the potential for fines from the federal government for misuse of Medicaid money. And we have, at this point, information that tends to show that our attorney general committed money laundering and wire fraud. You are an officer of the court. You're an attorney. And so when you use these terms, you talk about,

I've heard you reference a possible conspiracy to use Medicaid money for campaign activity. You've just said wire fraud, money laundering. I mean, these are some pretty serious allegations. And you do so, though, from a point of view of someone who understands what that means. What evidence so far, if any, do you have to indicate that

those alleged crimes might have occurred here? Well, when James Uthmeyer involved himself in the settlement with Centene, and he directed the $10 million go to a 501C3, and then he immediately personally, we have text messages and phone call records showing that he personally reached out to these two dark money groups, told them to ask for this money, and the second those two groups got the money wired to them, it ended up in his pack. So he's been, he's involved at every step of the way in this process and that's where you get into this kind of conspiracy. He knew it was Medicaid money when it was part of the

settlement, he knew it was a tax-deductible donation to a charity when it went to the charity. And then he knew that the second these two dark money groups would receive the money, they would send it to him and his pack. Shoot, if he was acting in a above board manner, he would have raised red flags and said, hey, literally last week,

I told you guys to ask for millions of dollars from this charity. Now you're sending me money, please tell me it's not the same money. He didn't do that. In fact, he's, he's proud of it. He gave statements today saying essentially the ends justify the means. And you know, he's fighting for kids because he fought against Amendment three. This is what I call the whisper test. Does it pass the whisper

test? And what we do with the whisper test is we whisper something To describe something and we'll say like for example, like let me tell you what I'm gonna do Roy I'm going to raise some money Millions of dollars and I'm gonna donate it to a charity that helps children in underserved communities Yeah, why are we whispering? Right? Why are we whispering? That doesn't sound the least bit suspicious. But now Roy, let me tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna divert $10 million in a Medicaid settlement into the charity of the First Lady of the state of Florida.

And then I'm gonna immediately send out $5 million each donations into these political dark committees that we're gonna use for political advertising, one of which is actually run by the then chief of staff of the governor. That sounds like some shady shit. It does not pass the whisper test. It's like, wait a second. No, that's that. That sounds like you should be whispering that that sounds mighty shady and mighty suspicious and so illegal and mighty and mighty possibly allegedly illegal. So what do we even know representative about this charity Hope Florida Foundation co-founded if not

outright founded by Casey DeSantis Ron DeSantis his wife a presumptive gubernatorial candidate in 2026 here in the state of Florida. What do they do? How much money have they ever raised? 10 million dollars sounds like a lot of money to get in one fell swoop. Two five million dollar grants sounds like a lot of outgoing money from an organization like this. What do they do? What do we know about them? What is their kind of public facing filings and reputation? And what is this all about? It's been a black hole. So they've never filed a Form 990 as a charity. Meaning they've never reported to the IRS how much money they've raised or how much money

They've distributed Based on information that we now have Other than this ten million dollar dark money Medicaid fund transfer They'd only raised about two million dollars in total and they'd doled out about five 500 grand to charities in the form of like 10, 20 and $30,000 grants to charities around the state. So those donations, right? Those 20, 30, $40,000 donations, those went through a process

at the Florida Department of Children and Families, the state agency had to review those grant applications, had to sign off on them, check them, make sure that they were above board and everything like that. the state agency had to review those grant applications, had to sign off on them, check make sure that they were above board and everything like that. In the instance of the $10 million that went to these two dark money groups and then both of those dark money groups sending it to James's PAC, there was no review by DCF. We found out yesterday that DCF wasn't even told that this $10 million was going into

this bank account. Like, it's shocking to me that the state's attorney general couldn't even cover his tracks better. Wait, it's like his... Do you honestly believe that's credible? I mean, this is the problem now. The guy can't even crime right. Guy can't even crime straight. I mean, like, you'd hope that the attorney general

would be able to cover up his criming a little bit more efficiently. The guy can't even crime right. Guy can't even crime straight. I mean, like you'd hope that the attorney general would be able to cover up his criming a little bit more efficiently. Let me ask you this. I'm looking at some of the donors to this organization from what we do know from like its first year, I think I have here. And it looks like they're like all state contractors.

Is it a conflict of interest for companies who do business with the state like this? Do they feel pressured to donate to a Casey DeSantis pet project? You've got companies here like Simply Healthcare, Centene, who was the company that was responsible for that initial $67 million Medicaid settlement, $10 million of which was diverted to this organization. But you've got Medicaid companies who just got re-procurement, who got multi-billion dollar,

multi-year contracts with the state of Florida, who seem to be the only people really donating to this charity to begin with. I would say like there's nothing necessarily untoward about contractors wanting to curry favor with the governor's office, right? Like, it's probably in their best financial interest to try and develop a good relationship

with the governor's office however they can. I mean, we have state contractor vendors that make campaign donations to campaign accounts all the time. The issue here is that yeah, I have heard reports, a lot of reports about pressure on people to make donations and pressure on vendors of the state to make contributions to the Florida Foundation. And depending on how that message was conveyed and how much pressure was applied, that would be a problem.

But I don't have the information right now to say whether or not that happened. Now, the governor, Ron DeSantis, has been forced into responding to this because your investigation has been ongoing. It has been kind of metastasizing this scandal. I think you're at least your second subcommittee meeting about this.

You have another one coming up next week. He has been forced to respond in a series of press conferences, including one in your district that he seemed to program or schedule as counter programming to your most recent subcommittee meeting at like exactly the same time. So I'm going to play this clip and give you an opportunity to respond to the governor. This is a manufactured hoax. And you have liberal media and liberal Democrats pushing this. And we have some of these leaders in the Florida House who are stabbing their constituents in the back to try to sabotage all the great success that Florida has had.

None of these Republican leaders got elected on the platform that they were going to launch baseless attacks against the governor and first lady. Shame on you in the Florida House and your terrible behavior and leadership. Some people feel threatened by the first lady. Let's just be clear about that. They know this. They say you saw her up here. You know if you're looking at you know like 2026 and you've got you know some some horse that you don't want to you don't want her anywhere near that. You're very worried because she runs circles around their people everybody knows that those clips are from no less than three

separate events over the last 10 days or so and we had to cut those down considerably the governor had a lot more to say oh that's bs no totally totally bs so i want to give you an opportunity to respond obviously he's throwing shade particularly when he goes literally into not your backyard, but your front yard to talk about this. Governor Sands has been acting more kind of manic and emotional and erratic as the weeks progress. It's almost tough not to feel sorry for him. I mean, yeah, he did. He scheduled his press conference in my district to start at the exact same time as my committee meeting yesterday. In fact, I tried to pull up the press conference and have it on mute on the big screens in our committee room,

but we have rules about using props in committee. But no, I'm glad Governor Sanders visited my district. It's always nice when the governor visits. I just wish he didn't try and equate fighting against fraud, waste, abuse, money laundering and wire fraud as somehow a liberal tendency. I thought he loves that line that he claims he was Doge

before Doge was cool. Well, dude, get your own house in order. The same agency that transferred this $10 million, directed this $10 million donation that ended up in his chief of staff's pack just happened to lose $160 million that we discovered a few weeks ago. They just misplaced it. Like we gave them money a couple years ago to pay a federal fine, 160 million

dollars worth. They put it in the wrong bank account and they used it for cash flow. So now we as the state have to pay that 160 million dollar fine twice because his own agency keeps screwing it up. At the end of the day, like right now, unfortunately, for DeSantis, like he's exposing himself like he's a he's a great congressman. He's welcome to run for the Florida House of Representatives when he gets done as governor if he thinks he can do this job better. But he's exposing himself as a great, great legislator, but a terrible manager. The spokesman for now Attorney General James Uthmeyer,

Jeremy Redfern tweeted, or whatever we call it now, the following, in response to this, not surprised that the leftist media didn't include the comment I gave them last night. Anyway, here's my response to this nonsense. This is an unserious probe being driven by an unserious representative, that's you, who is carrying the water for the very mega marijuana corporation that spent over $150 million in

the effort to allow unrestricted public marijuana use and lost. I guess he's talking about your connections or alleged connections to True Leave. How do you respond to Mr. Redfern? I don't know if that even requires a response. I mean, yeah, they're trying to say that I'm, you know, doing the bidding of John Morgan at Morgan & Morgan and doing the bidding of True Leave and Big Weed. One, yeah, I voted for Amendment 3,

as did the majority of Floridians, as did President Trump. That doesn't mean I cared that much about it. I happen to have issues with the fact that it didn't have HomeGrow in it as well. I filed a bill this year for HomeGrow. It's kind of like a thumb in the eye to like truly just kind of mistake on that part of their amendment.

But the plaintiff's bar hates me. The plaintiff's lawyers in Florida, at least on the advocacy lobbying side, they've despised me just because of the positions I've taken in the legislature. So when I say like, I don't know if it requires like it requires me to respond. It's just, it's such a weird, stupid attack. And if you can't address the argument like his boss directed $10 million in Medicaid money that ended up in his own pack, if they can't address that, they're going to go attack people. And I guess because

they can't address that, they're going to go attack people. And I guess because they can't address that, they're just attacking people. So what's next from here? I understand that there's an effort now to kind of retroactively clean up this mess. They managed to hire a lawyer that sort of continues this bizarre and sestuous cesspool here of conflicts of interest.

So what's next? They hired the Pax lawyer. Yeah, they hired the Pax lawyer this charity that Shoveled this money into James's pack. They hired the Pax lawyer to fix their charitable documents their charity compliance documents We've invited Another lawyer at the center of this named Jeff Aaron who was the attorney for the Hope Florida Foundation to come next week and explain himself and we invited those two dark money groups the secure Florida's future and save Our society from drugs to come next week and explain themselves to the committee

I've also requested a ton of documentation from the state agencies and from these groups If I don't get them in the next few days We'll probably send subpoenas next week just to require the documents to be produced and can can you subpoena these folks to actually appear, physically appear and testify before your subcommittee? Yeah, one fun unique thing about the Florida legislature is while we are in session, we don't need a judge to enforce a subpoena. We can send our own sergeant in arms to go enforce the subpoena. So we don't need prior judicial authorization. So there's really very little they can do to contest it

if we do it while we're in session. So we have about three weeks left to session, maybe two weeks after this one. So yeah, we might do some of that work before we're done. You've said that this investigation perhaps should not just be in this subcommittee. Depending on what you find next, where do you think this should go?

I think that the US attorney for the Northern District of Florida should be concerned about the misuse of Medicaid money and the wire fraud and money laundering that's been uncovered. If I'm a federal prosecutor, I'm building a RICO case right now, and James Uthmeyer and the other attorney, Jeff Aaron,

are at the center of it. Speaking of the bipartisanship of the need to target waste fraud and abuse, I don't know that Doge has done any of that. But it certainly appears that you are doing that. I mean, $10 million might seem a blip on the radar screen in the grand scheme of budgets of states the size of Florida, which is in and of itself sort of the economy of a small country.

And one could certainly argue, as the governor has, that the residents of the state of Florida, which is in and of itself sort of the economy of a small country. And one could certainly argue, as the governor has, that the residents of the state of Florida have bigger problems than this. But if this, in fact, was a crime committed with taxpayer money, you are the chairman of the Florida House Health Care Budget Subcommittee. So all these things that the governor is saying the Florida House should be focusing its attention on, that's not necessarily your purview. Not to mention the governor has never been shy about using his bully pulpit to force his own agenda

on the legislature. So if he wants you guys focusing on condo or HOA reform or dealing with lowering property taxes or insurance premiums or whatever this stuff is, why isn't he, doesn't the buck stop with him? Why isn't he leading the charge on this sort of thing? What do you think about the, because I see again, the governor here

playing the politics of diversion, kind of the idea of saying like, well, why aren't we talking about this when we should be talking about this? And that's why it's not a very good impersonation of the guy. But what is with this distra- like, you've got a purview as chairman of your subcommittee. He's trying to say like, we shouldn't be talking about this, we should be talking about that.

And of course, that the reference he made to his wife and her political ambitions in 2026 to run for governor and that this is some kind of, I don't know, like some sort of battle between, I don't know, Trump Republicans and the DeSantis family to derail, uh, Tachy O's hopes and dreams. I mean, I haven't really mentioned Casey cause I didn't see her personally reaching out to these dark money groups and telling them to ask for five million a piece and then telling them to give them to my pack. As far as I'm concerned, the only issue for Casey is that she's held up this Florida Foundation as like a campaign platform. And she hasn't really spent much time making sure they're complying with any of the statutes that they're required to comply with. And she really hasn't spent a lot of time making sure the program is actually doing

what it's supposed to do. Like I shared with you before we started talking, the executive director for the Hope Florida operational arm resigned today after the committee yesterday. Yeah, I anticipate more of these press conferences and I've always equated Governor DeSantis' accent as like New Jersey mixed with toddler. But, you know, I'll be subjected to more of those. But he went to my district yesterday and I had a bunch of people call me. Not a single person called me in agreement with the governor.

They all called me and encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing and get to the bottom of where this money went and how it was used and misappropriated. So no, I mean, he's still a Republican governor. I share his philosophical views on how government's supposed to run. We still need to get a balanced budget passed the next few weeks. We need to send that to the governor for his signature. He's inevitably going to veto a ton of stuff out of our budget to be petty and retributive. And then we'll have to decide if we're going to override all of his vetoes. Last question. As you mentioned, minutes before this interview, Eric Dellenback, the executive director of the Hope Florida Foundation, only since January,

but on the job just a few months. He just resigned, scapegoat, gonna scapegoat. Does the buck stop with this Dellenback guy or are there more scalps? Dellenback wasn't implicated in any wrongdoing. As far as I'm concerned, the people implicated the most are our Attorney General James Uthmeyer and this other attorney, which by the way,

Jeff Aaron is DeSantis' personal attorney. The only two people I've seen who are directly implicated in wrongdoing and wouldn't be associated just by virtue of part of a RICO conspiracy type thing, the people that actually did wrong were Jeff Aaron and James Uthmeyer. So the only way for DeSantis and Casey DeSantis to scapegoat anybody is for James Uthmire to resign as the Attorney General or take responsibility for what happened and subject himself to prosecution. So we'll see what happens. I really couldn't tell you. I'm not a prosecutor, but I'll tell you if I was the Northern District attorney, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, I'd be paying attention to this because it's a pretty clear-cut case of, like I said, money laundering, wire fraud, and Medicaid fraud. Florida State Rep Alex Andrade, thanks so much. Good luck. I'll be watching. Who knew what riveting television Florida House Health Care Budget Subcommittees could be? And there really have been like law and order and Perry Mason-esque kind of revelations and twists and cross examinations. I mean, it's been great television.

So thank you for that, at the very least. Well, I'd much rather be focused on like achieve savings rebates and making sure our heaters measures and healthcare outcomes for Medicaid individuals in Florida are improving. But unfortunately, because of the bad acts of a few bad apples, we're having to focus on this. Yeah, but that sounds boring.

You know, money laundering and wire fraud or, you know. I got $35 billion I'm responsible for in the healthcare budget. I love money. Absolutely. I'm a big Mabaguy. Let's make America boring again. That's right. It'll certainly make government boring again.

Oh, absolutely. But in the meantime, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Hey friends, it's much for being here. Thank you. because I would never ever joke about a 5G network that has invested billions building 5G towers across the country. Not even once. Not even if Mr. Boost Mobile himself asked me to. There is nothing funny about it. Boost Mobile is now a legit nationwide 5G network and also provides coverage across 99% of America. Seriously. Visit BoostMobile.com or your nearest Boost Mobile store location to learn more.

The Boost Mobile network, together with our roaming partners, covers 99% of the US population. 5G speeds not available in all areas. Last week we lost Miami City Commissioner Manolo Reyes who passed away on April 10th. He was a mass and burial this week in Miami. This is I will say about him. He is one of the few sitting Miami commissioners to ever appear on the Because Miami program. We got a shot of that right there, Dan and I, and with some of my pandemic hair.

I'm glad that is done. And Manolo Reyes joining us talking about, at the time, the Mel Reese public sports welfare boondoggle. And I will say Manolo Reyes and his ally ship with Alexia Leportia and Joe Carollo really helped to put Miami into the situation that it's in now. But he knew right from wrong. And when he wanted to take an ideological stand like he did on Mel Rees, on the right side of that issue and on the right side of history, he did. I wished he had done it more often and I wished he had more time because in recent years he was right more often than not, which was a change of pace, I'll admit, from his

first term at the city of Miami. I'm sorry to see him go because at the very least, even when he was wrong, I don't think that he was corrupt. And I don't think that he was evil, like a man like Joe Corollo is, just genuinely corrupt and in it for himself. Manolo Reyes was very much by all accounts committed to public service and particularly committed to constituent services, which is what government really should be doing,

serving its constituents. And he and his staff really made a commitment to communicate with the media, to communicate with the public, and to serve the people of their district. I'm very sad to see him go, particularly because it was a longstanding dream of his to be the mayor of the city of Miami. And after his second bout of cancer and surviving that last year, he had the headline at the Miami Herald was after cancer battle, Miami commissioner Manolo Reyes plans to run for mayor quote, God willing, end quote.

And Manolo Reyes did not make it. The mayoral race is in fact this year, people are just getting into the race. You'll remember we interviewed former City Commissioner Ken Russell who is running for mayor and now get this right on Wednesday the same day as the mass and burial of the late Manolo Reyes hours later the man is barely in the ground Joe Corolla went out to the Redlands, not even in the city, to have his mayoral campaign kickoff. That's, uh, that's f***ed up.

Really just to stick it to not only Manolo Reyes and his family, but to stick it to the city of Miami. He's having this event way out in the boonies, 23 miles away from City Hall, because I don't think people want to be seen with him. They don't want to be seen giving money to this dirt bag. And he's doing it at a place called El Toro Loco Ranch, out in the river.

Crazy bull. El Toro Loco is that food truck right across the street here at Bayfront Park, who it is alleged in the latest corruption lawsuit against Joe Corolla by the former Bayfront Park Management Trust Executive Director, that they were get a generator and pay for your own gas and electricity. These people have been such big supporters of Joe Carolla that Joe was really pissed at this guy. It's part of the reason why he eventually like excommunicated and shitcandem.

So that's where he is while Manolo Reyes is being memorialized and interned and his family is in mourning. Just for our Miami moment, while Manolo Reyes was effectively sick and dying, he was still showing up for work, sometimes in person at City Hall for commission meetings, and sometimes remotely via Zoom video,

where he seemed, I thought, more engaged and aware and involved than ever. But Joe Correia, ever the sociopathic bully I thought more engaged and aware and involved than ever. But Joe Corollo, ever the sociopathic bully, as one of his daughters described him, couldn't help but beat up on this dying man. So just as a little Miami moment to remember that we get the government we deserve, let's get a little taste of Joe Corollo versus Manolo Reyes, the mayor we could have had and the mayor that we may very well have because Joe Corollo could very well be the

next mayor of Miami. So happy Passover to everyone. Happy Easter to everyone. I'll be celebrating my favorite holiday on Monday. That's when the Easter candy goes on clearance sale 50% off Cadbury cream eggs. And I'll be celebrating my favorite holiday which is the Stanley Cup playoffs. Happy Polarum! Cocaine's. We're making decisions in every darn meeting not based upon what's best for the city, what's best for Mr. Ray is because he wants to be mayor.

No, no, it doesn't matter if I want to be mayor or not. Of course it is. That's what it's all about. Let me tell you this. Sir, sir, sir, sir. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Let's use our inside voices when we don't have the strength. Commissioner Reyes. I mean, this gentleman, he tends to attack everybody.

I understand, Commissioner Reyes. You're wrong. Okay. Let's use our inside voices. Let's use our inside voices. And point of clarification. Point of clarification. I want to know what we are voting on. He knows who we're voting upon. I don't know man. Okay.

He just wants to keep stalling. Okay. Commissioner Corollo, please, please, please, point of clarification for Commissioner Reyes and then Commissioner Pardo would like to say something else. Okay, but let's not, I understand we're very passionate, but we don't have to yell at each other. Please. Yell at each other, please. I... No one to man. No one to man. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

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