Will Cain Country - $250B Medicaid Scam? ‘Ghost Companies’ Draining Your Money (ft. Luke Rosiak & Trey Gowdy)

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

Medicaid has always been an easy target for fraudsters, but a recent investigation has uncovered what might be the most ridiculous instance yet. Daily Wire Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak joins Will to explain what enabled a small group of Ohio residents to receive gobsmacking amounts of federal funds, simply for being paid to sit at home and spend time with their family. Plus, Former Congressman (R-SC) and Host of ‘The Trey Gowdy Podcast,’ Trey Gowdy gives an inside look at his interview with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and share his thoughts on abolishing birthright citizenship, as well as the notion that America is a “creedal” nation. Subscribe to ‘Will Cain Country’ on YouTube here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch Will Cain Country!⁠⁠⁠ Follow ‘Will Cain Country’ on X (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), Instagram (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), TikTok (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), and Facebook (⁠⁠⁠@WillCainNews) Follow Will on X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WillCain⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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How do we get in on that deal in Ohio? And Trey Gowdy to talk with me about Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and whether or not the United States of America is a creedal nation. It is Will Cain Country, streaming live at the Will Cain Country YouTube. channel at the Willcane Country Facebook page, but always available for you to follow here at Spotify or on Apple. I'm back.

Yeah. Took the day off. Not to chill and drink margaritas, but I'm back from Hunter Virus. See, I was skeptical. One day off yesterday. Yeah. What did you say? Patrick? I can't hear so good. Speak up.

I was skeptical until this morning on the call when you sounded way worse today. Are you patient zero? Yeah. This morning on the call you thought, oh no. He's not going to make it for the show? I don't know what the time?

I don't know. Yesterday, fellas, I did the math, was the first day of work that I have missed for being six. Sick. Forgive me, I'm a little stupid today. man it's funny what sickness will do to you like your brain and everything like I'm I bet it drops they should do an IQ test like before and during because you're there is no doubt your IQ drops I wonder how fluid your IQ is in general you know like in the middle in one day does your IQ fluctuate wildly but mine is at a low point right now but I was thinking it's been been seven years since I missed a day of work for illness. It's impressive. Y'all want to hear about that one?

It's probably not appetite. Are you sure? One day. One day. Well, I did work with you guys. I was sick. I remember fighting through the show. I did the show.

I don't think I called out sick. I think I did the show. Sick. Okay. All right. Yeah. Don't be poking holes in my stories. I'm just sure.

Okay. I'm sorry. Let the man have. this moment. So one day, I was in Bristol, Tennessee, Bristol, Connecticut, see? Bristol, Connecticut hosting the Will Kane show. And I would say in the last 30 minutes of a three-hour radio show, it hit me. And it was like, I don't, I don't feel great. Like, low energy, you know, like the kind of energy where you're like, this is not, this is not right, this is not good. And I used to stay in a hotel. The Homewood Sweet.

I used to stay at the Homewood Suites, two or three nights a week up in Connecticut. Sounds fancy. And I went back to my hotel room and I laid down. And I proceeded then to endure the next 24 hours, the stuff that is of nightmares that people talk about. You know what I'm talking about, right? Like, both ends, hugging that toilet for 24 hours at the Homewood Suites. The only thing I could come out of the room for was to go to that. that little snack bar they have that's next to the cooler and be like,

what am I going to have to eat now? I guess I'll have some Ritz peanut butter crackers now. But it didn't matter because I couldn't hold it down anyway. It's a nightmare. And that's the last time I remember missing a day of work like I did yesterday. And I thought this morning, Patrick, I was 50-50 on the fence today. But it's funny, man, yesterday was not enjoyable. I didn't like have a vacation.

I mean, I will tell you, I did watch some things on Netflix. and that kind of thing, but they weren't fun to watch. My hand hurts so bad. I just laid there. And I feel guilty the whole time because I've an overinflated sense of self. And I'm like, I need to be at work. And I was just walking into the studio.

Seriously. Seriously, I'm like, they're all counting on me. And there's Patrick texting me. Can you let me know what I need to do for tomorrow? Do I have to get a fill in? It's like, all right, man. But I'm walking into the studio. and I just, I'm trying not to cough during the show.

I coughed and I could feel Ed behind me and I thought, he probably wishes I didn't come into work today. I warned him. Coming to work sick, you feel like Michael Jordan, like I got to show up for my team. It's the flu game. I got to be there from my team. But the truth is, your team doesn't want you there. We don't mind.

Your team doesn't want to get sick. We're thousands of miles away. Yeah, because you guys are not in America. Yeah. I'm not going to get you sick, Ed. I think I'm past the contagion part. I did. I think. I did a thing for the first time. I had a doctor come to my house, a conciergeist doctor, and she gave me an IV. First time I've ever had one of those. She goes, you ever done this? I go, no. I've heard people do this for like hangovers and things like that. Never had an IV before. My first IV. Pretty interesting. I don't have a lot to say about it. It didn't make me feel. It wasn't as amazing as everybody says it is.

I mean, I didn't feel like a brand new man afterwards, but here's the deal. We're struggling through. It's Will Kane's flu game, but we're back and we're loaded up with some amazing guests today. Trey Gowdy's going to join me for a conversation that began last week on the Will Kane show. This piece of sound that absolutely gathered my attention from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, wherein he told Reason magazine that the United States is a creedal nation. There were not a nation with a religion.

We're not a people. We're not a common culture. And I was really shocked about that. And then Trey now ended up talking about it on air. Now, Trey's one of these guys that I think is incredibly smart, who probably disagrees with me on a good amount of things. But I'm excited to hear what he thinks about this. You know, I've been listening to Ben Sass lately.

Not because I'm sick. But Ben Sass is the former senator from Nebraska, right? He's dying of cancer. And he was given three months to live. And he's already outlived that. And he's saying some really incredible things and, you know, about what he believes, about the future, about educating children, about the way to live your life, about indictment of our political processes. And it's funny, I don't know, when I think about Ben Sass sometimes, I think about Trey Gowdy, I wouldn't be surprised, I don't know this, I wouldn't be surprised to find out if they're buddies. But I'd love to talk to tray about some of those things and kind of where are we headed kind of as a culture politically.

But first, we're joined by the Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak, who has a new report up talking about the fraud in Ohio. Now, the vice president of the United States is really, I think, the only person in the United States government cabinet who's not over in China right now. He said he feels like McCauley Cawken and Home Alone. and, but he is focused on fraud. And I think he's looking at Maine. Of course, we've talked about Minneapolis.

And, you know, he's an Ohio guy. So I would assume he would be paying attention to this coming from Luke and the Daily Wire here about what they found in Ohio. So we're glad now to have Luke Rosiak here on the show. Hey, Luke. Hey, Will. All right. So how do I, this sounds like a pretty cool gig, man. I'd like to start a home health care business.

What can I rake in? How hard is it to start? Your report said you don't have to have any expertise. Check. Don't have that. All I have to do is what? Start something up and I can start billing Medicare and Medicaid for millions of dollars? Yeah, I call it the Butler's for Somalis program.

They can get somebody to come cook for them, clean, anything you need. They just call it chores. And so a lot of these people, you don't have to be a nurse. It started with like if you were associated. sick and old that you could go in a nursing home, it would be cheaper to just send somebody to your house once in a while. But then they expanded it to, well, what if instead of just sending nurses, we also send it can just be like anybody to help you out. And then they push it further to like, those people can just be your family members. And so pretty soon, you weren't talking about a

small group of people that we were saving money by not putting them in a nursing home. Suddenly there were vastly more people who claim to be sick. And these are all people on Medicaid, meaning they don't really they don't pay taxes they don't have a job um and it turns out that they're all somalis i mean i'm like 99% of the the people that i saw in columbus ohio were we're not american um and so they're all getting paid to hang out with their own family members who they claim need all this medical assistance i don't know how they all got so sick um and nobody who's like american got caught the same caught the same debilitating disease But you go to these businesses, which are middleman businesses, that charge Medicaid and then pay the people who are sitting in their house.

And they have advertisements about what they provide. And one of the services they build the government for by the hour is companionship and conversation. So the Somalis are coming here as refugees, claiming they were very poor. They had a horrible life. They're so grateful just to not be persecuted. And then they're demanding to be paid to hang out. with our own family members. And they're doing this at such scale

that just the middlemen companies that organize them have taken over the entire Northeast Columbus. You drive down the road, that's literally, that's all you see. Every other business has shut down because it's cheaper to just take a cutoff Medicaid for other people that are hanging out in their house. Let's take quick break, but continue this conversation with the Daily Wires, Luke Roziak here on Will Kane Country.

Welcome back to Will Kane country. We're still hanging out with Luke Roziak of The Daily Wire, who's done an investigation into a quarter billion dollars worth of fraud in Ohio. Really? Okay. So I want to come back to the Somali thing in just a minute. Just the idea, let's start with the idea that Medicare is paying for people. Okay, I want to see if I can wrap my mind around this. Okay, you instead of going to a nursing home are going to stay home.

And then you're going to have a home health care company, sign a nurse to you that comes to your house and helps you out with various things. I think everybody's like, understand, seems to be a legitimate Medicare service provided to people in their homes that need medical support. Then they say, you know what? We don't have to, it doesn't need to be a registered nurse. It can be somebody, it can be anybody that can help them out, registered, I would assume, under home health care. And then they expanded that to family members. So that concept right there in and of itself is getting pretty loose. Now, I can just walk into a house and I'm providing cleaning services or companionship, none of which is measurable, right? Because

you can't really go into, are we going into those homes and performing audits? Are we seeing if the home is cleaned or if somebody's there hanging out with these people, the things that we're paying for? So I just want to take this one step at a time. That right there is susceptible to a amount of fraud, right? Yeah, I cleaned that old person's house. Bill Medicare pay me. Yeah, that's the problem. It's unverifiable. It's the government getting involved in something that's happening between family members behind closed doors and a private residence. There's really no way to know that it occurred. And it's just an astronomical amount of money. Ohio alone spent $1 billion a year on this. And so, yeah, you know, you have to get a doctor's

note, but I think that within certain communities, and maybe this is why they're all Somali, you have these networks of people. And you find a doctor who's willing to say that anybody over the age of 59, which is, I think the cutoff is like, they need all this help. But we all know people, you know, like that's not old. Like even this day and age, like, even like 70 is not that old. You know, you don't need people to come, you know, like do all this stuff for you in your house. It's kind of hard to believe that all the Somalis have this. these physical conditions, but you get a doctor in on it. He says he writes everybody in note.

The home health care thing, which is unquantifiable in and of itself, then you expand that to, and family members, to your point. Now, well, you know, nephew can do that too. Nephew. So now we've got that unquantifiable, unauditable, uncheckable thing going on. And then on top of that, you've got the, what I want to, this is where I get back and the Somali thing. So, first of all, what about the businesses?

And you visited some of these that are, those are all small and sort of independent. But is there somebody making a lot? So, I mean, the person, that's a fake. What we're doing, it's like a mob job at some point. It's a no-show job. You're building the government for something that you're not really doing. You're doing very little of.

Does it scale, Luke? Does it scale where there are some mob bosses somewhere that are actually making cuts of all of this and taking home millions? Yeah, that's a good way to put it. So, you know, there's one building that has 94 companies in at home health care companies, and they build $66 million over the last couple of years. There's one landlord on the same street that owns seven buildings. They've got 300 companies in them that build a quarter billion dollars in home health care,

just the tenants of this one landlord. And so these are the people that have basically farmed out. the different people that are hanging out with their family members. And every time that government check comes through, that mob boss is taking a cut. And so I walk through these buildings and almost nobody is in any of them. They try to trick you with these signs that say they've stepped out to lunch. But it's like there's mail piling up. It's obvious nobody has been there in a long time.

And then, you know, because of this basically the Department of Health and Human Services and Doge released a database recently, which was huge. It was a great win for government transparency. And it let us see what was behind these doors. So this door that you legitimately would just think is like some sort of drug den or money laundering front or like what's going on there. Now you find out this business got $32 million from Medicaid. That business got $100,000 a month. That business got $1 million a month.

And then you look up the people that started these companies. There are people with long criminal records. There's people whose spouse has been convicted of doing this kind of Medicaid fraud in the past. It's just kind of like you have to be a little bit dullable and dense to think that these are legitimate businesses. But the government has seemed to operate as like if you fill out the form and all the fields are on that form, like we will give you the money. Like we're not really going to use any common sense here. And you have a lady that was running like a janitorial business, just like cleaning toilets. It's she renamed her business to be like mental health.

They paid her $100,000 the first month. Like, how did you get all those clients in one month? Later on, she got up to $650,000 a month and said the amount of money in this Medicaid rack is enormous. And there are like huge sectors of the population that have made it a job and a business. And most of us haven't noticed. We're busy just with real jobs. But it's almost become like universal basic income for these people.

Everybody's got a Medicaid side hustle. Interesting. And you're telling me that Ohio, like Minnesota, it's largely Somali populations involved in this Medicare, Medicaid fraud? Yeah. And so, you know, this database was released and I didn't try to target any particular state or any particular ethnic group. What I did is I ran some computer queries that identified abnormal behavior. and it took me directly to northeast Columbus, Ohio. And only then did I realize that that's actually the second largest population of Somalis after Minneapolis.

Hmm. I didn't know that either. You know, lastly, Luke, and I know Doe's releasing this, all these documents that's allowed you to kind of, like you said, look behind the doors and see all this. it's kind of weird. Like on one hand, it comes as no surprise that Medicare and Medicaid are full of a bunch of fraud, right?

I think that's, we almost expect it. And yet at the same time, we're outraged by it. And so it's going to be a hard thing to, to, I don't know, is there an acceptable level of fraud? Because what I'm wondering is,

is this still, despite what you've seen in Minneapolis and now what you've shown in Columbus, the tip of the iceberg? Like this Medicare and Medicaid fraud is everywhere. And probably not just Somalis. Like, it is vast. What did you say $1 billion?

And didn't you find $250 million of fraud in this area? So what do we, like a 25% fraud rate? I don't know. What do you think the fraud rate is inside of Medicare and Medicaid? So I think within the certain sectors, you have to kind of break it down by the services. And so you have home health care. And then you have the real crazy thing where you don't even have to be a nurse. The technical name for that is.

called personal services. And where I went in Columbus, I think the fraud rate is, you know, it's the majority of it, for sure, I think. But even if it's not fraud, the parts that aren't fraud, I would argue that they're essentially wasteful. You're paying somebody who didn't pay taxes

to have a servant in their house, and this is something that the family should do for themselves because it's the right thing to do. And so I have video of these people on the Daily Wire, And we're like, so why don't you just hang out with your, you know, if your mom is having a hard time, she's getting up there in age and she could use somebody to vacuum her carpet once a week, why don't you just do that for free? And they're like, why would I do that? Why would I? And especially if the government will pay me, why would I, you know, if the government will pay you, why wouldn't I just collect that paycheck?

And so you do worry about the government inserting itself. And actually the money then only goes to the worst people that wouldn't even literally wouldn't even help their own. own mother. If you believe that they wouldn't, I mean, the flip side is that of course they would help their own mom, in which case, why are we paying them to do something that they would do anyway? And so that's where it gets beyond just Ohio. In New York State, the most common job now is this home health care aid. I mean, that's how many people are in on this racket. And then in California, they come out with the job figures showing how the economy is doing. California claimed that it gained jobs, but it actually lost jobs.

But there were that many people whose so-called job is hanging out with their own family and getting paid by Medicaid, that that's how California was able to claim those kind of job figures. So that gets to this, you know, are we going to prosecute all these people for criminal fraud? I think at that point we're talking about so many people that what we're talking about here is a policy change where the government needs to say, you know, we're going to get out of the business of paying people. to use basic common decency and help their parents out because your parents raised you

and when they get old, you do what you can to help them. That's just part of being a decent human being. Well, Luke's got his report up at The Daily Wire talking about $250 million in fraud over in Columbus, Ohio. It seems like the way this has worked is often the media attention then drives the investigation, so maybe this will drive some attention as well into Columbus, Ohio. Luke, thanks for joining us here. today in telling us about your your investigation. Thanks, Will.

Feel better. Thank you so much. All right. By the way, the pro on sickness on Hunter Virus is you get this sexy voice, you know, right? Come on. I sound like I should be doing an Allstate ad. You sound like me. Right?

Oh, I sound like you, Dan. That's the Dan said. He said, I sound like him. Close. And we know where Dan's confidence is. Hey. That voice. Hey.

Trey Gowdy is the. host of the Trey Gowdy podcast, also Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy. Also author of Start, Stay or Leave, the Art of Decision Making. And he joins us now. So, man, here's the deal. I'm going to have this conversation with you. And I look forward to it. And I have you on TV.

And I'm going to talk to you about these heady things. And the first thing that somebody says to me is, what's Gowdy doing with his hair now? And so it's like, it's like a comic strip. It's like, it's like what happened this week in the comic strip? So what are we doing these days, Trey? Oh, you know, if I wouldn't get fired, I'd grow it long. But you'd be shot. Well, you know, Will, you've got a really, really popular television show.

If people can see even one hair, all one hair on the back side of your head, you start getting emails. So I don't know how many emails you get about, you know, I like your tie. I don't like your tie. I'm going to keep this kind of Gordon Gecko look going, at least until Fox says we don't have an hour left for you. Talking about decision making, how can you have an OU helmet by a U.T helmet?

How can you do that? That's why you're sick. That's why you feel bad? That's why? Because I let the OU helmet get too close to the Texas helmet. It's bad. Trey, it's probably inappropriate for me to, yeah, don't talk about the Middle East, Will. Don't talk about the Middle East.

Let me, the people that you have, you know this, you don't, I think, I can't remember. You're not a Clemson guy. I don't think you're a South Carolina guy. I don't remember. Oh, yeah, you're bailer. Yeah, that's right. The thing is, small differences are the source of the greatest hatreds, right? You know, of course, Texas, oh, you hate each other.

but we belong side by side on my shelf because if you just take either of us out of our little environment and you plug us in to say New York, we're indistinguishable from one another. You know, and thus is the story of humanity, right? I don't know. Albanians and Bosnians, Texas and Oklahoma, South Carolina and Clemson, the, you hate the people that are the most like you somehow, some way. What does I say about human nature that we engage in self-loving? I guess.

I think it's we need tribalism. We need tribalism of some kind. And, you know, we can't even envision the tribe far away, but we can't envision the tribe right across the river. And that tribe is the worst of us. And so it's the small, it's the large hatreds of small differences. Hey, were you, are you, are you buddies with Ben Sass? With who? With who?

Ben Sass. Oh, yes. Yes. Senator Sass and I sat beside each other and a couple of state of the unions and stayed in contact when he went to Florida. And then, of course, when the news came out, I texted him and I'm always shocked at how many people never changed their phone. And I have tried without bothering him to keep up with him. He was a different bird, as many wrestlers are, well. I mean, there's something about wrestlers that is different.

Jim Jordan, Mark Wayne Mullen, they're different. So, yes, SAS was a very thoughtful guy. Even when I may not agree with his result, I was always and still am amazed at the process. His mental acuity is very high. Well, I figured you guys would be friends. And it's funny you bring up, I've been listening to him lately.

I've listened to some of these long-form podcasts. He's been on Ross Dauphitz. He did 60 Minutes. And he's saying some really interesting things, not all of which I agree with. But I don't know, man. He reminded me of you a little bit. And your approach to politics and your approach to disagreement and your approach to sort of the modern day and age of politics. And I don't know if that's a fair characterization or not. If you guys have a lot in common, you said you had disagreements or saw things differently in some ways. But, you know, I just kind of want, I'm almost using you as a proxy to see, like, you know, one of the things that SAS talks about is he doesn't, he, he still reveres the idea of compromise, Trey, like that's the point of service and that's the point of being in politics and these kind of things.

And I do wonder, Trey, what I'd be curious about is, is that almost like pining for a day that you cannot recapture? And you would hope that's not the case, but I do think it's a fair characterization that the left is probably. We could criticize the right, and we should, and look at the various ways the right needs its own criticism. But I do think it's fair to say the left is really, really moving towards democratic socialism. And if that's the case, I don't know what the compromise is. Like if you're pulling this way, the only way to compromise is for me to go to the left as well, you know? That's what frustrates people, I think, Will, is we compromise in every facet of our lives. business, relationships, you're married.

If you don't compromise, you're going to be sending alimony and child support checks on a regular basis. I mean, we compromise in every facet. You and I are both sports fans. Dallas executed trades in the draft with teams that they're going to have to play. In politics, I think, because the media creates such a headwin, or at least it did, you know, before social media, before you could get around it, that compromise was only when the right agreed with the left. I used to have this saying that the media likes three types of Republicans.

Those who die, those who lose, and those who vote like Democrats. And you go back and look. I mean, the New York Times, have they ever endorsed a Republican candidate for president? Or was it Dwight David Eisenhower? It hasn't been one since. So when Ronald Reagan swept the country, they couldn't sweep the editorial board at the Wall Street, I mean, at the Washington Post or the New York Times. That's what frustrates people is compromise is us moving towards the left.

It's never the left coming our way. Let's take a quick break. We'll continue this conversation with Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Gowdy podcast here on Will Cain Country. Welcome back to Will Cain Country. We're still hanging out with the host of Sunday night in America, Trey Gowdy. Yeah. Right. And I wonder sometimes.

And so like the problem with that is it's baked into the cake in some ways. And it's almost, I almost have to draw a line at Trump, right? I'm going to almost speak pre-Trump. You know, the theory of conservatism and therefore one would think largely republicanism is, you know, maybe best encapsulated in the words of William F. Buckley, which is to stand to thwart history yelling, stop. While progressivism is to constantly push towards some type of change, a change that I will grant them, they think is better than the status quo or the current situation. The only way to compromise between those two positions is to move to the left.

The only way to compromise, you can't be at stop, and the other guy's pulling the tug-a-roar, in the tug-a-war, the rope that way, and everybody yells, why don't you compromise? I'm just standing still. The only compromise for me here is to start moving his way, right? Now, I do think Trump changed the calculus there, Trey, because he starts pulling the other way. You know, he starts going on offense and he starts taking assertive action and he starts pulling the other way.

And it's almost as though Trump has made that so there should be room for compromise. Well, there's certain issues I don't think you can compromise on. Like if you have a deeply held religious conviction that light begins at conception, I don't know how you can compromise with folks who think it starts at their second birthday party. I don't know where that death penalty is another issue. I mean, I had to, what, handle seven of those. I don't know how you compromise on that issue. I think sometimes compromise is also used as a synonym for civility. Is there?

And SAS was always very civil and still is in his discourse. Sometimes those words get used interchangeably. Look at Fetterman. That's a really good point. By moving towards us. He's a turn code. He's Aaron Burr, Federman. Now, when Jeff Lake or John McCain or someone else went with the Democrats, they were heroes.

And that's what frustrates people. Federman is vilified. John McCain, who, by the way, they didn't support when he ran for president, but they liked him when he did the thumbs down. That's a really good point. You're talking about how the media responds to Federman versus McCain. And I think you're right about tone. well, you said compromise in civility

are two words that are used interchangeably. And tone has a lot to do with it. It's just the way you choose to behave while being I guess grounded and principled. And honestly, Marco Rubio does a great job of that. You know, he does a great job of being pretty well-grounded

and principled while maintaining that kind of it sounds too heady to say statesman like, you know, tone, but I know, and we live in the age of President Trump where tone has been something that is actually people don't care about.

And President Trump, in fact, they like it the other way. They like acerbic right now. They like you to be WWE punching style. So I don't know. It'd be curious to see is how we go, where we go tonally from here, Trey. Like where do we, we always have

the big debate about where we go ideologically. It'll be interesting to see which way we go tonally. You know, I wonder if there's some connection between political violence. I mean, there's nothing that could be said that would inspire you or me to engage in violence. I don't care if it was Pericles, Sophocles or Williamette Buckley, Jr. They're not eloquent enough to get you and I to go commit an act of violence against the perceived opponent. But we're not worried about rational people. We're worried about irrational people. Every time something happens, we promise we're going to talk better and we're going to talk differently. And we don't. So the question then becomes, do we blame? the speaker or do we blame the jury? And you don't get foreign politics blaming the jury. But at some point, you do have to ask which came first, the supply or the demand? I mean, was there, politicians are, they're not leaders, well. I mean, look, I was there for eight years. They reflect. They react. They don't lead. So the moment it becomes politically

inconvenient to talk in harsh terms about other people, that's when politicians will stop, but not before that. That's really interesting. You know, I'm starting to see, you know, there's a set of Republican congressmen and women, many of whom I like and have had on this show, but they've, they've adopted a little bit of a practice of overpromising and under-delivering on a lot of things, saying things on cable television that will get a lot of attention, whether or not that's on JFK, UFOs, Epstein, you name it. And I'm beginning to see some backlash towards that Trey, like, hey, you keep saying this stuff and nothing ever happens. You know, I'm beginning, all that tells me is there, we are capable of paying the price because you can get cynical and

you go, no, there'll never be a backlash. There's never, you just evolve forward. That's all you do. You just evolve forward. You go next. You put out more content and they'll never remember where you were before. I'm starting to think there's a little, I don't know, in the old days we always would have said you paid the price. What is a reputation? It's hard to earn. easy to burn, right? And maybe we go back to that a little bit. I can only hope. Well, you're a lawyer, so it's easy for me to have this conversation with you. We would never over promise a jury, ever. In fact, in opening, you hold something back because you want to surprise them. Politics is the exact opposite. We promise indictments, and no member of Congress can indict anyone for anything.

I wish I had a nickel will for every time someone stopped me at the grocery store and ask, why did you not indict fill in the blank? And the answer is because no one can. That was my old job, not this one. So part of it is civic instruction. Who can do what? But part of it is also, I was watching your show the other day, your television show when someone was on talking about UFOs.

And look, that gets people spun up. And I think his answer, I think it was a, a guy from Minnesota to Burleson, maybe, that we're continuing to monitor it. Well, but that's not what they've led people to believe. They've led people to believe that there's some big there there. And you did, I thought a really good job across examining him, although you wouldn't use that phrase. You did a really good job of saying at some point,

you've got to present evidence, not promises, but evidence. You remember when we all signed this letter that we were going to rip out Obamacare, or roots, stem, and something else. We spent an entire summer promising people that, that Barack Obama was going to repeal his signature piece of legislation. That was never going to happen. That was never going to happen. He's not going to sign the repeal.

You can raise a lot of money and you can raise your profile. But what you do is you anger people because the expectations are never met. And that leads to anger. Hmm. Okay, we began this conversation, and I don't think that we had enough time to actually finish it. So you did interview Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch on your show on Fox News channel. First of all, tell me what you think of Gorsuch in general. I mean, as you've mentioned several times, more than I ever mentioned, we are lawyers. You know, my favorite thing about going to law school, you practiced, I didn't practice. My favorite thing was actually getting to know justices. through their writing. I mean, I've met very few personally. Through their writing. That's what you do. And you take a case and you take the case and you compare it to the Constitution and you read the different opinions in that one case. And you go, wow, man, Scalia makes a lot of sense. Oh, my gosh, O'Connor doesn't make any sense to me. And you just read these guys back and forth and you develop a through line, a consistency. This is when I became conservative. By the way, I probably wouldn't have described myself necessarily as conservative before law school. I'm one of the rare birds that came out conservative. No, but you read these justices and you begin to see how their brains work, their thought processes, and you develop opinions of them before you ever meet them.

And so I'm curious what you think of Gorsuch. We had met one time before. I'm sure he didn't remember it. It was at the White House Christmas party. He took me back in chambers and we had a fascinating one-hour conversation. But as you know, and I got the hint, I will not remind your audience that you're a lawyer. But as you know, they can't fight back the same way you and I can fight back. They can't go on social media.

They rarely do press events. It is their opinions. And the frustrating thing for them, and I have enough friends now who are federal judges, is people read the headlines, oftentimes written by people who couldn't get into law school called journalists. And it doesn't reflect, like standing is a boring issue, well, is incredibly boring. But if you listen to the oral argument or read the opinion as you did, you'll see that like standing is a prerequisite to having some disputing controversy. So I think what frustrates Gorsuch and others is you ask me, do I like tariffs? Yeah, I like tariffs.

Do I think you did it the right way? I'm not so sure. So are we outcome determinative or does the process still matter? We just had a double homicide reversed in South Carolina because of egregious conduct by a clerk of court. No one said Alex Murdoch isn't guilty. No one said that. I don't know anybody that believes that. But the process matters in our old line of work.

And I think that's what frustrates justices and judges. We're so outcome determinative if you vote against birthright citizenship, that's an affront to the president. and you don't believe in any immigration. And it may just be, no, we need a constitutional amendment. You can change it. Just don't change it this way. Oh, that's an interesting. Did you talk with Gorsuch about birthright citizenship specifically?

No. That issue. What I think one reason he picked me well is because he knows that I would not, I wouldn't ask him about politics. I wouldn't ask him about pending cases. I actually am. I still practice a little bit of law. I had a case before the Supreme Court that he had ruled against my side, and I never even asked him about that.

Trust me, I wanted to, but I didn't ask him about that. Yeah, that's very fair. It would be inappropriate for him probably to talk about, you know, those decisions, which they haven't even yet published yet. What is your thought on the birthright citizenship? Because you hinted at that. I will confess, I don't know, all the various legal angles. in terms of what you just brought up. And so for somebody that may not know listening,

standing is judging whether or not the two litigants in a case have the appropriate relationship to the case to be able to bring the trial. You have to have standing. I can't just bring a birthright citizenship case. Actually, I don't know if I could or not. I could make an argument as a United States citizen, maybe. Probably not. You have to have suffered some injury or have a stake in the outcome.

That phrase is subject to the jurisdiction thereof. what vexes me a little bit, if I were a justice looking at it, is Congress codified that language two different times statutorily. So I would say, look, Congress, you had a chance to change this. You had a chance to define what it meant, and you took a pass. We're not going. I had one dinner with Antonin Scalia, one dinner when I was in Congress. And I said, how do you referee the fights among the branches? And he said, Congress has all the tools they need. You don't need a you just won't use your tools. He was pretty dismissive of the notion

that Congress has been neutered. They've neutered themselves. We codified the 15th Amendment statutorily twice. We had a chance to say, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, does not mean people who are here unlawfully. We didn't do it either time. So I'm sure the court saying, why are you expecting us to do something that the people's branch, the Article I branch,

one branch refused to do. That's how I think they knew. What did they mean when they wrote subject to the, but how did they, what did they, I know that original intent and, you know, the legislative record do not always go hand in hand. The idea of looking back to legislative record and the writings of those that drafted the, the amendment has of limited value, right? Scalia, for one, I think, considered that of limited value because he thought, well,

here's what they wrote. here was the final process. Forget the process. This is what they said when they were done. Right. So this, but in determining what they meant by subject to this jurisdiction thereof, I find it pretty compelling that the authors of that, the senators at the time, did right that they didn't apply to people here illegally. So I think the better question is, what did they mean by subject to this jurisdiction thereof? What did they affirmatively mean? Not what did they not mean? If I had a nickel for every time I ask a witness on the stand, I don't know what you meant. I just know what you said.

I know what you wrote. And you wrote this majestically vague phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Does that mean here lawfully? Does that mean, you and I are technically subject to the jurisdiction of a country that we travel to. We can't disobey their laws. But it doesn't apply to enemy combatants. So it doesn't imply to invading armies, which is why I think you see the president like designating more and more groups with that characterization because it enables you to remove them. The notion that citizenship hinges upon whether or not a plane lands on time is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard in my life.

If you're catching a plane in Heathrow and you have a baby in Heathrow, you're not a citizen of Great Britain. if you take off and land at JFK, you are. That is absurd, Will. It is absurd that it's the timing of your connection. But I can point you to other cases where you and I would say, we don't care what Europe says. We left Europe for a reason. We don't care.

Like, Europe doesn't believe in the death penalty. We don't care what Europe says. So I think it is ridiculous that citizens, can be conferred upon someone because their parents happen to take a plane here or across a border. I think that justices will say it is so ridiculous you should have fixed it decades ago, is what I think. Let's take a quick break, but continue this conversation with Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Gowdy podcast here on Will Cain Country. Welcome back to Will Cain Country. We're still hanging out with the host of Sunday Night in America, Trey Gowdy. Yeah, and that's a constitutional amendment.

I mean, geez. Or the statutes, which got a little play in the oral argument, because Congress took it upon themselves to codify that one-chemart case in two separate statutes. And they tracked the language. They never changed it. They tracked it. So I'm doing what lawyers do,

just taking the other side of the issue. So change the statutes. And then what? And then, I mean, are the statutes enough? then you would have another constitutional question, right? You'd force it back to the Supreme Court, say, reconcile these statutes against the, instead of this executive order, reconcile these statutes against the Constitution. But you and I would be in a better position because we could point to Congress when they did weigh in on this archaic phrase. They said this is what it meant.

Right now, right now, you just have an executive order. You have Congress basically codifying Wong Kim Arc and you have Wong Kim Arc. I think it would help the administration's position if Congress, which can't pass anything, they can't even, like they can't even stay in session. Well, so how are they going to pass a amendment to Wong Kim R? Right. How are they? Can't do anything. They can't even approve the journal anymore. I mean, it's the tariff case, my take. on that was the Supreme Court was holding up a mirror to Congress saying, do you exist anymore?

The Borthorite citizenship case, I think they're saying, you know what, Mr. President, we agree. I don't think catching a plane confer citizenship. You got to go ask your 535 friends why they haven't bothered to change that yet. You're asking us to do it. We're not elected. I wonder if that's exactly how they'll ride it. I wonder if that's Scalia would ride it that way. I wonder if that's exactly how to write it. Okay. I asked you about this last time we were together. I'm going to play it again for this audience, and I want to get your reaction to this. This didn't come up in your interview with Gorsuch, but this is him with Reason Magazine talking about America. The Declaration of Independence had three great ideas in it, that all of us are equal, that each of us has inalienable rights given to us by God, not government, and that we have the right to rule ourselves. Our nation is not founded on a religion. religion. It's not based on a common culture even or heritage. It's based on those ideas. We're a creedal nation. What do you think about that? We are a creedal nation, not based on a common culture,

not based on a religion. If I were cross-examining him. If you and I were cross-examining him, and I'd probably let you take the lead because your grades were higher in law school, we would say, but justice, 46 of the 58 were born in the United States. The other 12 were European. They mentioned nature's God. They mentioned the laws of nature. They mentioned a creator. And then at the very end, for good measure, they say divine providence.

What do you mean? Of course, they had different religious views, but there was not an atheist among them. Now, Jefferson, look, Will, it takes a lot of courage. to edit the Bible. That takes a lot of courage. But at least Jefferson used that as his foundation before he cut out all the miracles. So they were deists. Some of them were devout Christians. Others were thought that God created the earth, but pretty much left it alone after that. I don't, they're all of European descent. I get what he was saying, but it's hard to say that we didn't believe in a creator or nature's God when the Declaration, Jefferson wrote it.

Arguably the least religious of all of our founding fathers mentioned what, five times some reference to a divine creator. Right. And there were all European. Yeah, and then there's the issue. That's where I was going to go next on the common culture. Right. And I think that I don't know what Gorsuch is getting at here.

you know, I had this debate recently with this guy. He was from the left, and he brought up Ronald Reagan who said, Vivekramuswami has made this argument to me as well. You and I could move to France, live there our entire lives, raise our families there, and we'd never be Frenchmen. We can do the same thing. Probably in England will never be Englishmen. But you can move to America, and you can become an American. And that leads people towards this idea that America is an idea. And if you adopt the idea, if you adhere to the idea, then you too can be an American. And I would say, that's part of the story. That's not wrong, but it's not a complete story. Because the other part of the story

is that there has been a through line of culture that has supported those ideas. Like the ideas that make America unique didn't spring from the ether. They sprang from the Magna Carta, the Greek Enlightenment. They sprung from Western European civilization, and they're supported by that,

quite honestly, Protestantism that came over here. And that's not a rejection of Catholicism, and it's not a rejection of other cultures. But it is a suggestion that what you joined did have a through line, did have a base, and does still exist. In addition to the ideas, there is some requirement to assimilate to that common culture. Well, I think there's a parallel to what you just said. So we get our rights from a creator, not from government. And we don't think that we need an intermediary to access

God, which is basically Protestantism, that there is no intermediary. The veil was torn at the crucifix when Jesus was crucified. So there is a parallel there. I think Gorsuch would say, I did not mean to cast dispersions on our common creed, but what is unique about America, it's also interesting. Jefferson said among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is not an exhaustive list. There are other things, if you're If you're willing to assimilate to our culture, we welcome you. What we reject are ones who want to maintain their own separate identity and yet somehow call themselves American. And how do we reject that, Trey?

How do we reject that? What are we saying? Are we saying like, like, then. Okay. Assimulation. There was a book written when I think I was a kid. I don't know why I read it. I guess I was bored.

The Disunonic of America by Arthur Schleson, Jr. We, I mean, our name is the United States of America. That's not just geographic. It's got to be more than that. So what are those common threads that bind us as a people? Jefferson listed three, but he also said among these. So they're more than that.

So they're, look, it frustrates me to know when when I hear people in politics, it makes me wonder, why are you here? If you have so much disdain for this country, why are you here? Why are you here? And I don't mean that flippantly. I'm asking seriously, why would you stay in a country you have such a low opinion of? Right, right. What do you think, Trey, of, you know, Congressman Andy Ogles has been working on this.

Then he just did this with Senator Tommy Tuberville this week, the Assimilation Act. They want to revisit immigration back to the 1965 Hart Sellers Act. They want to reorganize it into. prioritizing those that, in their words, want to be an American and will be a successful American. I mean, specifically, technically doing away with diversity lottos, requiring. I don't know how they're going to require it, like maybe English proficiency tests. How do you require assimilation as part of the act of becoming an American? Well, the lottery is the second dumbest idea for becoming citizenship that I can think of.

the first being whether your plane landed on time. Second is a lottery. I mean, no sovereign nation says, spend the wheel and see if you can become a citizen. I want assimilation, knowledge of the language, proficiency in the language, and this is where we get a little bit of trouble. Well, the citizenship test, which, by the way, Justice Gorsuch's wife had to take, she had to take a citizenship test. Most Americans can't pass it.

So I wish Americans would embrace civics more, and then we would be, we would have more standing to use that word, to include others who want to become Americans to learn civics. But most Americans can't name the three branches of government will, which is just, it's embarrassing. Yeah. Yeah. I would actually look to Turkey. Turkey's pretty strict. They're like, we're going to revisit it in five years. We're going to see how you're doing.

your assimilation. Your citizenship is contingent. You're in a gray zone. We'll check back in in five years. We'll see if you like the Dallas Cowboys or not. You've got five years. God's team. That's why we had a hole in the roof. God's team. We'll see if you're still rooting for soccer.

It says the guy who loves soccer. If you're still watching soccer in five years, you're going to have to go. That's why we have denaturalization. Are you going to the World Cup? I always love the conversation. You going to the World Cup? I think so, Trey. I got an email. Fox said I could have a couple tickets, which I'm going to go ahead and brag about because they are ridiculously expensive. They are, but here in Dallas, yes, I'm going to go to at least one game.

I was going to Vimov you some money or sell a kidney so you could pay for one of the tickets. Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I sound like I need a kidney right now, but it's just a cold. You work too much. I always love the conversation, Trey. I love to see you in person sometime soon. would too and I promise I will stop referring to you as a lawyer because you have spent your entire career trying to keep people from knowing that. Get away from that. That wasn't a brushback pitch. It wasn't a brushback pitch. I promise. All right. Thank you, Trey. Yes, sir. Take care. Take care. The host of the Trey Gowdy podcast and Sunday Night America with Trey Gowdy. I think I did a pretty good job muscling through this. Don't you think?

Ed's telling me I did great. I appreciate that, Ed. I am not going to talk about the Spencer Pratt material that I had. I'm going to leave that on the cutting room floor. I have a feeling tomorrow I'm going to be feeling good. I feel like I'm... Knock on that wood down there. So are we doing a show tomorrow? Is this because of...

Why are you in China today, Patrick? Is this because a hunt of virus? Is this because I have Wuhan flu? What is this? And with the president? With the U.S. government. We're trying to figure out how to build the wall. Yeah, that would make sense.

Figure out how to build the wall. Oh, you're learning how to build a wall. Yeah, he's with some engineers. It took, right? On that wall. You can see it. And that's what I think we should have. We should have ones you can see from space, you know?

Along the southern border. Wall like that? Yeah. Beautiful wall. Beautiful. Like that one. Great architecture. Great.

It's beautiful. Very sweet. Very nice. I want to go to the great wall, China. So do I. Think about how serious the Chinese were. Was that about keeping the Mongol hoard out? Was that what that was about?

I can't remember who they were trying to keep out. I can't guess. But they were. they were serious. Like, think about us, how hard it's been for us to create a wall on the southern border. And even to the extent we've been able to accomplish it, it's been a couple of T-Bars beams into the sand. That could never get accomplished.

That's about what we've gotten done. Look what they've got. To be fair. They were serious. To be fair, we could do this. We used to do this back in the day when we didn't care about human life as much. Like when you, when everybody was just like, You're talking about slave labor?

Yeah. No, no, I'm talking about the Italians and the Irish. Are you just in the Chinese? Somehow you both say that racist. Huh? Italians. Oh, I do that on purpose now. What do you mean?

We would just throw, like, we'd just throw them at the Hoover Dam. You know how many people are buried in the Hoover Dam? Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. Yeah. I mean, how many people died building the Golden Gate Bridge? You know? I don't think we have to sacrifice people.

to build a wall. It's 2026. I will agree with you. We could throw up a wall like that. Dude. Equivalent to that. We should be able to throw that up. To the lowest bidder? That should be a six, a six month project in America. Come on. That's some mortar and brick, dude.

But they have to build it from the other side like Trump said. So, you know. Dang it, before we got onto the Chinese wall, there was something I was going to say. You made it through the show. No, about me being. about me being sick. You're going to feel better tomorrow.

Oh, you know what she told me, the doctor? She said COVID's around. She checked me for strep throat, no strep throat. She didn't check me for hunt a virus. But she did say, COVID's still banging around, but there's so many different variants now. Nobody even tests. I'm like, yeah, I don't care.

It was around before. It could be COVID. Damn, imagine. I thought that was all fake, though, because of Fauci. My whole family has strep right now. Like, it's gone through us for weeks. Really? She said strep's going around. Yeah.

Strap's going around. All right. I can get rashes. That's it. It's your butt. Get into your butt. I'm done. Why are you still talking?

I'm done. That's it. Show over. Voice hanging on by a thread. Hit follow on Spotify. Apple. We'll see you again tomorrow. Listen to ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts.

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