WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Under the Radar - Episode 34

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

This week on “Under the Radar,” hear about a massive trade deal between the US and Japan, an executive order aimed at preventing welfare fraud like we saw in Minnesota, a bill that promotes hunting and fishing on public land (and its potential environmental ramifications), and more.

This is Under the Radar on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Now, here's your host, Luke Miller. This week on Under the Radar, hear about a massive trade deal between the U.S. and Japan, an executive order aimed at preventing welfare fraud, like we saw in Minnesota, a bill that promotes hunting and fishing on public land and its potential environmental ramifications, and more. I'm your host, Luke Miller, and on this show, we'll cover the news you didn't catch this week from the mainstream media. While they're covering the president's latest tweets, here you can hear about the new legislation, executive orders, and Supreme Court decisions that affect you.

Welcome to Under the Radar. The first piece of news I have for you this week is a trade deal that was just confirmed by President Trump between the United States and Japan. On March 19th, President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sinai Takachi met at the White House to announce new initiatives to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance, enhance economic security, and bolster deterrence to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific. And you'll see that a lot of this trade deal has to do. with positioning the American block in regards to the Chinese block. Japan being one of America's closest allies, if not America's closest ally at this point, they give us kind of a military

strategic position against Chinese advancement if China were to try to take Taiwan, for example, or other island nations in the Pacific. Japan would give us a good strategic military location. We have had military bases in Japan since after World War II. That was part of the deal that we made with Japan at that point. That deal that we made with Japan also bound us to protect Japan from any nations, particularly the Soviet Union, who might want to take Japan in a time where they're particularly weak, having just been defeated in a world war and struck with two atom bombs. So that deal that we made then kind of started the U.S.-Japan alliance, and it has only grown stronger over the years. They are actually very similar to a lot of the Western nations, and so it kind of makes sense as the decades

have gone on for the U.S.-Japan alliance to be strengthened, particularly as the United States wants to stop Russia and China are enemies in the Far East from being able to grow in power. So what this trade deal does is it announces new investments that Japan is making in the American economy. There are $550 billion pledged from Japan to be invested in the United States as part of this trade deal, which is a huge amount of money, $550 billion to be invested in American nuclear energy, natural gas facilities, industrial and manufacturing projects, and others, with the goal obviously being to create jobs and from the nuclear energy and gas facilities, you would imagine, to lower energy costs in the United States, which is a huge deal

right now, particularly given our recent actions in Iran. Gas prices have gone up. I think here in Hillsdale, Michigan, we've seen probably a 50 cent rise in average gas prices in the last couple of months with the actions that we've taken in the Middle East. So lowering gas prices, lowering energy costs in the United States does matter a lot for a precedent who campaigned on that. He campaigned on lowering gas prices. And I think the administration did a great job of that for a while. And now with the actions that they've taken in the Middle East, we're seeing gas prices rise again. So that's part of this trade deal that we just cut with Japan. $550 billion of Japanese investment in U.S. energy infrastructure, nuclear energy gas facilities, manufacturing projects, those kinds of things.

Another big point of the trade deal is powering data centers in the United States. That's another thing that we need energy for, these AI data centers that are popping up all over the country, they've been a topic of debate online as people are wondering how much water they actually use. I can't verify that this is 100% true. But I saw a couple of posts that were circulating yesterday that were had millions of views because people were discussing them, that were saying that every prompt that you put into chat GPT uses half of a liter of water. So if you add up all of the many, many prompts that are being put into chat GPT, that's going to burn a lot of water. Some people are saying that that water is just gone forever. I don't really think that's how that works, but again, I can't say that with 100%

certainty. The thing I can say with 100% certainty is that data centers do need a lot of water in order to work. They do need a lot of energy and they're using water to power the data centers at this point. So as we create and produce more AI data centers, as that's a growing industry in the United States, we're going to need more electricity, more energy, more fuel so that we don't have to burn up so much water. That also means that we're not nearly as reliant on foreign energy, particularly from China, which is another huge part of the trade deal. And that's something that they emphasized that President Trump emphasized in the press conference and in the press release that they put out about the trade deal. Each country, the U.S. and Japan, wants to reduce

dependence on China for critical defense materials and supply chain technologies. For example, lithium, nickel, other kind of rare earth elements. Copper is another. And other kind of rare earth elements. Copper is another one. The United States and Japan are both reliant on China for those materials. And if we want to reduce that dependence on an enemy of both of ours, that would be great. So that's another major part of the trade deal is the U.S. and Japan are kind of working together to invest in securing those kind of materials needed for military defense and needed for other kinds of technology as well. Overall, it's hard to really understate the benefits of a deal like this. One, it benefits us economically. We're getting a lot of money invested in the United States for energy, for clean energy, for nuclear energy, that will create jobs in the United States, that will reduce energy dependence and other mineral dependence on China, which puts us in a better spot on the geopolitical scale in relation to China. It strengthens a connection with probably our closest ally in the world right now, who is also helping us keep China and Russia in Czech militarily because they know that we have military investments in Japan. And it shows Japan that

we're kind of in this alliance for the long haul as well. So this was an excellent trade deal. And with all the criticisms that are rightfully being made about the Trump administration in a lot of ways right now, this is something that we can all give them a round of applause for. Now, before ending discussion of this issue, I would be remiss if I did not mention an all-time President Trump moment in the press conference about this trade deal. So after announcing this trade deal, President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Takachi held a press conference at the White House to answer questions and President Trump took this question from a Japanese reporter. Take a listen. Let me pick a beautiful looking person from Japan, a question for the Prime Minister. Go ahead.

Japan and Europe is a very good friend. But one question, why didn't you tell U.S. allies in Europe and Asia like Japan about the war before attacking Iran? One thing you don't want to signal too much, you know, when we go in, we went in very hard, And we didn't tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor? Okay. So if you didn't catch what the reporter's question was, I know it was kind of difficult

to hear what he was saying, but he asked President Trump why he didn't tell U.S. allies like Japan before attacking Iran. And President Trump starts with the strategic answer of, well, we had to keep it secret, right? we have to keep the element of surprise, because if you announce to the world that you're going to attack somebody before you do it, then it kind of takes away from some of the effectiveness of it. And then he flips to say, well, and you guys should know better than anybody. Why didn't you tell us about Pearl Harbor, which is just an all-time Trump one-liner? I mean, it's probably not a very good move strategically or diplomatically to speak that way to an ally,

especially as you're in such a triumphant moment with them announcing a trade deal like this. Like, you could see the Japanese prime minister just sitting next to President Trump on the couch, very uncomfortable with what you just said. So, not the greatest diplomatic moment, but an absolute all-time Trump one-liner right there. The next piece of news I have for you this week is an executive order signed by President Trump entitled, Establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. The executive order particularly deals with welfare fraud, which comes in the context of the recent Minnesota fraud scandal. But this particular executive order creates a new federal task force, whose job is to find, prevent, and create a strategy to punish fraud in government benefit programs,

including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, which is food stamps, the Medicare Medicaid programs, any other health care programs, housing programs, etc. Now, the fraud that we've seen has been much more on a state level, and Minnesota being the greatest example of that. The estimated total in the Minnesota fraud scandals of the last few years is about $9 billion of money that was fraudulently taken from the Minnesota taxpayers. So that's a huge deal, obviously. There was one instance where there was actually a group that was funneling Minnesota state

welfare money to al-Shabaab, which is a terrorist group in Somalia. And there's a lot to it. So if you want to hear more about the Minnesota fraud scandal in particular, I would direct you to the latest edition of Imprimus, which is entitled Learning from Minnesota's Somali fraud scandal. And you can find that on Apple Podcast, Spotify, anywhere you get your podcast. You'll hear me do the voiceover for that episode of Imprimus. But that breaks down the Minnesota fraud scandal in great detail.

Suffice it to say it is a major problem, maybe not on the scale that President Trump and Elon Musk were promising when campaigning in 2024, but welfare fraud is an issue that we need to deal with. Now, there are two other relevant news events from this week that relate to this executive order. The first one being a study that came out from the Center for Immigration Studies just a few days ago, which found that 59 to 61% of households headed by illegal immigrants use at least one welfare program. So that's American taxpayer dollars going to 60% of criminal illegal aliens in the United States. Obviously, that's a groundbreaking study. Given the timing of this executive order, I feel pretty confident in saying that there's a correlation between seeing the results of this study and introducing a task force and charging it with tightening up the restrictions to prove citizenship to receive welfare money.

Now, this is definitely not going to bring that 59 to 61% of illegal immigrants receiving some kind of welfare down to zero. It's just not going to do that. And a big reason why it's not going to do that is because that study mentioned illegal immigrant-led households. Due to the birthright citizenship process that we have in the United States, children of illegal immigrants that were born in the United States are U.S. citizens, which means they absolutely qualify for welfare programs and deservedly so, which means that child tax credits are going to still apply and various other programs,

particularly like public school programs, public school meal programs, those kinds of things which definitely can be counted as social welfare programs. and you're really not going to see a drop in any of those because they're absolutely eligible. But if the task force can tighten up the eligibility restrictions a little bit so that the majority of illegal immigrants are not recipients of social welfare programs, then that would cut down on a lot of fraud. Because in a lot of these cases, they're not actually eligible or they shouldn't actually be eligible and this task force is going to restructure some of those eligibility processes. The other news event of the week that is relevant to this executive order being passed is the

reports of the Affordable Care Act premiums doubling. So you may recall, I talked on the show a while back about the government shutdown and about the debate over health care subsidies. So as you recall, Republicans were presenting basically the same budget for the health care programs as the Biden administration had passed the year before, but they were not going to extend these COVID-era Affordable Care Act subsidies, which were huge, huge health care subsidies given out during COVID when we spent a ton of money and we had legitimate major health care concerns. And Republicans were arguing that, well, we don't need those pandemic era tax credits, tax subsidies anymore because we're not in a worldwide pandemic anymore. We're not in a state of national crisis in health care. But there's

a report from earlier this week that the ending of those enhanced pandemic era tax credits led to a doubling of Affordable Care Act market price premiums in 2026. And this makes total sense from an economic perspective or even a common sense perspective, right? So if you massively increase government subsidies that go to health care providers, the cost of health care is going to go up without those government subsidies to help you out. It's the same effect that you've seen on college campuses where the cost of degrees is going up dramatically because of the massive increase in government subsidies for public education. The same thing is happening in health care. So if under a COVID era increase in health care subsidies, you see hundreds of billions of dollars get poured into the health care services,

then the prices are going to go up in the health care services. And when those subsidies go away, because they expired at the end of 2025, the prices didn't just magically go down. And that is a nightmare situation for the Trump administration and for Republicans in the midterms. Because Democrats are going to run on this issue of Republicans let the health care tax credits inspire, which is resulting in a million people being kicked off of the Affordable Care Act health insurance because they can't afford to pay the co-pays. This study that came out from this week said that the end of those tax credits led average annual, premiums to jump from $888 to about $1,904. And so this is a brutal situation that Republicans have inherited from a circulatory self-reinforcing public health care system set up not by them,

but by Democrats. The fact that they let those COVID-era ACA subsidies expire is going to reflect really, really poorly on them in 2026. So I think that is one reason that they pass this executive order this week as well. Because if the Trump administration can make the case that, hey, we made this task force to cut down on fraud and to cut down on the amount of taxpayer dollars that are going to illegal immigrants instead of to American citizens, then they can make the case that they can take that saved money and invest it in those health care programs for American citizens. And they can contrast that with states like Minnesota, where they can say in a democratically run state, there was rampant welfare fraud and abuse. Who knows if it'll really be effective? Who knows if the messaging will

work? Who knows if there's actually that much fraud on the federal level to be able to cut out? But this seems like a response to the really bad health care price increase numbers that came out this week, as well as the study from the Center for Immigration Studies that said that 60% of illegal immigrant households are on some kind of welfare to take a horrible political situation and personal situation that people are dealing with in health care costs and deflecting it back on states like Minnesota that have prioritized illegal immigrants in the welfare system. Those illegal immigrants have taken advantage of that welfare system and have committed fraud in that system under Democratic management. So it seems like an attempt to reframe the discussion of the welfare programs and the health care system overall to put an emphasis on that side of it. You're listening to Under the Radar with Luke Miller on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. The next piece of news I have for you this week is a bill that just passed through the House of Representatives entitled Protecting Access for Hunters and Englers Act. To give a quick summary of the bill, what the bill does is it prohibits states from prohibiting or regulating the use of lead ammunition or fishing tackle on. public land or public water. And what that means is that when hunters or fishermen are using public land,

they will be allowed to use lead ammunition, which is the most common kind, especially in shotgun shells, and lead fishing tackle, which is particularly like lead weights that fishermen use very commonly. There are many states that ban use of these things currently on public land because they may cause lead poisoning in the soil and in the air. But for a plethora of reasons, which I will get into, this bill is protecting hunters and fishers access to their lead ammunition and lead fishing tackle. for use on public land, which is where most hunting and fishing is done. Now, there is a notable exception. If a state can prove there is lead poisoning that's causing the decline of the population of a particular species,

then in that area where the lead poisoning is happening alone, can they prevent use of lead ammunition and lead fishing tackle? For example, in the state of California, they were able to prove that lead poisoning was correlated with a decline in the population of the bald eagle, so California would be allowed to prevent in certain areas, in certain state parks, in certain public areas, to prevent the use of lead ammunition and lead tackle. So to talk about this issue a little bit further, here on the show with me today is Brody Romick. Brody is an avid hunter and fisherman. He's very invested in conservation issues

and he knows a lot about the subject. So I thought he'd be a great voice to bring on and talk about this bill. So Brody, thank you for being here with me today. Appreciate it. I wanted to talk about this a little bit more from somebody who is very involved in these kind of things. You fish on public land,

you hunt on public land. Tell me a little bit about what lead ammunition is or lead fishing tackle is and why they would be concerned about it. in the first place. So lead ammunition, you got types of shotgun shells for wild game, small game, and they used to use it for waterfowl, but that was banned by the federal government. Lead tackle for fishing, you got jigs, you have weights, stuff like that. So pretty common to use. It's pretty cheap as well. Fishing-wise, you could get a pack of one ounce weights, four of them for dollar, dollar and a half.

Yeah, so it sounds like lead ammunition, lead tackle, it makes it pretty accessible for people to be able to hunt, to be able to fish, especially people who don't have access to private land. So what would a ban on lead ammunition or tackle on public land do for people who don't have access to private land to hunter fish on? It would just raise the cost by a decent factor. Right now I'm paying $40 a box for steel ammunition for waterfowl during the waterfowl season. You get 25 rounds. And I was talking to my grandpa this past year and he would pay $15.

I know inflation was a big thing, but that was with lead ammunition. Okay. I mean, that's a lot of money. That's a huge difference, $40 to $15 between those two as well. So, yeah, that could really make a huge difference for hunters. And that's just the waterfowl side, too. Yeah. You got copper, Bismuth, you got steel.

Steel is the most affordable. Once you get into the Bismuth, it's pushing $60, $65. It's pretty expensive. Fishing-wise, also, tungsten is really expensive. It's a denser metal by like 10-fold. But for one, J-KAD, you're paying close to five bucks where I could get a pack of two or three for a dollar. Yeah. So noting that difference there, so noting the fact that that lead does tend to be cheaper, the flip side of that obviously is that it can cause environmental damage.

So one of the examples I saw brought up about this was shooting ranges. Yeah. Lead ammunition was creating problems with lead poisoning in the soil with the accumulation of shotgun shells that had been spent. So do you think that allowing unlimited lead ammunition use, which is what this bill would do, it would allow unlimited lead ammunition use. I guess do you think the benefits of using lead ammunition and lead fishing tackle outweigh the environmental costs? I think it's a environmentally friendly act to help save these animals as like a good fragment. You miss a shot on a duck. Goes into the puddle.

With lead? Yeah, with lead. And they eat this vegetation on the bottom. Lead sinks. So get lead poisoning there. Fishing also. I lived in Japan for a little bit. The fishing culture out there is insane.

Might be overfished a little bit, but it's just fun. to see I would go snorkel dive and you would just see these crevices with hundreds of weights just in the sand and the cracks of the reef and it like diffuses into the water somehow and makes it uncleanly like microplastics. Yeah, as hunters, we promote conservation so our future kids and grandkids can hunt and if this contaminant gets in the soil, there could be major problems for sure. Yeah. Do you know how hard it is to prove that there is lead poisoning going on in the soil or the air? Because that's the notable exception in the bill is like if a state can prove that in this particular state park or in this particular lake, there is an actual problem with lead poisoning,

then they can prevent you from using lead ammunition or lead fishing tackle. And that seems to make sense, right? If they can prove that it's causing a problem, do you know how hard it is to prove that? I feel like it's pretty hard, especially for ducks, the migratory bird that come from Canada all the way down to Mexico, even the Gulf. It's hard to prove that for sure, but you do see a lot of these waterfowl die and they get biopsied for lead poisoning and stuff. I think that's why they put a ban on them. Last question that I have for you, looking at it from a conservation angle, do you think that allowing the unlimited use of lead ammunition will promote more hunting, will have more people hunting, have more people fishing? Do you think that's a good thing on a conservation level? Do you think

that's a bad thing? What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it allows more people to get outdoors hunt fish because it's cheaper. I'm not paying tenfold for different metal. But yeah, and if you're just getting it to the sports, I don't know if you want to spend that much money. So yeah, I feel like having it available to those beginners, novices in outdoor sports would be beneficial. And we want people to go outside to enjoy the environment, to be in God's creation. We want all that stuff to happen. In the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management, all these different services want people to help balance out the wildlife populations and all that kind of stuff too. So I think that this bill can be a good thing. to promote people going outside and fishing and hunting at a more cost-effective rate, but we'll also have to monitor to see the effects that it has on the environment. Yeah, I'm on page with you. Well, awesome. Brody, thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Appreciate it, Luke. So to recap this week, we covered the new trade deal that should strengthen our geopolitical position,

particularly relative to China. We covered the new anti-fraud task force as a political response to bad public perception on health care. And we covered a bill which could promote hunting and fishing, but may have an environmental cost. Tune in next week for more. Well, that's all I have for you today on Under the Radar. I'm your host, Luke Miller, and I want to thank you for listening and encourage you to tune back in next time for more coverage of the news that fell Under the Radar.

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Thanks for listening to Under the Radar with Luke Miller, here on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.