Transcript of California’s Fraud “Epicenter” & Guthrie Search Continues | 2.4.26

Sunday is time for you and deine Zahne. Dein Zahnpflegeritual stärkt dich for die neue Woche. Einmal wöchentlich angewendet, schützt Elmax Gelée deinen Zahnsmelz, remineralisiert Initialcaries, and hilft by über-empfindlichen Zahnhälsen. Elmax Gelée. Einmal wöchentlich for extra Carieschutz. Jetzt in deiner Apotheke. Elmax Gelée. Extra Carieschutz, im Vergleich to a herkömmlichen Floridzahnpasta with Aminefluorid, by regelmäßiger Anwendung. Zu Risiken und Nebenwirkungen, lesen Sie die Packungsbeilage and fragen Sie Ihre Ärztin, Ihren Arzt, oder in Ihre Apotheke. Elmax Gelée. Extra Carieschutz, im Vergleich to a herkömmlichen Floridzahnpasta, mit Aminefluorid, bei regelmäßiger Anwendung. Zu Risiken und Nebenwirkungen, lesen Sie die Packungsbeilage, und fragen Sie Ihre Ärztin, Ihren Arzt, oder in Ihre Apotheke, in Ihre The Trump administration is cracking down on California, tying billions in alleged Medicare fraud to crime networks in the state. What we've really witnessed is a weaponization of this criminal effort that has been tolerated. And the key question we should all be asking ourselves is why. How are state officials reacting? I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia How. It's Wednesday, February fourth. This is Morning Wire. The frantic search for Nancy Guthrie continues amid fears she was abducted from her Arizona home. We do believe that Nancy was taken from her home against her will, and that's where we're at.

And a Daily Wire investigation leads to a guilty plea on bribery charges and calls to shut down a federal aid agency. Because as he put it, it's trash. And as he put it, it's a corrupt culture of waste, fraud, and abuse. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Let's be honest. Most of us have no idea what phytonutrients actually are, and that's exactly where our sponsor, Balanced Nature, makes getting them into your diet so simple. Here's the thing about phytonutrients. They're these naturally occurring plant nutrients and wholefoods that actually give fruits and vegetables their color, taste, and smell. Now, what Balance of Nature does is they take all that produce, run it through their specialized vacuum cold process that keeps everything stable. Then they powder it down without any binders, fillers, or flow agents. Just the real stuff. Their whole health system is essentially a value bundle that combines their fruit and veggies capsules with their fiber and spice supplements, so you're getting 47 different ingredients, fruits, vegetables, spices, and fibers, along with those naturally occurring phytonutrients every single day. I really like the convenience that Balance of Nature offers.

I can take my tablets with me on the go. I've even got some bottles loaded up in my work backpack for easy access. Plus, I feel great when I take them. So whether you've been on the fence for a long time or it's the first time you're hearing about them, I truly recommend that you go to BalancedNature. Com and order their WholeHealth system supplements as a preferred customer today. That's BalancedNature. Com. Cms Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz says Los Angeles County has become an epicenter for health care fraud, sparking a battle with California governor Gavin Newsom. Here are the details is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presa-Jacquomo. Morning, Amanda. So let's start with these allegations of fraud, billions of dollars we're talking about here. What is going on in California? So Oz says they've identified billions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid fraud in California, and this is largely tied to claims of hospice and home care fraud. Basically, scammers are signing up people for hospice care when it's unnecessary or they don't actually provide it. When it comes to home care scams, fraudsters are billing the government for services like grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning when these aren't being provided.

In California, the government will actually foot the bill for these types of services for the elderly or the needy, and Oz says that this is being exploited by fraudsters in a very big way in the state. Now, as we recently saw with the multibillion dollar fraud schemes in Minnesota, there appears to be a lot of coordination in LA County, specifically, essentially organized crime, to pull off these scams on taxpayers. Oz has suggested that this is largely tied to the Russian-Armenian Mafia. We were able to speak to Dr. Oz yesterday. Here's how he described the fraud in LA and in California more generally. To give you a number, it's going to chill you. We have about one in $10 spent in America on home health care just in Los Angeles. Other home health care systems around the country. They're all suffering because the money gets pulled. We began to notice, this is before I came into the administration, but that there was an increase, about a sevenfold increase in the available hospice in California. That doesn't make any sense. You don't have seven times more people dying, what's going on? Then you begin to look at the individual hospices.

Again, it's for end of life. So not everyone should survive. 100% survival rate in these hospices. Now, Oz has previously suggested that there's potentially tens of billions of dollars in fraud statewide. Now, obviously, that would be theft and a huge burden on taxpayers. But Oz has really emphasized that this is extremely harmful to seniors in California. Seniors are being used by scammers. They're being signed up for services that they're not actually receiving. Then when they really do need care, they're not getting it at all or it's being significantly delayed. I met many patients. One woman, I just can't forget, get her out of my mind, had a brother that she loved dearly, and he'd He had some health problems, but he was fine. He was living by himself. He was approached by a young woman who said, Hey, listen, I got some things I can bring you to help you out if you want to just sign this document. He signs a document. What the document said was that you're giving up all your health care to go into hospice, which is, by the way, that's the deal. If you're going to pass away anyway within a few months because you've got metastatic cancer, you don't need to have all those ICU protections and all these extra crazy things that might happen.

You just want to be able to be made comfortable. Signs the documents and lo and behold, he has a health problem. He doesn't have access to care because he gave up his insurance, and the man died. He died. What action has Oz and CMS taken so far? He's been referring cases to the US attorney in Los Angeles, and he spoke to Pam Bondi and Cash Patel, and this is on everyone's radar. Last week, he gave Governor Gavin Newsom a corrective action plan with a 21-day deadline to address this fraud. Now, that letter prompted Newsom to file a civil rights complaint with HHS accusing Oz of, Baseless and racially charged allegations. He says that in one of the videos Oz made, Exposing this apparent fraud, he singled out the Romanian community unfairly. The complaint asks HHS to investigate if Oz violated federal civil rights law in that video. We asked Oz about this action from Gavin Newsom. Here's what he told us. I wrote a letter and I visited because I care. I want him to care as much as I do about the most vulnerable people in California. I do think political patronage might be part of this.

These are issues that he should deal with internally. Frankly, all I care about is stopping the hemorrhage of money into this area and making sure people aren't hurt. Well, the amounts of defrauded taxpayer money, tens of billions as you've outlined, it's just truly outrageous. Let's hope we do see some real consequences for those involved. Emita, thank you so much for reporting. You're welcome. Raise your hand if you've been putting off a dental cleaning, an annual checkup, or honestly, any doctor's appointment. Yeah, my hand's up to. But now our sponsor ZocDoc is here to help. Zocdoc is a free app and website that helps you find and book high-quality in-network doctors so you can find someone you love. Whether you're looking for dermatology, dentistry, primary care, eye care, or one of the other 200 plus specialties offered on ZocDoc, you can easily search by specialty or symptom to build the care team that's right for you. View thousands of verified patient reviews to get a real sense of who your doctor is. Then check their real-time availability and book instantly. No phone tag, no waiting around. Appointments made through ZocDoc happen fast, typically within just 24 to 72 hours of booking.

Stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc. Com/wire to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Z-O-C zocdoc. Com/wire. Zocdoc. Com/wire. Thanks, ZocDoc, for sponsoring this message. Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today's Show host, Savannah Guthrie, disappeared from her home in Tucson, Arizona, over the weekend with investigators fearing the worst. Joining us now with the latest is Daily Wire reporter, Lyndon Blake. So, Lyndon, this case has gripped the nation. It's absolutely terrifying. What's the latest? Yeah, you can imagine how many people are investing in this story. We all have mother grandmother's grandmothers. This was an 84-year-old woman who went home on a Saturday night, and her church friends realized she was not at church on Sunday and a lot of her families. Now we're getting these details that just are shocking. Time is of the essence in this case because when Nancy Guthrie was first reported missing on Sunday, they said she had this medication that you couldn't go 24 hours without. Well, now we're entering day 4 of this search, and that is a dire need. But we're also learning more about the crime scene, and we're also getting withheld information about the crime scene that could just point to how this case is turning more a missing person's case into something that other authorities are describing how you would handle a homicide investigation.

The new information that's coming out Tuesday, Pima County Sheriff Chris Danios did call this a crime, again, saying Nancy was taken during the night against her will. There have been reports about her Apple Watch, something disconnecting around 2: 00 AM. Christopher Naneos was asked on Tuesday at the press conference if he could narrow down the time frame of Nancy's disappearance, and he wouldn't give any more details on that. I really don't want to get into to narrowing down the time. Because narrowing it down means we could miss some steps and leads. We're working to see if that time can be tightened up. Other things that he wouldn't give details on which other outlets have reported. Chris Naneos wouldn't say if there was blood found at the scene, but the LA Times and CBS reported that there was blood at the scene and there were signs of forced entry into her home. There was blood that was found inside the house, and you're testing it for DNA. How much blood and where was it? I'm not saying there's blood inside that house or outside that house. What What he's saying is our team processed the scene like it would think of any crime scene.

We go in and we process it. Another thing that he wouldn't confirm, giving limited information on, is what the crime scene looked like. He wouldn't give details on the suspicious circumstances that led to believe that a crime happened. Something else that right now, we don't have camera footage. Ring camera footage, ring camera footage. Any footage from that neighborhood in Catalina Hills outside of Tucson is being withheld. Naneos said that stuff is being processed right now, but at the press conference on Tuesday, he said he doesn't know if that video is going to be released. They're also processing possible DNA samples at the scene, but that could take time. A reporter asked Chris Naneos about an Amazon driver that went up to the house on Monday evening, and Chris Naneos, the Sheriff, said, The crime scene is cleared. We turn that over to the family. This was less than 24 hours after she was reported missing that a crime scene, which they did label a crime scene, was cleared. I spoke to a former police captain, Joshua Sherard, Director of Burner Law Enforcement, about why they might have cleared the crime scene so quickly? I've spent multiple days, four, five, seven days in a house-size crime scene because there was just more to process and more to process and more to process.

To clear a crime scene in the matter of 24 hours or less tells me that there's a little bit more targeted search than they're letting on. Either that or there just is nothing to process there, which is hard to believe at this point. I think that moving forward, we're going to see that hopefully that they've identified at least a person of interest at this point and are trying to verify that with the physical evidence that they found on the scene. So what are the next steps? Well, right now, they're looking at every single lead. Chris Nanios did say, unless something big breaks in the case, they wouldn't have another press conference until Thursday. What happens right now is when they're looking at those leads, they're taking in every little thing. A big thing happened on Tuesday. Tmc said they received an unverified ransom note for the return of Nancy with millions of dollars of Bitcoin. They said the sender had a legit Bitcoin address that was asking for the millions of dollars. They've turned that over to the Pema County Sheriff's office, and authorities of the Sheriff's office are now looking into that. We haven't heard much from Savannah, but on Monday night, she did send out this plea on Instagram with a quote that said, We believe in prayer.

We believe in voices being raised in unison, in love, in hope. We believe in goodness. We believe in humanity. Above all, we believe in him. She thanked everyone for their prayers and ended it Bring her mom home. Terrible. Lyndon, thanks for reporting. The CFO of a federal agency providing aid to Africa will bleed guilty to taking bribes. Daily Wire investigative reporter, Luke Rosiak, revealed back in May that the African Development Foundation was doing exactly what the Trump administration suspected its larger counterpart USAID of doing, using foreign aid to enrich DC insiders. On Friday, the US attorney for DC announced that Matthew Zahu would bleed guilty to one of the actions laid out in Luke's story, admitting to accepting bribes and lying to law enforcement. Luke joins us now to discuss. So Luke, first, remind us what exactly this agency is. Hey, John. Absolutely. The African Development Foundation is a federal agency that not many people knew existed until it became a hero to Democrat politicians and some media outlets when its staff locked the doors to prevent DOGE auditors from entering. So back in May, I spoke to a number of former staff who told me the agency would send money to African groups, which made it look like it was fulfilling its mission.

But then the African groups would send the money, part of the money, back to the US to do things like pay staff at its DC office and their friends. This agency was getting such support from Democrats in the media that when I showed up at Zahu's house in May and told him I was a journalist, he gladly spoke with me. Take a listen. It was one of those guys, and Peter Muracko, at least we recognized recognize those three. When they show up, we didn't let them in. They eventually threatened a building security with a gentleman that present himself as a marshal, so they let them in. Then the force that were in. One instance involved no-bid contracts to an African company called Ganeum Limited, which was owned by a friend of Zahu's named Mena Gakur. One of those contracts was for travel during COVID when nobody was traveling. I asked them about that. Ganeum provide basically IT services and administrative services to us. Logistics, administrative, logistic, and IT. So it was like 800,000 total. I can add the numbers. Did they do like- Addout the I add the number very much. Oh, okay. Because they didn't do $800,000 worth of work?

No. It's on a contract. But after that, they had a grant. So the grant is- So Ganeum did have a grant? Yes, Ganeum had a grant. That has nothing to do with the contract. How did you know the owner's? He was in DC. He was in the US. Then he returned home as a African for returning home, that's it. Okay, so he was actually an American? No, I think he's an American. Yeah, he might be an American, but I know he's from Kenya. Okay. Did you know him prior to working at ADF? If I know it in me personally, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I knew it in part. Okay. Yeah. Zayu has now admitted that Gacor didn't do any work but kept more than $100,000 and paid him $12,000 in kickbacks. The rest was used to pay bills for the agency, making it look like more money was going to Africa instead of bureaucratic overhead. That was just one troubling example I found, and others involved officials beyond just Zahu. Just really brazen levels of fraud, as you've outlined. Usaid has already been abolished, as we've reported. I'd imagine that this agency is next to go.

You'd think. Hours after Zahu's plea deal was announced, Senator Mike Lee introduced an amendment to abolish the African Development Foundation, but it failed. Here's Lee. Republicans acting alone could have, would have, and should have defunded this today. But instead, what was the result? Well, it was defeated. All Democrats voted to table it, and they were joined by just enough Republicans, just a small handful of them, to table this measure with a vote of 58 to 42. I look forward, let's just say, to hearing my colleagues explain this vote. Daily Wire Editor and Chief, Brentshire, asked all 11 Republicans why they voted not to defund this agency, and none replied. They were senators Boosman, Capito, Collins, Kramer, Graham, Hoven, McDonal, Moran, Murkowski, Tillis, and Wicker. Well, maybe they should have all read the Daily Wire report first. Luke, excellent reporting as always. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for waking up with us. If you're listening to the show, now you can watch for free on Daily Wire+. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.