Transcript of ‘Medicaid Millionaires' Exposed & Spirit Airlines Shutters | 5.4.26 New

A new Daily Wire investigation uncovers what appears to be a massive, sprawling Medicaid fraud scheme in the red state of Ohio.

So what do you do for the $10 million? So you don't know.

I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell. It's Monday, May the 4th. Be with you. This is Morning Wire.

Spirit Airlines is officially grounded forever. We unpack what led to its demise and the fallout for flights across the country.

I've been flying with Spirit for a while, and for you guys to do this within hours of my flight, very unacceptable.

And with the global economy struggling, President Trump reviews a new peace deal from Iran. We are suffocating the regime.

This is a real economic blockade.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned, we have the news you need to know.

The state of Colorado is at it again, trying to silence free speech. A law in Colorado forces businesses to use customers' preferred pronouns, even if they're biologically inaccurate, and even if using those incorrect pronouns would violate a person's religious beliefs or conscience. That's a violation of free speech, but as Colorado has proven time and again, it has little concern for the First Amendment. Alliance Defending Freedom is challenging the law on behalf of a Christian bookstore and a Colorado-based sports apparel company, but a court recently ruled against them. With ADF's help, they appealed the ruling, and they'll continue fighting to ensure Colorado doesn't get away with this next attempt to skirt the First Amendment. Your gift helps protect free speech in cases like this all over the country. And for a limited time, your first gift to ADF is doubled by a special matching grant while funds last. Text WIRE, W-I-R-E, to 83848, or go to joinadf.com/wire to have your gift doubled.

Your parents raise you when you're young for free, and when they get old, you help them to pay them back because you love them, you know, right? Well, the government didn't pay you.

To do it.

Something is seriously wrong with Columbus, Ohio. Home health care has actually replaced the entire economy.

That was Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak in Columbus, Ohio. He's spent the last 2 months investigating Medicaid fraud in the state.

Luke joins us now. So Luke, you've got a 5-part series coming out this week, and we wanted to talk to you about the initial release of the first part here. You say this may be the biggest scam you've ever personally uncovered, which is saying something. Uh, what can you tell us so far?

Hey, John, thanks for having me. Yeah, this is Billions with a B. And there's been a lot of focus on fraud in Minnesota lately for good reason, the great work of Nick Shirley and others. It's important for people to understand the root of that is these Medicaid waivers that allow certain states to do things with US dollars that are far beyond what the medical program was ever intended to cover. I found that another state with easily defrauded Medicaid expansions is actually Ohio, which will pay people to to do homemaking and chores for the elderly, even just conversation and companionship. And a lot of the people getting these checks are actually just the family members of the old people. So they're getting paid to sit in their own houses and talk to their own family members.

And this is in Ohio, a state with a Republican governor and legislature. I find that pretty surprising.

Yeah, and home healthcare in Ohio cost $1 billion in 2024 alone. That outpaces actual medical procedures, the kind with high-paid doctors and expensive devices.

So $1 billion a year in, uh, just this one state. You'd think that would send up alarm bells. How did this happen?

Well, originally the idea was that nursing homes are very expensive, so it might actually be cheaper to send people to their houses and help them out so that they could stay in their homes. The problem is not a lot of people try to fake their way into nursing homes, um, but if you can pretend to be a little more infirm than you really are, and it results in free government checks to your family members, and you don't have to change anything about your life, suddenly a lot of people start feeling really infirm. So, right, that basically created this tinderbox. And then what really lit the match is Ohio ran into the same toxic combination as Minnesota, which is generous government programs that rely on trust, and then a massive infusion of immigrants from low-trust third world societies.

So it appears that these are mostly immigrants running these businesses, is that correct?

Oh yeah, I mean, I toured hundreds of home healthcare offices and I barely saw a single American. I mean, anybody who says they don't notice the pattern is kind of too blind to be involved in policy. Um, the home healthcare operators themselves will acknowledge that pattern by saying it's racist to question home healthcare itself because they know exactly who it is that's billing Medicaid for these services that it's important to understand, are essentially unverifiable because they're happening behind closed doors in private residences. One manager told us about 70% of his employees are just people hanging out with their own relatives, which is apparently legal. But then you also have this other category which claim to drive to people's houses and visit them, and they used to have GPS on the cars to make sure they went, but apparently Ohio got rid of that rule. So how are you going to prove they really went, that they aren't just paying a little kickback to somebody in exchange for using their Social Security number? But what's more striking than who's doing it is the sheer number of these firms. I mean, there are entire blocks where virtually every business has been replaced by home healthcare.

In Northeast Columbus, one building I visited is the address for 93 Medicaid companies that billed a combined $66 million. And when I visited, almost nobody was there. I mean, the smoke alarms were chirping for batteries. There were stray cats walking around. Just nobody. It was, it was creepy. Wow.

So our listeners can read part 1 of your series now on The Daily Wire. Part 2 is coming out soon. Any sneak peek for us?

Well, part 2 includes a politician who ran an $11 million Medicaid business on the side and a landlord who bought private planes after renting office space to hundreds of these home healthcare companies, which billed a quarter billion dollars of your money.

I'm sure this is all above board, Luke. We'll look forward to learning what you found there. Thanks so much for reporting.

Thank you, John.

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Spirit Airlines abruptly shut down over the weekend, leaving thousands of passengers scrambling. The airline's demise also leaves roughly 17,000 workers out of a job, and a debate is raging in D.C. over who's to blame.

Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now with the details. So Megan, Spirit Airlines is officially no more. Before we get to the political backstory to that, can you just walk us through the timeline as the passengers and workers experienced it this past weekend?

Yeah, Georgia, so early yesterday morning, anyone who went to the Spirit app or went to their website saw basically the same blunt message: To our guests, all flights have been canceled and customer service is no longer available. So that message told people flat out, do not go to the airport. Spirit said refunds would be issued, but the company shut down so really so fast that no one is still employed to help rebook those flights, and passengers are out there scrambling for new tickets, often at much higher prices. So after 34 years in operation, Spirit's very last flight touched down just after midnight on Saturday. And as John said, that means around 17,000 people are now out of jobs. But it's also going to make it harder and more expensive, at least in the short term, for travelers to get to some of those locations that were either heavily or in some cases actually exclusively served by Spirit. So Latrobe, Pennsylvania, for example, had become a popular alternative for those flyers who wanted to get into the Pittsburgh area a little bit cheaper. It was 100% served by Spirit. So it's not even clear at this point if that airport will remain open.

And then 94% of Atlantic City's flights were served by Spirit. So that will be a huge hit to that airport. And then Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, those also served by about a quarter of Spirit flights. So more expensive this summer to get to those beach destinations.

Now turning to the political fallout from this, this saga has been going on for a while. Can you explain who some of the key players were behind the scenes in government and what ended up happening behind the scenes?

Yeah, so the Trump administration got involved and they were looking at a bailout of some kind for Spirit, which was pretty much its only option. But unfortunately, that wasn't enough. And what happened was back in 2023, JetBlue agreed to buy Spirit for $3.8 billion, and that's in cash. They were going to make a cash offer of nearly $4 billion. And the idea was to create a stronger, low-cost challenger to those 4 big legacy carriers. So at the behest of Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Biden Justice Department sued to block that merger. They argued that it would eliminate Spirit's ultra-low fares and also raise prices for travelers. So this was then-Travel Secretary Pete Buttigieg back in 2023 remarking on why his office supported stopping that merger.

It is so important to make sure that passengers have choices, that they have access to low fares, that they have access to competition. And yet we've seen less and less and less of that competition over the years.

In January of 2024, a federal judge sided with Biden's DOJ and they killed the deal. So many critics, and not just Republican critics I want to add, say that decision stripped Spirit of the scale and the financial cushion that it desperately needed to survive. This was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant addressing it on Fox News yesterday.

In September 2022, Elizabeth Warren, who loves to write letters, sent a letter saying that they should oppose the merger with Spirit Airlines. It would have given them much more resiliency.

And in fact, even some veterans of the Biden administration are now questioning if blocking that merger was a good move. Neera Tanden, for example, she's a former advisor to Biden, and she posted on X, quoting here, I think we should honestly assess whether the Garland DOJ stopping the JetBlue merger with Spirit Airlines was the right call.

So broad strokes, what does this mean for travelers, especially people who are planning to use Spirit or go to a place heavily serviced by Spirit?

Yeah, in the short term, it's going to mean probably more expensive tickets for everyone, particularly to those destinations that Spirit serves. Right now, they're looking at about a $100 increase in flights to those destinations.

Well, very frustrating, right, as summer comes around. Megan, thanks for reporting.

Yeah, my pleasure, Georgia.

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As the global economy continues to struggle under the weight of war, President Trump says he's reviewing a new peace proposal from the Iranian regime.

Cabot Phillips, host of Wired and Live, joins us now with the latest on this conflict and the economic impact here at home. Hey, Cabot. So we have a new offer from Iran. Trump reviewing this, some response from the White House. Where do we stand now with this saga?

Well, 3 weeks ago when President Trump said that a ceasefire had been agreed on, he said that Iran had agreed to his demands and it appeared that an end to the war was imminent. But while the fighting has remained on pause since then, the Iranians have yet to make an offer to the president's liking. Raising the potential once again for this thing to escalate even more. Over the weekend, Trump expressed displeasure with the latest peace offer from the regime, saying he cannot imagine it would be acceptable, adding that Iran has not yet, quote, paid a big enough price for what they've done to humanity and the world over the last 47 years. And he's now leaving open the possibility of more strikes, saying this weekend, quote, do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever? Or do we want to try and make a deal? Those are the options.

Quite the binary, uh, presented there by Trump. So what is in this latest proposal from Iran?

Well, according to Iranian state media, it still includes a number of demands that are viewed as non-starters by the White House. It includes the release of frozen Iranian assets, the lifting of economic sanctions, the payment of war reparations, and a permanent and immediate end to the Israeli war effort in Lebanon. And even more frustrating for the White House, the Iranians say that they want to take a piecemeal approach on these negotiations. The latest offer would implement a 1-month deadline for talks on an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and also lift the US naval blockade. And then only after the blockade is lifted would the Iranians even consider sitting down to have nuclear talks. So they're basically saying, lift the blockade and then we can talk about our nukes. But there's no doubt there is mounting pressure on Trump to wrap this thing up.

Yeah, about that pressure, what does it look like now here on the home front, politically and economically?

So politically, most GOP lawmakers in D.C. are still sticking by the president, saying his war effort is crucial to protecting the U.S. But behind closed doors, a number of folks on Capitol Hill have told me that they're getting antsy and they're concerned about the ramifications on the midterms if this conflict continues to drag on. And it's not hard to see why. Look, this war is wildly unpopular with independents and moderates who obviously are going to play a crucial role come November. Inflation is now climbing at its highest pace since 2022, and gas prices have skyrocketed to $4.45 a gallon. And voters do seem to be blaming President Trump. Trump's approval rating on the economy is now 24 points underwater, with just 36% of voters on average giving him a thumbs up. Now, it's fair to wonder the impact that the legacy media's biased coverage is having on voter perception. But the reality is folks are not happy with the economy and they feel that this war is largely to blame.

All right. So a tough spot for President Trump here. How is the White House responding?

Yeah, they've been quick to note that the economy is still showing some signs of resilience and even growth. Uh, to that point, the latest GDP report showed a solid 2% growth in the first quarter of 2026. Uh, they've also noted that US manufacturing output has increased significantly in each of the last 4 months. And so far this year, wage growth has exceeded inflation. And remember, they've been saying all along that this war would require some short-term pain, but ensure long-term stability and make the US better off in the long run. Uh, they've also noted that the economic pain being felt stateside is nothing compared to what the Iranians are facing, and there's really no debating that. Remember, about half of the Iranian regime's revenue comes from oil and gas exports, and with those on a forced hold, they are running out of options. So ultimately, the White House is still confident that the US is far more prepared to weather this economic storm and that it's just a matter of time before this blockade forces the regime to come to the table with finally some more favorable terms.

There's no doubt that the economic pressure on Iran is immense.

Yeah.

Kevin, thanks for reporting.

Absolutely. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show now, you can watch for free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.