Scale of Fraud in Minnesota Justifies the Use of Every Tool Available: Analyst

Now in continuing our analysis of President Trump's State of the Union speech, the longest ever, we are joined now by former federal prosecutor Jim Trustee. Jim, thanks for coming back on. Great to have you. And during his State of the Union address, last night, President Trump urging Congress to pass the Delilah Law, a proposed bill that would ban illegal immigrants from getting commercial driver's licenses. Let's roll a clip. Delilah Colton was only five years old in June 2024, when a 18-wheel tractor trailer plowed into her stopped car, traveling at 60 miles an hour or more. The driver was an illegal alien let in by Joe Biden and given a commercial driver's license by open borders politicians in California. Doctors said Delilah would never be able to walk or talk. But against all odds, she is now in the first grade learning to walk. That's why tonight I'm calling on Congress to pass what we will call the Delilah Law, barring any state from granting commercial driver's licenses to illegal aliens. Now, Jim, under current federal law, illegal immigrants are not allowed to get commercial driver's licenses. So how can we keep seeing cases like these and what could this new law actually change? Yeah, well, I think what we've seen in recent years is there's a lot of little hidden workarounds where instead of having a strict rule about illegal aliens not being able to get behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler or a heavy bus, there's kind of bureaucratic outs. And so this is really a way of shoring up both negligence and corruption. For example, in California, people could go get a matricular card from the embassy in Mexico, piece of cake to get it, and then use that to convert to getting a driver's license and eventually a CDL without ever having citizenship. You also have a lot of cases over the years, and I remember even handling one when I was a prosecutor, of corruption at the NBA or the DMVs, the offices themselves, where people would basically create an ID mill to give people apparent citizenship or directly to give them a commercial driver's license. And it's an incredibly dangerous thing. We've had high-profile cases in California, and I think Texas, if I remember correctly, of drivers of 18-wheelers that just seem oblivious. They don't understand English. They don't know the rules of the road. They have some ability to physically control the vehicle, but that's just not enough on a crowded roadway, and it's had disastrous consequences. So I think, again, state of the union addresses, part of it is to say, what do you want going forward? And I think that's a pretty commonsensical piece of potential legislation. And I wonder how that could actually impact the president's push to get that SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote. But I want to move on more to the highlights from the speech last night. Another issue raised was fraud, which triggered protests from Democrats. Here's Trump tapping Vice President J.D. Vance to lead the crackdown on that. So tonight, although started four months ago, I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great Vice President J.D. Vance. The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where corruption and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception. Now, Jim, what legal tools could the vice president use here to address this widespread fraud and corruption? Yeah, well, it's really interesting because I don't know that the laws are going to change dramatically. It's kind of the staffing, the chain of command, and the ability to draw resources. So there's a whole bunch of federal laws on the books that deal with things like Medicare, Medicaid fraud, wire fraud schemes, all sorts of things that are rendered illegal once you can catch them. And you can catch cases that are prosecutable, I guess is the way to put that. But in this case, what you're talking about is a real deviation. Normally, fraud prosecution for federal prosecutors, it's all through DOJ. The only connection between DOJ and the White House is the attorney general who's directly answerable to the president. Here, you're creating a completely different silo. You've got a new fraud section despite pre-existing fraud that will report through the White House all the way to the vice president. That tells me they're going to have incredible resources, which can make a huge difference. And frankly, if I was somebody that was in that administration as a fraud prosecutor, as one of the heads of that new section, I'd say, let me pull some people out of US attorney's offices or out of Maine Justice and use them to staff up this new unit. If they give that much autonomy, that much authority to the people running this new section, they could have some real powerful cases. They could have experienced prosecutors, good FBI resources, support from the front office for almost anything they want to do, and they could build some huge cases like the Somali case in Minnesota. It's interesting. It's a real departure from how federal prosecution is usually handled, but it's got a lot of potential if the president's really putting the wind behind the sail of this prosecution effort. A lot more to look forward to in the next three years, as President Trump said. You haven't seen nothing yet. Here's Vice President J.D. Vance today talking about how the administration's going to eliminate healthcare fraud. Take a look. We're announcing today that we have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people's tax money. Jim, now President Trump said in his speech that the fraud is not just happening in Minnesota. It's also happening in particularly, he says, democratic states like California, Massachusetts, and Maine. What are some of the ways to counter this nationwide? Public scrutiny is part of it. Obviously, using the bully pulpit, using the presidency to call it out is important. I think what they're talking about with the vice president essentially imposing sanctions on Minnesota is not a bad idea. It's really a leverage, a force multiplier of saying, if you're going to turn the other cheek, if you're going to pretend that the fraud is not wide scale, that the leering centers in Minnesota were surprises to you, then you're going to be punished. You're going to have to struggle for some of your federal funding. Remember, in the Minnesota case in particular, you had the attorney general of the state apparently on video in an incredibly damning video suggesting that there's a quid pro quo, that he's in fact willing to stop investigations if it helps him politically. I don't think that's just a red state, blue state thing. There's corruption across the country. If you have the scale of which that you saw in Minnesota with public officials turning a blind eye or even profiting from it, then I think it's worth using every tool such as leveraging federal funding. Now, let's work on a bipartisan issue here that came out last night where we're seeing a lot of that pushback from Democrats, but the unifying moment we saw was calling for an end to insider trading, drew applause from both Democrats and Republicans. Let's play a clip of that. As we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market, let's also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information. They stood up for that. I can't believe it. Now, Jim, the president was urging Congress to pass the Stop Insider Trading Act. Given the reaction we saw there, is there enough momentum, you think, for that to pass on through? Well, remember, about half the Democrats weren't there. And I think if there's ever an instance where people are going to fraudulently pretend to be in favor of something, but then quietly try to kill it, it's probably insider trading by Congress. I mean, look, I thought the part we didn't show on the clip there, which is the hilarious, I think, ad lib was when he specifically asked about Nancy Pelosi. I mean, we have example after example, both sides of the aisle, but certainly Pelosi's a good example of it, of people going into Congress on a pretty limited salary when you talk about having two residences and emerging as billionaires or more. And so I think a lot of the American public is fed up with the people that call for equality, like Bernie Sanders with a bunch of mansions, or Nancy Pelosi with her $10,000 refrigerator and freezer, eating expensive chocolates and wondering why the rest of us complain. So look, there's a real easy answer with that legislation. It's blind trust. We're not taking away your ability to have investments, but you can't walk out of a committee meeting and slide your socks around because you know what's going to happen the next day. I think that's exactly the kind of thing that most Americans on both sides of the aisle should pull for, but you got to take a wait and see with the swamp. You never know how many of them smile and nod and act like they're in favor of then do everything they can to fight it because of their own riches. Yeah, so that's one to pay attention to. Jim Trustee, thank you very much for your insights today. Always appreciate it.