The Truth with Lisa Boothe: California Fraud, DEI Spending & $100B Government Waste EXPOSED
3/24/202623 mincomplete
0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Guaranteed human. Welcome to The Truth with Lisa Booth, where we get to the heart
0:06of the issues that matter to you.
0:09Today, I'm joined by Chris Rufo, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
0:13He's done some really interesting reporting in the City Journal, and we're going to dig
0:17into it. He is exposing some major woke waste in California, including a $114 million
0:25wildlife overpass for mountain lions and butterflies.
0:30That's overdue and overbudget, as expected in a state like California, particularly under Gavin Newsom.
0:36Plus, we'll talk about San Francisco's revival of a $120 million program that diverted police
0:43funds, police funds, into questionable DEI initiatives, now potentially facing legal risks as well.
0:51We're going to break down the facts, follow the money, and explore the patterns under
0:55Gavin Newsom. His patterns of failure.
0:58And also, what does it mean for 2028 and his presidential ambitions?
1:02Stay tuned for a conversation about woke waste with Chris Rufo.
1:12Well, Chris Rufo, it's great to have you back on the show.
1:15You always do such great reporting, so appreciate you making the time.
1:19It's great to be with you.
1:21We've heard a lot about fraud, particularly in Minnesota, now California as well.
1:25You've done some original reporting that we're going to get into in just a moment.
1:29But why do you think all of this fraud gets overlooked so frequently?
1:36Well, there are two reasons why the fraud gets overlooked.
1:40The first reason is pretty simple.
1:41Oftentimes, fraud is difficult to detect.
1:43You have sophisticated criminal networks that are exploiting the government.
1:47There's billions of documents and kind of an infinite number of paper trails.
1:53And so the enforcement is not always as successful.
1:55It's hard to find. The second reason is more interesting, though.
1:59The second reason is that California's political class benefits from the fraud.
2:05And so I'll give you an example.
2:06For Medi -Cal, which is the state Medicaid program, it spends something like $200 billion
2:11a year. And a lot of that money goes towards the salaries and then the
2:17union dues for health care workers.
2:20The health care union in California is one of the most powerful unions in the
2:24state, huge backer of Democrats.
2:26And so everyone is getting their cut.
2:29And federal taxpayers are footing the bill.
2:32And so it really feeds into this cycle of corruption that doesn't incentivize actually enforcing
2:40the law. But in fact, it creates an incentive to just let the fraud happen.
2:45Yeah, and we saw that even in Minnesota with the Attorney General Keith Ellison meeting
2:50with some of the fraudsters.
2:54You know, there was a meeting that the contents of the meeting leaked and they
2:58were basically like, you know, we need friends.
3:00And then shortly thereafter, they donated to him.
3:02So it's like, you know, unfortunately, it seems that, you know, so much of this
3:06fraud, to your point, is about enriching donors or giving kickbacks to, you know, politically
3:11aligned groups and friends and allies.
3:14So let's dig into some of the work that you've done recently in California with
3:19some of this woke waste that we've seen.
3:22So there's this $114 million wildlife project.
3:27Walk us through, you know, what is it?
3:29What should people know? Yeah, it's kind of an amazing project where California environmentalists had,
3:37in partnership with the Annenberg Foundation, Annenberg family, very wealthy family in the state, and
3:44the state taxpayers who kicked in the majority of the funding.
3:48They want to build a bridge connecting two areas of Los Angeles across a 10
3:53-lane freeway so that cougars, other critters, even monarch butterflies can successfully cross the road.
4:01And look, actually, wildlife bridges are not a bad idea.
4:06They do help, kind of environmental concerns, they help reduce, actually, roadway accidents because you
4:12have the animals that learn how to cross the bridge rather than go into traffic.
4:16But what's scandalous about this project in particular is that other states and other countries
4:22have completed these bridges for between $5 and $10 million.
4:26But in California, it costs $114 million to build this bridge for cougars and butterflies
4:34and other small animals. And we really dug into the question, why is this happening?
4:41Why does this bridge cost an order of magnitude more than other bridges that are
4:47comparable? And the answer was twofold.
4:49One is that a lot of the firms, these big California contractors, have no incentive
4:55to complete projects on time and under budget.
4:58But they also showered millions of dollars in public and private funds towards ideological projects.
5:05So, for example, in this case, they were spending money, the private side was spending
5:10money to have Native Americans perform sacred rituals and to create offerings of human hair,
5:18native tobacco, to collect seeds, to bless the bridge.
5:23I mean, stuff that if you were running a major infrastructure project, you probably wouldn't
5:27put a priority on. They were just loading this project with this kind of ideological
5:32nonsense. And that's why it takes, it's a year behind, it's tens of millions of
5:38dollars over budget, and really there's no end in sight.
5:42Like, are taxpayers even aware that this is where some of their money is going
5:46to? They're not. Actually, one of the most interesting bits of feedback we got on
5:51this piece, which was kind of driving the headlines, certainly in California for a couple
5:56days last week, many people contacted me.
5:58They said, you know what?
5:59I drive under this bridge every day to and from work.
6:03So I'm seeing this bridge 10 times a week for the last three years, and
6:07I didn't know what they were doing.
6:09I didn't know how much it cost.
6:11I didn't know how ridiculous this waste of money turns out to be.
6:16And this is what's so interesting, is that in California, it's a left -wing dominated
6:20state. The local press has been left -wing dominated for many years.
6:24And even though this is a publicly accessible project, even though the documents are hidden
6:30in plain sight, nobody had actually taken the time to look into it, to figure
6:35out what was going on, to do the homework, to do the digging, to follow
6:38the paper trail. And so California residents have been shocked and scandalized by this news.
6:44But really what's shocking and scandalous is that nobody was looking.
6:49And what I think is certainly happening is that there are dozens, if not hundreds,
6:55if not thousands of these projects that are happening all over the state.
6:59And simply the graft, the fraud, the abuse, the waste is happening at a colossal
7:06scale because nobody is trying to hold the public officials and the political class in
7:12California accountable. And is this state -funded or is there money coming in from federal
7:19or where is the money coming from?
7:21In this particular case, it was a public -private partnership between California State, which put
7:27in $77 million, and a private donor who put in the remainder of the money.
7:33And so in one sense, that's good, right?
7:36It's good if you can get private donors to help with public projects or conservation
7:42work, et cetera. But what's not good is that even just the public portion, which
7:47was $77 million, is still about 10 times greater expenditure than comparable bridges in other
7:54states. And so as Californians, you should have to be wondering, why is everything so
7:59expensive? Why are the tax rates so high?
8:01And the answer to both of those questions seems to be that a massive amount
8:06of California state budget is frittered away in fraud and abuse.
8:13And do we know these groups that are involved, the firms, are they connected to
8:17the Newsom administration? Is it, you know, like, is it political in nature?
8:22Is he sort of enriching his friends here?
8:24Or what do we know about that?
8:26In many cases, yes. And so if you just zoom out and you try to
8:30ask, you know, who are the largest state contractors?
8:33Who are the largest beneficiaries of state funds?
8:36There appears to be in many industries, in construction, in healthcare, government employment, in other
8:44parts of the economy, this circular pattern where Gavin Newsom will award a contract to
8:50a firm or favorable terms to a kind of regulated utility or a sweetheart deal
8:57for the unions. And then those entities will funnel money back into the state Democratic
9:02Party, back into the governor's, you know, campaign funds.
9:06And then they will yield a benefit on the other side.
9:09And so we see that all over.
9:12And as I've looked into fraud in California, in all of these industries, it really
9:17is the same pattern. And look, can you conclude, therefore, that it's a quid pro
9:22quo, that it's direct corruption?
9:24No. But is it a form of legalized quasi -corruption that's not in the best
9:30interest of taxpayers? The answer is a resounding yes.
9:34Got to take a quick commercial break.
9:36More with Chris on the other side.
9:37If you like what you're hearing, please share on social media or send it to
9:40your family and friends. As we look ahead to 2028, I mean, Stevie Wonder can
9:48see that, you know, Gavin Newsom is preparing for a presidential run.
9:52How much does this waste and this fraud, you know, there's obviously a lot of
9:56other instances in California besides just this one.
9:59How much of this do you think would haunt him heading into 2028?
10:03Like, do voters care if things are being done efficiently or not?
10:07You know, California voters, it appears that they do not care if things are being
10:13efficiently run. It appears that they do not care if fraudsters steal tens of billions
10:18of dollars of their money.
10:21So the question is, do national voters care more than California voters care?
10:26I think the answer is, at least at the margin, certainly yes.
10:29Voters in cost -conscious states like Iowa and New Hampshire and Florida and Texas certainly
10:38have prioritized fiscal issues more than California voters have in the past.
10:43But the real question, I think, is whether Gavin Newsom's kind of Bill Clinton -like
10:49ability and Donald Trump? like ability to skate through accusations and scandals and baggage that
10:56would sink any normal political candidate.
10:59Is that ability greater than the total fraud that has been committed under his watch?
11:05And as much as I would like to believe that voters would look at this
11:10rationally, they would see this fraud and they would say this person is not a
11:14reliable steward of the public trust.
11:17You know, crazier things have happened.
11:19And I think we should not underestimate that Gavin Newsom does have political talent.
11:26He does have a set of political skills and he has that kind of Teflon
11:31quality that you find in politicians on both sides of the aisle that is a
11:36major asset in running a political campaign.
11:39You know what you'd mentioned and then we'll get into San Francisco, I promise.
11:43But you had mentioned, you know, with some of these more like red states or
11:48fiscally conscious states like Iowa that, you know, they'll care.
11:52I guess, why do you think voters in blue states don't seem to care?
11:58I mean, they do keep electing these leftists who then just squander their money and
12:04then keep raising taxes and then drive rich people away.
12:07And then there's a depleted, you know, revenue base.
12:11So it's like, I don't why do blue voters not seem to care as much
12:16about, you know, they seem to care about affordability, but they don't seem to care
12:19about their money being, you know, their money being, you know, politicians lighting their money
12:25on fire. I think there's one kind of deep reason why that is the case.
12:30And California Democrats exploit it.
12:33And the reason is this.
12:34Voters are committed to all of the associated feelings, impressions, symbols, and attitudes around being
12:44a good progressive or a good liberal or a good Democrat.
12:48And they're willing to turn a blind eye to an extremely large sum of malfeasance
12:54because they really, truly want to believe that they are a good liberal.
12:59And if they were to actually question the ruling party of their state, they would,
13:04it would be like, you know, leaving your religion.
13:07Well, why do people, you know, stick with their religion if something, you know, X,
13:10Y, and Z happens? Well, those bonds are actually really strong.
13:13And so they've clung to that identity and Democratic politicians exploit it.
13:19And so even in the case of this bridge story, Gavin Newsom's comms team was
13:24feeling some heat for it.
13:25Other kind of state Democrats were feeling heat for it.
13:28And one thing I noticed was that they didn't address the substance of the critique
13:32at all. They didn't say, we're going to look into this.
13:35We're going to crack down on fraud.
13:36We're going to make sure that the next bridge is, you know, under budget and
13:40on time. All they did was say, you know, Donald Trump is an evil person
13:45dragging us into war with Iran and he's covering up for, you know, Jeffrey Epstein
13:50and other, you know, elite pedophiles.
13:53Like a complete non sequitur, complete, you know, internally inconsistent and incoherent argument.
13:59But what I noticed is that that's actually persuasive for a lot of Democrats because
14:04the threat is quite simple.
14:06If you look into this fraud too closely, if you lose your faith in Democrats,
14:11that means you love Donald Trump.
14:13That means you love Jeffrey Epstein.
14:15That means you're, you know, an enabler for pedophiles, whatever stupid argument they're proposing.
14:21And look, you can say this is a stupid argument rationally, but irrationally, California Democrats
14:27are so committed to that, that self -identity that you can easily herd them back
14:33into the, into the gates, into the, into the corral just by, you know, dangling
14:38that talisman, Donald Trump. It's quite effective.
14:42And I think that's why you see Democrats that just kind of give up.
14:46They say, yeah, whatever, you know, it's a hundred billion dollars here, a hundred billion
14:49dollars there. You know, at least we, you know, at least we're not Donald Trump.
14:53It's really bizarre. All right.
14:55So San Francisco, so you reported that 120 million was diverted from law enforcement into
15:01DEI initiatives. Walk us through that.
15:06Why did they do that?
15:07And then what were these DEI initiatives?
15:10So this is an interesting story that's developed over time.
15:13It begins right after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
15:18And then mayor London Breed was under a lot of pressure, um, to do something.
15:23And what she came up with was a program called the dream keeper initiative.
15:27And this would basically take $120 million out of the police budget and shower it
15:32onto black nonprofits. And this, you know, turned into an immediate debacle.
15:37There was fraud, there was misuse.
15:40The director of this program at the time, uh, is now under criminal indictment for
15:45potential misuse of funds, uh, you know, alleged misuse of funds rather.
15:51Um, and in her last election campaign, which she lost, uh, under this media scrutiny,
15:58she paused the program and her opponent at the time was the heir to the
16:02Levi Strauss fortune, a man named Daniel Lurie, who said, you know, London Breed opened
16:07up this spigot of wasteful funding.
16:09It's a complete scam. She's got to shut it down.
16:12And he won the election in part because he presented himself as the reasonable moderate.
16:18But now that Daniel Lurie is in office, he quietly restarted this program, which he
16:23formerly condemned, and now he's showering funds on these nonprofits.
16:27And so what we did was he looked into some of the funding, and he
16:31was funding one nonprofit with a massive grant that specializes in what they call Mayat
16:37Healing, which is an ancient Egyptian healing ritual that they provide only and exclusively for
16:45black residents of San Francisco.
16:46There was another nonprofit that received some funding that specializes in providing healing services for
16:53intergenerational black female criminals and includes providing massage therapy for black female criminals.
17:01And then finally, a nonprofit that creates documentaries about black transgender people, including one documentary
17:10about two black transgender men going through their first pregnancies.
17:15And so these are the kind of things that are being taken away from the
17:20police budget and then redirected towards, look, what I think, if you want to do
17:25this stuff on your own time and your own dime, fine, do whatever you want.
17:28It's a free country. But I don't think it's a good use of public funds.
17:31And moreover, because many of these nonprofits restrict services explicitly and exclusively to black individuals,
17:39this program is actually illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
17:47You know, well, so then, you know, do you think there'll be any ramifications for
17:51that? You know, the story hit, it generated some coverage locally in San Francisco, but
17:58then disappeared into the ether.
18:01And I was asking myself this question, you know, what are we doing?
18:06We're taking money away from getting cops on the streets and forcing the law.
18:11And we're redirecting it towards organizations that provide free massage therapy for black criminals.
18:17This doesn't seem to be rationally defensible.
18:22But I think what's happening is that it's San Francisco voters have become so desensitized
18:27to this. It's become ingrained in their way of thinking that even a relatively moderate
18:34Democrat mayor like Daniel Lurie feels that voters really want this.
18:40They expect this and he's going to get a lot of criticism, a lot of
18:45pressure. And maybe he'll be accused of being a racist if he doesn't go along
18:50with the program. And so he criticized it during the campaign.
18:54He's backing it to the hilt now.
18:56This is just the way things are.
18:58I think it's important for us to expose it nationally.
19:01But the idea that we're going to change it locally, I don't see it.
19:05I mean, maybe if the criminals get massages, they'll be more relaxed and not want
19:09to commit crimes. That's a theory.
19:11I think we should probably test it, see if that's actually true.
19:15In my experience, a massage feels great.
19:18You're relaxed for a couple hours afterwards.
19:20But fundamentally, you are who you are.
19:21And so I don't see it as a durable strategy for reducing criminality.
19:26But, you know, crazier things have happened.
19:28Fair enough. Now, has Lurie given any reasoning as to why he restarted this program?
19:36He has. And so, you know, they have some statements to the press, some materials
19:41that his administration has released.
19:43And it's the same boilerplate.
19:46San Francisco wants to make sure that we're taking care of the black community.
19:50San Francisco wants to take steps towards reparations.
19:54San Francisco wants to be a pioneer in transgender black causes.
19:58I mean, all of those, the mindless repetition of progressive sloganeering ends up in the
20:05official materials of the Lurie administration.
20:07And look, do I think that Daniel Lurie himself, if you talk to him privately,
20:13you said, hey, taking money from the police and then, you know, transgender black criminal
20:18massages, is this a good idea?
20:19My suspicion is that he would actually say no.
20:23But politics is politics. And this is just what people expect.
20:29If he really shut down this program forever, he would be immediately barraged by local
20:35black elected officials, by the local NAACP, by the local black nationalist organizations.
20:43And so I think what a lot of times this comes down to is a
20:46pragmatic calculation. You know what?
20:48I give up on this because I want to make progress on other issues.
20:51Release the funding to the ancient Egyptian, you know, healing rituals.
20:56It's not all going to get caught.
20:58Some waste is just part of doing business.
21:01And people can go find all this in the City Journal.
21:04Chris, is there anything else you'd like to leave us with before we go?
21:07Yeah, some upcoming stories. So, look, we're looking into this California fraud in all facets
21:14of governance. And what we're finding is that the total fraud under the Newsom administration,
21:20the minimum floor is likely $100 billion.
21:24And so some of these things are $100 million here, $100 million there.
21:31But on some of the programs like state Medicaid, state unemployment insurance, state welfare services,
21:38the numbers start aggregating and adding up into, you know, greater than the GDP of
21:45most of the... countries around the world is just stolen from California taxpayers.
21:50And so this stuff is coming.
21:52We're reporting on it. It's important.
21:55And I hope that it changes the political calculus, not just in the state of
21:58California, but as you said, the political calculus for 2028 so that the voters are
22:03totally informed of what's happening when they go back to the ballot box.
22:08Well, we will see. And it will certainly be interesting as we get closer to
22:132028. Chris Rufo, as always, amazing work.
22:17Always so interesting having you on.
22:18Really appreciate you making the time.
22:20Thank you. That was Chris Rufo.
22:23Appreciate him for making the time to come on the show.
22:26Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday that you can listen
22:29throughout the week. I also want to thank John Casio, my producer, for putting the
22:32show together. Until next time.