Fraud Crackdown, Court Packing & The Trump Shooting Conspiracies | Last Call
3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary
Radio America
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Charlie and Greg highlight he Trump administration’s escalating crackdown on Medicare and Medicaid fraud, the dangerous Democratic push to expand the U.S. Supreme Court, the disturbing number of people who think the Trump assassination attempts were staged, and North Korea's new nuclear policy.
First, Charlie and Greg applaud Vice President JD Vance and CMS Director Mehmet Oz for taking a tougher stance against Medicare and Medicaid fraud. The administration announced it is deferring $1.3 billion in Medicare reimbursements to California over concerns the state is failing to combat fraud effectively. Vance warns other states could face similar consequences, while Oz explains the huge benefits we could see from greatly reducing fraud.
Next, Charlie goes deeper into his condemnation of Democrats openly plotting to expand the U.S. Supreme Court by enough seats to give the left a likely majority. Charlie explains why he believes that would be the most damaging event to our constitutional order since the Civil War.
Then, they're horrified that a third of Democrats believe the attempted White House Correspondents Dinner shooting was staged. And even more of them believe the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania - where Trump actually got shot - was staged. Charlie and Greg discuss the relentless conspiracies in our politics and whether there's a way to reverse the trend.
Finally, they comment on North Korea's new law that if another nation kills or incapacitates Kim Jong-Un, North Korea would "automatically and immediately" launch nuclear weapons.
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the three martini lunch. |
| 0:05.1 | Grab a stole next to Greg Carumbus of Radio America and Jim Garrity of National Review. |
| 0:10.8 | Three martini's coming up. |
| 0:13.6 | Welcome to the last call of the week for the three martini lunch. |
| 0:17.0 | This is our weekly recap of the biggest stories from the past week. |
| 0:21.2 | Jim Garrity was away and for three days I discussed the news with Charlie Cook, senior editor |
| 0:26.0 | and writer at National Review, and host of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast. |
| 0:31.2 | One of the best stories of the week was seeing the Trump administration show how serious it is |
| 0:35.9 | about finding and eliminating health care fraud. |
| 0:39.0 | Well, let's dig into one area where conservatives I know would have loved the government to be |
| 0:43.9 | much more active in years past, and that is the issue of combating fraud, the waste of our tax |
| 0:51.3 | dollars. The phrase fraud, waste, and abuse has kind of been thrown around |
| 0:55.6 | sometimes as a punchline, sometimes by people semi-serious. Of course, we had Doge, which was |
| 1:01.6 | designed to root out some fraud and wasteful spending at the beginning of this administration. |
| 1:06.1 | The intent was great. The execution, not always fantastic, but at least an effort was made. And now an effort |
| 1:13.0 | is being made. The president announced it at the State of the Union address that he's going after |
| 1:17.3 | fraud, particularly in health care and so forth. And so that was in the wake of everything that was |
| 1:23.0 | happening in Minnesota at the time with the Learing Center and Autism Medicaid programs and everything. |
| 1:28.7 | But now we've seen hospice fraud in California. |
| 1:31.6 | We've seen it now in Ohio, thanks to the Daily Wire reporting. |
| 1:34.6 | There's been other places as well. |
| 1:36.9 | And so yesterday, J.D. Vance, who's leading this effort, as well as Dr. Oz, who is the |
... |
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