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Speaker 1: We'll first get your take on the President really handing

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Speaker 1: the Democrats an opportunity to profess their duty and dedication

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Speaker 1: to protect American citizens first, they refuse to do that.

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Speaker 2: You couldn't have asked for a better gift to show

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Speaker 2: the American people the difference between Donald Trump and Republican

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Speaker 2: candidates that want to work with him and the Democratic

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Speaker 2: Party who says, no, no, no, we do not put Americans first.

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Speaker 2: We put illegal immigrants first. We protect waste, fraud and abuse,

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Speaker 2: and that's happening in Minnesota. We put these criminals ahead

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Speaker 2: of you. That tells you what the Democratic Party will

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Speaker 2: do if they're back in power.

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Speaker 3: You're listening to the forty seven Morning Update with Ben ferguson.

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Speaker 2: Good Thursday morning. Nice to have you with us on

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Speaker 2: the forty seven Morning Update, and we've got two major

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Speaker 2: stories for you. First up, Cuba Coastguard opens fire on

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Speaker 2: a US registered speedboat, killing four. The White House has

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Speaker 2: response as well as Marco Rubio, and we'll explain what

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Speaker 2: this means for all Americans and for what's going on

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Speaker 2: with Cuba relations. Also, fraud, we know it's massive in Minnesota,

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Speaker 2: and that's exactly why the Vice President announcing with doctor

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Speaker 2: Oz that a major payment more than two hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty million is being paused going to Minnesota until they

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Speaker 2: can prove that they're actually not taking that money and

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Speaker 2: using it for fraudulent means. This is a big move

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Speaker 2: for the Trump administration. It's a forty seven morning update

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Speaker 2: and it starts right now.

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Speaker 3: Story number one.

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Speaker 2: We have to talk about the dramatic and deadly international

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Speaker 2: incident that's unfolding right now, one that has shaken nerves

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Speaker 2: across Washington, Miami, and Havana. The Cuban Coast Guard opening

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Speaker 2: fire on a US registered speedboat, killing four people and

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Speaker 2: injuring others, and what Cuba calls an infiltration attempt inside

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Speaker 2: its territorial waters. We're going to walk you through everything.

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Speaker 2: We know what Cuba is now claiming, as well as

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Speaker 2: America's reaction. We have comments from Secretary of State Marco

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Speaker 2: Rubio and why this matters both geopolitically and also for

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Speaker 2: our national security. Now, FORIDA registered speedboat flying US documentation,

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Speaker 2: we assume that means an American flag. It was intercepted

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Speaker 2: by Cuban border Guard troops. This again right close to

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Speaker 2: they claim their border. According to the Cuban government official account.

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Speaker 2: When its border guard units approach the vessel to identify

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Speaker 2: it and challenge what Cuba considers a violation of its

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Speaker 2: territorial waters, those aboard open fire first, They're claiming. Cuban

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Speaker 2: authorities say the armed occupants fired on the Cuban patrol,

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Speaker 2: wounding a commander, and responds Cuban forces return fire. The

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Speaker 2: result for people on the speedboat were killed and six

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Speaker 2: others were wounded. The injured were reportedly evacuated for medical

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Speaker 2: treatment in Cuban authorities say they have also detained survivors.

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Speaker 2: Cuba claims the boat carried ten passengers who were Cuban

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Speaker 2: nationals living in the United States, and that many of

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Speaker 2: them had a history of criminal or violent activity. Officials

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Speaker 2: even alleged to the passengers were carrying assault rifles, handguns,

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Speaker 2: as well as bulletproof vests, telescopic sites, and camouflage gear,

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Speaker 2: and were attempting an armed infiltration for terrorist purposes. Now again,

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Speaker 2: this is coming from Cuba's government. The authorities also released

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Speaker 2: names of several of those on board, including at least

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Speaker 2: one of the four killed and several of the survivors

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Speaker 2: who are now in custody. But here's a key point

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Speaker 2: that many of you need to know. The US government

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Speaker 2: has not independently verified any of what the Cuban government

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Speaker 2: has actually said on their version of the events. Details

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Speaker 2: about the boat, the motives of those on board, and

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Speaker 2: whether Cuba claims of armed terrorism are accurate remain obviously unconfirmed,

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Speaker 2: which brings us to the US response. Marco Rubio and

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Speaker 2: Washington weighing in saying this.

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Speaker 4: So, this morning, we were made aware by Cuban authorities

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Speaker 4: of an incident off the coast to Cuba. We immediately

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Speaker 4: began to look into it. As it stands now, the

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Speaker 4: Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, others are involved.

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Speaker 4: The majority of the information we still possess is what

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Speaker 4: Cuban authorities are providing both the public and the US government.

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Speaker 4: We have our embassy on the ground in Havana working

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Speaker 4: this as we speak, asking for access to the people

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Speaker 4: that were on those vessels, if they were American citizens

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Speaker 4: or permanent residents. According to the Cuban regime, the boat

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Speaker 4: was registered in Florida. We're tracking that down. We will

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Speaker 4: know shortly, and we will quickly many more facts about

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Speaker 4: this incident. The majority of the facts we will verify

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Speaker 4: that independently and well as we gather more information, then

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Speaker 4: we'll be prepared to respond accordingly. I'm not to speculating,

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Speaker 4: I'm not gonna pine on what I don't know, but

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Speaker 4: we're going to find out exactly what happened here, and

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Speaker 4: then we'll respond accordingly.

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Speaker 2: Now, Rubio also stress that there is no indication that

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Speaker 2: this was a US government operation and that Washington had

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Speaker 2: no involvement in the speedboat's activity. At the same time,

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Speaker 2: he described events like this as highly unusual, saying that

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Speaker 2: shootouts on the open sea between Cuba forces and US

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Speaker 2: flag boats simply don't happen every day, and he urged

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Speaker 2: calm while this investigation continues.

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Speaker 5: Now.

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Speaker 2: Beyond Ribo's comments, other US leaders have reacted with concern

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Speaker 2: as well. The Vice President jet E Vance said the

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Speaker 2: White House is monitoring the situation closely that we did

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Speaker 2: not provide further details. Florida officials, including the state attorney

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Speaker 2: general and members of Congress have also so called for

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Speaker 2: a thorough investigation and accountability if Cuba use excessive or

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Speaker 2: unjustified force. Now this is not just a headline story.

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Speaker 2: It's a major flashpoint in already tense US Cuba relations.

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Speaker 2: And this is the reason why it's such a big deal.

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Speaker 2: Territorial sovereignty versus international law. That is what's at stake.

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Speaker 2: Cuba's claiming this was a violation of its territorial waters

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Speaker 2: and armed attempt to infiltrator carry out a violent activity

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Speaker 2: on their land, but the US has not corroborated that either.

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Speaker 2: The question now is did the ship actually engage in

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Speaker 2: any hostile actions towards Cuba or was it something else Entirely,

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Speaker 2: the facts are still very unclear, and that's exactly why

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Speaker 2: you have Rubio, the White House and JD. Van's all

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Speaker 2: saying we're not going to trust Cuba's word for this.

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Speaker 2: We're going to do our own investigation because we cannot

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Speaker 2: trust them. There's also the historical context here. There is

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Speaker 2: a long and fraught history between the US and Cuba

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Speaker 2: when it comes to maritime confrontations. As you know, one

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Speaker 2: of the most famous was back in nineteen ninety six

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Speaker 2: when Brothers to the Rescue shoot Down the Cuban forces

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Speaker 2: shot down two civilian planes near the island, killing four Americans.

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Speaker 2: That episode deeply scarred the US Cuba relations and well

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Speaker 2: reignited calls in Congress for a hard line approach to Cuba.

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Speaker 2: This new incident recalls that legacy, and given the current

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Speaker 2: hardline US posture towards Havannah under the Trump administration, it's

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Speaker 2: pretty clear the stakes are probably even higher now. Relations

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Speaker 2: have been increasingly strained. The US has titaned sanctions, cut

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Speaker 2: off all of the Venezuelan UL shipments that Cuba depends on,

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Speaker 2: and publicly labeled the island an extraordinary threat. Havana, for

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Speaker 2: its part, has reacted with defiance and rhetoric about sovereignty.

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Speaker 2: The latest episode set off a real diplomatic crisis if

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Speaker 2: it's not handled carefully. There's also the safety of US citizens.

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Speaker 2: At the heart of this is the question of human lives.

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Speaker 2: You have four people who are dead, six others that

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Speaker 2: are wounded, and their families deserve answers, because if it

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Speaker 2: turns out that these were US residents or citizens, then

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Speaker 2: the Trump administration will have to make some very tough

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Speaker 2: decisions about how to respond to Cuba's actions, especially if

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Speaker 2: their actions were aggressive in nature from the beginning. So

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Speaker 2: right now, here's what we know. The truth is unknown,

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Speaker 2: and the Cuban narrative is just one version and more

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Speaker 2: than likely a version the US government cannot trust at all.

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Speaker 2: That's why the Trump administration is making it clear that

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Speaker 2: the US government investigations are ramping up to find the

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Speaker 2: actual factual record, and in the coming days we're likely

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Speaker 2: to see US verification of identities of those aboard the speedboat,

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Speaker 2: statements also from Florida law enforcement and possibly federal intelligence

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Speaker 2: as well, and international reaction from the Caribbean community and

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Speaker 2: NATO partners, as well as congressional pressure on the administration

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Speaker 2: for accountability and an American response. The story is far

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Speaker 2: from over. One thing's for sure. Donald Trump has already

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Speaker 2: pledged it he'll get to the bottom of exactly what.

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Speaker 3: Happened next Story number two.

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Speaker 2: In a major federal action today, the Trump administration has

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Speaker 2: gone after the Biden era medicaid funding system that has

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Speaker 2: become ground zero for what Donald Trump has called a

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Speaker 2: war on fraud. Vice President JD. Vance, tasked by President

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Speaker 2: Trump with leading a nationwide crackdown on government fraud, and

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Speaker 2: doctor Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and

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Speaker 2: Medicaid Services, announced that the federal government is temporarily halting

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Speaker 2: about two hundred and fifty nine point five million in

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Speaker 2: Medicaid reimbursements to the state of Minnesota. Now, that's more

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Speaker 2: than a quarter of a billion dollars that the federal

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Speaker 2: government had planned to send a Minnesota for medicaid spending,

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Speaker 2: and it's being paused until the state can prove that

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Speaker 2: it's properly policing the program and preventing taxpayer dollars from

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Speaker 2: being wasted or flat out stolen. At a joint press conference,

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Speaker 2: Vance said the move is aimed squarely at ensuring Minnesota

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Speaker 2: takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the

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Speaker 2: American people's tax money. Here's more of what doctor Oz

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Speaker 2: and the Vice President had to say in a major

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Speaker 2: move to stop corruption in Minnesota.

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Speaker 5: Numbers.

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Speaker 6: There's a fraud scheme in Minnesota where criminals soon to

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Speaker 6: be criminals pay moms one thousand dollars roughly in order

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Speaker 6: to enroll their children as being autistic, falsely dishonestly claiming

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Speaker 6: their children are autistic. They then bill Medicaid as that

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Speaker 6: already happened, millions of dollars for services that were never rendered,

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Speaker 6: never delivered by a qualified staff member. These schemes disproportionately

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Speaker 6: involved immigrant communities. They're insulated, they're able to organize efforts

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Speaker 6: and sometimes they don't understand what's going on, and ultimately

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Speaker 6: diverse resources away from kids who truly have autism, because

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Speaker 6: if every kid in the neighborhood has autism, then nobody

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Speaker 6: has autism in terms of how you can manage them.

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Speaker 6: There was one behavioral and by the way, these kids,

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Speaker 6: they carry that diagnosis of autism the rest of their lives.

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Speaker 6: Their mom made a bad decision, the kid pays the

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Speaker 6: price for the rest of their life. There's one behavioral

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Speaker 6: health organization missed the vice president of Minnesota. They received

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Speaker 6: delivered and a half million dollars in medicaid payments, but

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Speaker 6: the top biller, the top biller submitted four hundred and

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Speaker 6: fifty days where they claim they were working more than

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Speaker 6: twenty four hours a day. I mean even in the

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Speaker 6: White House, that's tough. It's hard to work more than

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Speaker 6: twenty four hours a day. How they didn't get picked

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Speaker 6: up is shocking to us at CMS. There are other

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Speaker 6: red flags in Minnesota, including hundreds of beneficiaries receiving treatment

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Speaker 6: linked to one location, which was impossible physically to be true.

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Speaker 6: We had eight beneficiaries in one of these substances used

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Speaker 6: to sort of eight who are already dead, but the

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Speaker 6: center was still building us. Not only did they let

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Speaker 6: the person pass, they kept building for it. That's the

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Speaker 6: level of average we're talking about. So CMS is done

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Speaker 6: paying and chasing. We don't think jail sentences are the

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Speaker 6: right way out. These criminals flee the country, many are

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Speaker 6: foreign nationals. Instead of launching the largest action against fraud

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Speaker 6: that we've ever taken, the money's not going to ever

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Speaker 6: leave the building again. We're going to start dreaming the

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Speaker 6: swamp of the crooks that have inhabited it and are

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Speaker 6: defrauding us.

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Speaker 5: They are three bold actions.

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Speaker 6: The first, for many of you may be the most

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Speaker 6: important is we're going, for the first time take a

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Speaker 6: massive action to defer funds to a state. Let's start

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Speaker 6: with this Medicaid program in Minnesota, which serves pregnant women.

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Speaker 5: Medicaid tastes care of our children. Fifty three percent of.

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Speaker 6: Kids are born in the poverty they are supported through Medicaid,

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Speaker 6: disadvantaged seniors, individual disabilities. Is unponderable that you would take

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Speaker 6: advantage of these precious programs, Yet they are putting it

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Speaker 6: at risk, all of it by stealing the money. So

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Speaker 6: it's our due to preserve medicaid, and what we're going

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Speaker 6: to do is identify the scammeras which we have done

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Speaker 6: in Minnesota. We identified that they've hijacked in particular, a

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Speaker 6: certain part of the Minnesota Medicaid system said differently, and

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Speaker 6: I'll just put the numbers out there. It's going to

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Speaker 6: be two hundred and fifty nine million dollars of deferred

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Speaker 6: payments for Medicaid to Minnesota, which we're announcing as I

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Speaker 6: speak to Governor Wilson his team that's based on an

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Speaker 6: audit of the last three months of twenty twenty five,

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Speaker 6: restated a quarter billion dollars is not going to be

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Speaker 6: paid this month to Minnesota for its Medicaid claims. Now

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Speaker 6: that's a million rather a quarter billion dollars of money.

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Speaker 6: That's your money, it's your tax payer money. And these

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Speaker 6: home and community based services, which again are services that

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Speaker 6: are typically things you would do for your family, but

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Speaker 6: for whatever reason, your family's not there to provide them,

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Speaker 6: are very hard to audit. And for that reason, there's

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Speaker 6: been a lot of slippage. The guardrails have not been

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Speaker 6: well maintained, and if you're not serious about the integrity

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Speaker 6: of the program, you'll see these problems happening in your state,

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Speaker 6: which is why Minnesota is not alone.

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Speaker 5: Although they're the first to receive this action.

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Speaker 6: These high growth areas of fraud are difficult to police,

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Speaker 6: so we require the states to take these issues seriously.

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Speaker 6: This quarter billion dollar deferment is hopefully going to get

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Speaker 6: on the radar screen for the state of Minnesota and

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Speaker 6: make sure they are responsive to our requests. We did

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Speaker 6: what any honest and patient focused agency would do. We

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Speaker 6: have notified the state and that we will give them

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Speaker 6: the money, but we're going to hold it and only

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Speaker 6: release it after they propose an act on a comprehensive

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Speaker 6: corrective action plan to solve the problem. If Minnesota fails

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Speaker 6: to clean up the systems, the state will rack up

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Speaker 6: a billion dollars of deferred payments this year. Governor Walls

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Speaker 6: has sixty days sixty days, sir, to respond to our letter.

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Speaker 6: And if providers and beneficiaries are worried about getting their

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Speaker 6: money in services, please call your governor. These are services

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Speaker 6: the governor has already paid for. We are just not

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Speaker 6: reimbursing the state. To make it clear, there is a

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Speaker 6: rainy day fund in Minnesota, so We are very confident

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Speaker 6: that people will not be hurt in Minnesota.

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Speaker 5: This is not a problem with the people in Minnesota.

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Speaker 6: It's a problem with the leadership of Minnesota and other

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Speaker 6: states who do not take Medicaid preservation seriously.

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Speaker 2: You'll listen to doctor Oz there and he lays it

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Speaker 2: out perfectly exactly who they're at war with. It is

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Speaker 2: not the people in Minnesota. It is those in charge

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Speaker 2: of Minnesota. They're allowing this to happen. Vice President JD.

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Speaker 2: Van's putting it this way.

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Speaker 7: We're announcing today that we have decided to temporary, temporarily

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Speaker 7: halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to

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Speaker 7: the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the

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Speaker 7: state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good

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Speaker 7: stewards of the American people's tax money. Now, what is

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Speaker 7: this going to mean. What this means is that, first

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Speaker 7: of all, the providers on the ground in Minnesota have

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Speaker 7: actually already been paid. The state has paid those providers

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Speaker 7: the money. What we're doing is we are stopping the

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Speaker 7: federal payments that will go to the state government until

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Speaker 7: the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the

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Speaker 7: fraud that's being or traded against the American taxpayers.

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Speaker 2: Now, the Vice President and doctor Oz officially halting a

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Speaker 2: quarter of a billion dollars in federal medicaid payments to

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Speaker 2: Tim Wallat's in the city of Minnesota is massive. They're

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Speaker 2: cutting off the cash. This is massive because of the fraud,

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Speaker 2: and they know the money is going to fraud. So

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Speaker 2: they're saying, the governor, open your books, show us, do

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Speaker 2: an investigation, make sure we understand exactly what's happening here.

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Speaker 2: And if you can show that the money's not going

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Speaker 2: to massive fraud, fine you can have the money. This

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Speaker 2: is exactly, by the way, what so many Americans were

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Speaker 2: hoping would happen when Trump was elected. Accountability and Donald

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Speaker 2: Trump is now doing it right now in real time

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Speaker 2: to Minnesota.

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Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to the forty seven Morning Update

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Speaker 3: with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever

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Speaker 3: in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson and

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