To respond to “affordability issues,” the Trump administration floated 50-year mortgages for buying homes. Last week, Donald Trump suggested capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent. Financial writer and two-time New York Times bestselling author Carol Roth thinks both are a “terrible idea.” She joins The Drill Down to discuss good financial sense.

The story of welfare fraud in Minnesota keeps getting bigger. And no one in state government has worked harder and longer trying to sound the alarm about it than state Sen. Steve Drazkowski. He joins The Drill Down to discuss the growing evidence of widespread fraud in his state that may include not only welfare and child care fraud but vote fraud as well. Minn. Gov. Tim Walz, who was the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee in 2024, just abandoned his bid for a third term in the wake of the growing scandal, which exposed potentially billions of dollars in fraud committed mostly by Somalis in the Minneapolis area through fake feeding programs, daycare centers, and other social programs. Reporters have also identified political contributions to many of the state’s most prominent politicians from Somali immigrants who have been implicated and/or prosecuted in the scams.

2025 Highlights

Massive welfare fraud in Minnesota by Somali immigrants was not supposed to happen because of government “guardrails.” Political violence by an Afghan refugee was not supposed to happen because such people were vetted before being allowed into the US. And voter fraud won’t be a problem because there are safeguards to prevent it. Those three separate issues all prompt us to ask… What happens when those “guardrails” are missing, the “vetting” is left undone, or the “safeguards” ignored?

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It’s harder than ever to buy a home, thanks to immigration, environmental regulations, and zoning restrictions. The word “crisis” gets used too often, but housing certainly qualifies. On the heels of an election won by Democrats who stressed “affordability,” the Trump administration has floated the idea of introducing 50-year mortgages to lower the entry cost of buying a home. Is that a good idea?

During the government shutdown, Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins has been reviewing data from 29 states administering the food stamp program. Rollins’s review has found EBT cards that have been carrying balances of more than $10,000. It found cards that haven’t been used in years. It found cards issued to people who never existed. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as food stamps are formally known, has been around since the 1930s but ballooned during the Biden administration years and now serves 42 million people in the US, one-eighth of the population. What’s happening? Is the program running efficiently and properly? Will the shutdown really “starve children” as the Trump administration’s critics are charging?
Joining host Eric Eggers on The Drill Down podcast is returning guest Andrew McClenahan from the United Council on Welfare Fraud. McClenahan’s organization represents state-level investigators of welfare fraud. And it turns out there is a lot of it to investigate.