{"id":90112,"date":"2026-04-02T23:42:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/rcp-podcast-on-newsoms-empire-of-fraud-nobody-likes-getting-ripped-off-democrats-republicans-or-independents\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T23:42:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:42:01","slug":"rcp-podcast-on-newsoms-empire-of-fraud-nobody-likes-getting-ripped-off-democrats-republicans-or-independents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/rcp-podcast-on-newsoms-empire-of-fraud-nobody-likes-getting-ripped-off-democrats-republicans-or-independents\/","title":{"rendered":"RCP Podcast on Newsom&#8217;s &#8220;Empire Of Fraud&#8221;: Nobody Likes Getting Ripped Off\u2014Democrats, Republicans, or Independents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/video\/2026\/04\/02\/rcp_podcast_did_trump_change_any_minds_on_iran_one_year_after_liberation_day__california_fraud_bonanza.html\">The RCP podcast on Thursday<\/a> checked out a new report that California has lost at least $  180 billion to &#8220;massive, systematic, brazen fraud&#8221; of all kinds under the current governor, which reporter Chris Rufo calls, <A href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/article\/gavin-newsom-california-fraud\">&#8220;Gavin Newsom&#8217;s Empire of Fraud&#8221;<\/a>  &#8220;That&#8217;s a lot of money when you consider the annual state budget is about $  300 billion,&#8221; Walworth added. &#8220;It&#8217;s a litany of corruption&#8230; A long list of things where people are just cheating the government.&#8221;  &#8220;And there doesn&#8217;t seem to be an emphasis on making sure money goes where it should,&#8221; Carl Cannon added. &#8220;And what California keeps doing is raising taxes-high income tax, high sales tax. You get a speeding ticket or run a red light, and the bill isn&#8217;t $  50-it&#8217;s $  500.&#8221;  &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t hurt Newsom in a Democratic presidential primary, but certainly his governorship and leadership of California will be litigated in a general election if he&#8217;s the nominee,&#8221; Tom Bevan said. &#8220;Fraud wasn&#8217;t invented on Gavin Newsom&#8217;s watch, but a lot of this started when he was governor-during COVID, when we started shoveling money out the door.&#8221;  &#8220;Yeah, as the leader of that state, he&#8217;s going to have to answer for it. I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s $  180 billion-we&#8217;ll get more information-but it&#8217;s a significant sum,&#8221; Bevan said. &#8220;Fraud is one of those issues that can be very potent politically. Nobody likes getting ripped off-Democrats, Republicans, independents. They don&#8217;t like paying high taxes and finding out a big chunk of it is being wasted. That angers people, and people respond to that.&#8221;<br \/>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/video\/2026\/04\/02\/rcp_podcast_on_newsoms_empire_of_fraud_nobody_likes_getting_ripped_offdemocrats_republicans_or_independents.html\">RealClearPolitics Videos<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The RCP podcast on Thursday checked out a new report that California has lost at least $ 180 billion to &#8220;massive, systematic, brazen fraud&#8221; of all kinds under the current governor, which reporter Chris Rufo calls, &#8220;Gavin Newsom&#8217;s Empire of Fraud&#8221; &#8220;That&#8217;s a lot of money when you consider the annual state budget is about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2225,8242,953,26300,8092,24745,3341,28612,14433,6346,6817],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}