The Drill Down with Peter Schweizer - podcast cover

The Drill Down with Peter Schweizer

Government Accountability Institutethedrilldown.com
Peter Schweizer is the author of, among other books, "Clinton Cash," "Extortion," "Throw Them All Out," and "Architects of Ruin." He has been featured throughout the media, including on "60 Minutes" and in the "New York Times." He is the cofounder and president of the Government Accountability Institute.
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Episodes

Trump's Disruption of Foreign Policy Ends Iran's Nuclear Threat

President Donald Trump just blew up Iran’s nuclear program. That was the easy part. What Trump has done in arranging a tenuous ceasefire between Iran and Israel, after hammering the table with 14 MOPs dropped on Iran’s most critical underground nuclear enrichment plants, is “a return to 19th Century Great Power projection,” says author and investigative reporter Peter Schweizer on the most recent episode of The Drill Down podcast. Co-host Eric Eggers adds, “the rizz is back.”

Jun 25, 202529 min

Schweizer: No Kings Lesson For Leftist Billionaires – You Can’t Buy an Uprising

No Kings? No problem. The weekend protests called “No Kings” produced crowds of a few thousand in some reliably “blue” cities like Portland, Boston, Seattle, and others, but not much else. Tragically, though, a killer who was once a political appointee of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz shot and killed the former state House speaker and her husband and seriously wounded a state senator and his wife – and killed his dog – in an act of politically motivated violence. On the latest episode of The Drill Dow...

Jun 17, 202529 min

LA Riots Coming to You Soon?

As the riots raged in Los Angeles, four things became clear – LA’s leaders are feckless; foreign money is behind the rioters; protesters are expressing a soup of different grievances, and all this may happen elsewhere. As with the BLM riots in 2020, the LA disturbances are not spontaneous or chaotic. They have been planned, supported, and even staffed by activist organizations whose goals have nothing to do with immigration law or the plight of day laborers lingering in Home Depot parking lots. ...

Jun 11, 202525 min

Schweizer: Media Still Lying About Biden

While recent news of former President Joe Biden’s dire cancer diagnosis certainly inspired sympathy, it also has raised suspicions about the timing and motivation of the disclosure. As Peter Schweizer notes on the most recent episode of The Drill Down, the lack of honesty about Joe Biden’s health and the media’s coverage of it extends even to a new book by Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios. “We have lies upon lies upon lies upon lies,” says Schweizer, who exposed the Biden family’s i...

May 21, 202530 min

Schweizer: Even for non-Catholics, the Next Pope Matters

Even for non-Catholics, the pope is a figure of world significance who can affect politics in every nation around the globe, as Francis, the first pope from Latin America, clearly did. On the latest episode of The Drill Down, hosts Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers of the Government Accountability Institute avoid theology but instead follow the money the church received from the Biden administration, and it leads to the church’s role in the immigration crisis in the US.

Apr 30, 202527 min

Harvard Fights to Discriminate

The Trump administration’s fight with elite universities might be its toughest yet because it’s about money—federal research funds that have been given to major universities for decades. On the most recent podcast of The Drill Down, host Peter Schweizer approves of the effort: “We say that’s a good thing.” President Donald Trump’s budget hawks seek to cut wasteful spending, but that is only part of their goal. What they really want is to see elite universities return to merit-based admissions an...

Apr 22, 202525 min

Billy Long at the IRS

No one likes tax time, but one fresh character might offer at least some entertainment. Former congressman Billy Long of Missouri, who famously deployed his skills as a professional auctioneer on the House floor during a debate, is President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Internal Revenue Service after its acting director Melanie Krause resignation over the administration’s effort to use tax information to identify people in the country illegally. On the most recent episode of The Drill Down, c...

Apr 16, 202528 min

The Real Issue Behind the Tariffs

President Donald Trump unveiled a full slate of eye-popping tariffs on countries large and small last Friday, and the reactions over the weekend have been intense. Welcome to “Tariff Panic Week.” Many people have noted the precipitous drop in the stock market and their own IRAs since the tariffs were announced. One reporter who questioned Trump aboard Air Force One over the weekend even asked him whether he’d call off the tariffs if the Dow Jones index kept dropping. “That’s a stupid question,” ...

Apr 08, 202528 min

MAHA, Pharma Ads, and Soda

What do Big Pharma ads on TV and Diet Coke have in common? Both are targets of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the new head of the Health and Human Services department. In his early efforts to press the “Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy has singled out two seemingly different issues: those ubiquitous television ads for pharmaceuticals, and whether people on federal food assistance programs should be able to buy soda and junk food on the taxpayer dime.

Apr 02, 202525 min

DOGE Going After SNAP Fraud

As DOGE’s efforts shift to eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in social welfare problems including SNAP, Social Security, and Medicaid, The Drill Down podcast welcomes a nationally recognized expert in spotting how those programs are rife with fraud. Andrew McClenahan is, among other things, intergovernmental committee co-chair for an organization called the United Council on Welfare Fraud, and has investigated fraud in the food stamp program, including one bust several years ago that stopped a...

Mar 19, 202528 min

"Fool's Gold" Blows Lid on Cali Corruption

If you think you know how bad things are in California, you don’t. If you think you know how corrupt the state’s leading politicians are, it’s worse than that. Sticky-fingered pols pushing woke policies have turned the Golden State into fool’s gold. That’s the title of a new book out March 11 by two investigative reporters—Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics, and the Government Accountability Institute’s own Jedd McFatter. Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the Calif...

Mar 13, 202526 min

In the DOGE era, the Pentagon holds all the (credit) cards

“Tooth and tail.” That’s the phrase new defense secretary Pete Hegseth uses to describe how money is spent (and wasted) by the Pentagon. It captures the difference between spending money to support warfighters and spending it on the mushrooming support operations that are supposed to keep the troops ready.

Mar 05, 202525 min

DOGE is more than tough love

In the annals of government reform efforts, the efforts of Elon Musk and his task force of DOGE techies are more than tough love. Because the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has (mostly) been given access to the books of government agencies, it has spotted billions of dollars in questionable grants, make-work programs, and outright gifts to politically connected activists who provided political support to their government paymasters. On the most recent episode of The Drill Down, ho...

Feb 26, 202529 min

Schweizer: DoGE, "Big Balls," and the End of the World (As We Know It)

“Big Balls,” Chris Coons and a “constitutional crisis.” For out-of-power Democrats and many in the press, the pace of Donald Trump’s new administration has them shouting, “It’s the end of the world as we know it!” Drill Down host Peter Schweizer and co-host Eric Eggers feel fine, but as Elon Musk’s small posse of DoGE analysts, including a 19-year-old hacker who goes by the name of “Big Balls” online, continues to find large examples of fraud and wasteful spending in federal agency budgets, Egge...

Feb 12, 202533 min

FoodBabe: FDA Was Captured By Big Food

As the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. goes to the full Senate, healthy food activist and entrepreneur Vani Hari is thrilled by the attention his focus on “Making America Healthy Again” is getting. Through her blog, called FoodBabe, she and has been a relentless advocate for healthier, safer products from America’s largest food companies, and frustrated by the capture of the Food and Drug Administration by lobbyists for Big Food.

Feb 05, 202530 min

Schweizer: Is China’s DeepSeek a Deep Con?

Is DeepSeek really a deep con? A psyop tossed out to shake up the financial markets? The release of a Chinese-made artificial intelligence engine called DeepSeek sent a bulldozer through Wall Street this week. Rival AI companies lost hundreds of billions of dollars in market value after sell-offs, once the new kid came on the block. But as Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers note on this episode of The Drill Down, the timing is suspicious. “This could be a replay of the lab leak back in 2020,” Schwe...

Jan 29, 202529 min

Comer: AG Pam Bondi Could Nail The Bidens

On his way out the door of the White House, former President Joe Biden pardoned five members of his family not named “Hunter.” All five – brother James and his wife, Sara; sister Valerie and her husband, John; and brother Frank – were implicated in various influence-peddling schemes just like the previously pardoned Hunter. It was Joe Biden’s last act of loyalty… to his family co-conspirators.

Jan 23, 202533 min

Uncorrupting the FBI

It’s a tale of three attacks. The murderous rampage through the French Quarter, the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck in Las Vegas, and the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol. To a former FBI and Justice department guy like Kenneth Strange, who spent time on the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), each of those incidents are very different, with unique causes and motives. Strange believes the FBI has lost its way and allowed political pressure to distort how it allocates its re...

Jan 08, 202531 min

The Right Wing’s Outlaws – Captured as Art

Pictures make ideas real. And portraits make people real. Artist and photographer Dan Fleuette joins the Drill Down to describe how he creates art through personalities on the political right. A self-described “art school lunatic,” Fleuette was the artist that turned Peter Schweizer’s bestselling investigative book Clinton Cash into both a documentary and even a graphic novel.

Dec 23, 202426 min

Citizen Clinton and the “Blur”: Bill Clinton's Memoir Attacks Peter Schweizer

Bill and Hillary Clinton were once masters of the “dark arts” of politics – spinning history and enriching themselves while running a global charity that became famous as a grift machine. Their skill even had a name: “The Clinton Blur.” Though long out of office himself, former President Bill Clinton is at it again. “The news for GAI is that Bill Clinton is back,” says author Peter Schweizer, whose 2015 bestseller Clinton Cash exposed the financial shenanigans behind the Clinton Global Initiativ...

Dec 19, 202433 min

Eggers and Bruner: Liberals Raging About Health Care Should Look in the Mirror

The cold-blooded murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson has produced some ugly reactions. Liberal politicians and commentators seized upon Thompson’s murder as an excuse to complain about insurance companies. But their outrage should be directed at the federal government, says Seamus Bruner on the most recent episode of The Drill Down.

Dec 12, 202424 min

Schweizer: The Truth About the Hunter Pardon – A Proxy Deal for the Whole Family

Joe Biden’s blanket pardon of his son, Hunter, was really a proxy pardon for the whole Biden family that hamstrings ongoing investigations into Biden family influence peddling schemes, according to Peter Schweizer. In the latest episode of the Drill Down podcast, Schweizer points out that the schemes implicated not just Hunter but Joe himself, his brothers Frank and James, and other members of the Biden family. The pardon, “historically unprecedented” in its scope, is “a stunning acknowledgment ...

Dec 04, 202436 min
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