The Drill Down with Peter Schweizer

How Trump's Iran Strike Reshapes Global Power Dynamics

Words like “mind control” and “brainwashing” get tossed around, but it is a very real science and a very dangerous game that former CIA operative and now conservative talk show host Buck Sexton calls by its scientific name of “menticide,” the murder of the mind. Psychological attacks are real, and the concept of menticide dates to a Dutch psychologist who studied how totalitarian governments control the thoughts of their populations. Joost Meerloo witnessed and studied the way Josef Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong used the insights from Pavlov’s experiments on dogs against people. His most famous work is called The Rape of the Mind.

Did politics destroy journalism, or was it the other way around? Author and investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, host of The Drill Down, sees the case for both but believes journalism has done more damage to itself than politicians could manage to do to them. Schweizer says, “a friend of mine who used to be a producer on 60 Minutes said he thought that journalists became less interested in actual hard news coverage.” On the latest episode of the Drill Down podcast, his guest Mark Halperin, who had a front row seat to see it happening, agrees.

Bad Bunny

In the week since The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon. debuted atop the bestseller lists, Mexico’s president and ambassador to the US have tried to dismiss the book’s findings about Mexican consulates interfering in US domestic politics, waving off multiple quotes from numerous Mexican politicians and consular officials themselves. In a statement released by her office, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said, “I categorically deny any involvement or attempt by Mexico to interfere in the internal affairs of the United States.” Schweizer has already been asked to testify at a Senate hearing in March on several of The Invisible Coup’s most eye-popping revelations. On the most recent episode of The Drill Down, Schweizer responds to the Mexican government’s denials.

In its first week, Peter Schweizer’s new book, The Invisible Coup, is the number one book in the country. A little celebration might be in order, but Schweizer and co-host Eric Eggers relate the book’s blockbuster revelations to what is happening now in Minneapolis. Why is ICE even there in the first place? The Department of Homeland Security said  its largest immigration enforcement operation ever, called “Operation Metro Surge,” was tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents, which The DrillDown has discussed previously. Massive defrauding of aid programs including daycare, food, housing, and ambulance services was perpetrated largely by Somalis living in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

The Invisible Coup - Weaponized Migration in America

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?

Legal or Illegal - The Debate on Military Strikes

Unmasking Welfare Fraud -The Minnesota Scandal and Its Implications

Thanksgiving Politics - A Family Affair

Unpacking the Arctic Frost Investigation Political Scandal

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.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk and other killings by young and seemingly well-educated but radicalized young people has led many to ask: Why does this keep happening? The problems begin not in college, but in the K-12 schooling that is infested with a mind-altering system of control. It is called “social emotional learning” (SEL), and a new book by Priscilla West warns that it will take decades to undo the damage it has done to childhood education.

Voting security is always a hot topic around election time, but manipulation of our electoral system is a bigger problem that we have to worry about all the time. On the most recent episode of The Drill Down podcast, we are not talking about stolen ballots, “ballot harvesting,” or other shenanigans that can happen during an election, but about how congressional districts are both drawn and apportioned. Two things recently in the news raise questions about how we do those things, and whether it’s still the best way.

Riot Inc - The Hidden Networks Fueling Unrest