I’m actually heartbroken by the story and its implications. And angry too. Tim Walz had known about this fraud for years, but it didn’t stop him from touting the free meals all children received under his watch. Didn’t he worry that this story was going to be dug up again? And yet, he mentioned it in every speech I heard him give. And I was so happy about it, I was cheering him on, like, show them, this is how it’s done! It can all be done! We should do this nationwide!
Meanwhile, this fraud underneath it all.
I just read today that 92% of Somalis are American citizens, and most of them were born here. They have adapted well, learning how to abuse the system, and with a twist! The twist is, actively threatening to destroy the Democratic machine with accusations of racism. And, the wusses of course backed down instead of calling their bluff which would have been super easy. How is it racism when you actually stole all this money, a staggering fucking amount!! And you want to talk about racism? Let’s have that conversation then, because there aren’t a lot of fraudsters out there who mishandled that much money with one single scheme. And then blackmail on top of that! It’s almost Trumpian!
I’m disturbed by the fact that a program that was supposed to help hungry kids was misused which gives grist to the mill of all the Republicans who famously don’t give a shit about kids going hungry (after they’re forced to be born), but also, how beholden the leadership is to not only their consultants and donors, but also to their minority constituents. They’re afraid of Somalis now, they’re afraid of trans people, their afraid of course of their “republican colleagues,” we know that, there is very little they’re not afraid of. Unfortunately, ordinary voters who don’t tick the right box on their identity check list - they’re not afraid of them…
Guys, I know you are intending to be balanced but I can’t find any new information that actually indicates that the fraud wasn’t found and addressed… the amount of pandemic fraud in every way isn’t even mentioned.. An appropriate outline of this article would be 1- The right and the administration is trying to smear based on a previously identified and successfully prosecuted fraud 2- The DOJ is looking for more examples but hasn’t found it yet but the trump admin is already punishing blue states 3- we need to protect social service programs 4- the admin is going to try and use this to turn people against Dems for the midterms
The argument for providing the services to everyone through government systems bring the new proposals from Mamdani to mind. He and Hochul (sp?) have already put the plan for 4K forward, and are working on the childcare for 3K. It makes sense. Every time we have conservatives wanting to privatize a service the contracts go to their friends and we see less than optimum services provided. But they keep saying it’s better - like trickle down economics, which demonstrably don’t work, neither does privatizing our services.
Excellent fact based report, but I want to know more. I want to know exactly what the fraud was, how they did it and who (the names) of who did it and the price they are or will pay for having done it. I suggest you keep going with this and develop a chart that gives an view of the dollars, % involved and prison time.
Whenever Trump accuses a Dem of something, it’s because he’s doing the same thing 10 times worse. Remember the PPP fraud? Qatar bailing out the Kushner family’s stupid investment in 666 5th Avenue, the Saudi billions given to Kushner, pardons for Trump coin purchases?
It takes competent staff and updated systems to catch fraud—how has Trump’s and the Republicans war on government funding impacted audit and financial controls? Total hypocrisy.
It's the same old story... blast out some narrative that pushes people's buttons. Truth is optional, and actually discouraged, because it takes too much time to check things out. Why bother when you have lots of people waiting on the next hit of grievance or anger?
I think there was a lot of fraud everywhere during the pandemic because we didn't have the compliance infrastructure to check up on that much aid going out during the pandemic to a lot of people who hadn't done that type of work before and in some cases, had no intention of doing any of the work. I would bet a lot of fraud was done by white guys, but we can never acknowledge them as a demographic of anything bad for some reason.
I think this is a shame because I think Tim Walz is, overall, a decent guy and would have been a good standard bearer for the sports-bro crowd we don't recruit well, I don't think he's overall the most responsible for this, but what he says isn't untrue and it's annoying because no republican would have done the same and yet their continuous corruption never becomes an issue for anyone on their side.
This is 100% manufactured hype fueled by inflated "view" metrics on Twitter. The Minnesota House Republican Caucus admitted they spoon-fed this fraud-related data to David Hoch, which then fueled the content for Shirley’s video. It’s a coordinated hit job masquerading as organic outrage.
Let’s look at the actual numbers. On YouTube, where people actually have to click and watch, the entire 45-minute video sits at around 3 million views. But on X? Elon’s repost claims 138 million views; Vance’s claims tens of millions more. But how exactly does Twitter count a "view?" It’s a joke: a view registers if a user watches for just 2 seconds with 50% of the video on screen. Even if you scroll past it while looking for a meme, you’re counted as a "viewer." Since the video was hosted directly on X, we'll never know the real count, but 2026 industry benchmarks suggest completion rates for long-form content are 2% or less.
The reality? Of those 138 million "views," it’s highly probable fewer than 2.7 million people watched the video in its entirety. Most people saw 15–30 seconds of Nick Shirley standing in front of a locked door, felt the "outrage," and hit repost.
We are seeing the "FEMA Coffin" playbook brought back to life. Just as Alex Jones filmed empty lots to claim they were death camps, Shirley used selective filming during nap times or at closed locations to manufacture a narrative of "ghost fraud" out of thin air. He intentionally ignored context—like security footage proving children were present earlier that day, or staff refusing entry to masked men out of fear of ICE raids—to provide the "visual evidence" necessary to trigger a massive federal response without the burden of an actual audit.
We are treading some seriously dangerous, fucked up waters right now. This is post-truth governance, where viral "vibes" supersede administrative reality. They used the perception of mass viewership to freeze $10 billion in funding to five blue states (MN, CA, CO, IL, NY), claiming a mandate based on vanity metrics. In this environment, the objective truth matters less than the speed at which outrage can be weaponized. When a two-second scroll is treated as a democratic mandate to justify federal crackdowns, the system is officially broken.
If you believe in the power of the government to do anything good and impactful in healthcare, social services, education, heck even in policing or the military you have to insist on airtight transparency and accounting. For 50 years I've been watching Republicans seize upon the Welfare Queen narrative and Americans fall for it.
Jonathan, thank you for digging deep and writing this. Love the comparison to safety nets provided by governments vs. those contracted out to the sincere and fraudulent alike. Excellent coverage of actual cases and reasons proponents of government action must do better, all the while making clear that Trump and his cronies are still exaggerating and lying to their hearts' content. Social progress is hard, and I'm glad Walz is dropping out of race to focus on battening down some hatches that were left open too long and for some of the wrong reasons. Can't wait to see a proper audit of how ICE is spending their bolus of funds just now...
Another good JC read
I’m actually heartbroken by the story and its implications. And angry too. Tim Walz had known about this fraud for years, but it didn’t stop him from touting the free meals all children received under his watch. Didn’t he worry that this story was going to be dug up again? And yet, he mentioned it in every speech I heard him give. And I was so happy about it, I was cheering him on, like, show them, this is how it’s done! It can all be done! We should do this nationwide!
Meanwhile, this fraud underneath it all.
I just read today that 92% of Somalis are American citizens, and most of them were born here. They have adapted well, learning how to abuse the system, and with a twist! The twist is, actively threatening to destroy the Democratic machine with accusations of racism. And, the wusses of course backed down instead of calling their bluff which would have been super easy. How is it racism when you actually stole all this money, a staggering fucking amount!! And you want to talk about racism? Let’s have that conversation then, because there aren’t a lot of fraudsters out there who mishandled that much money with one single scheme. And then blackmail on top of that! It’s almost Trumpian!
I’m disturbed by the fact that a program that was supposed to help hungry kids was misused which gives grist to the mill of all the Republicans who famously don’t give a shit about kids going hungry (after they’re forced to be born), but also, how beholden the leadership is to not only their consultants and donors, but also to their minority constituents. They’re afraid of Somalis now, they’re afraid of trans people, their afraid of course of their “republican colleagues,” we know that, there is very little they’re not afraid of. Unfortunately, ordinary voters who don’t tick the right box on their identity check list - they’re not afraid of them…
Guys, I know you are intending to be balanced but I can’t find any new information that actually indicates that the fraud wasn’t found and addressed… the amount of pandemic fraud in every way isn’t even mentioned.. An appropriate outline of this article would be 1- The right and the administration is trying to smear based on a previously identified and successfully prosecuted fraud 2- The DOJ is looking for more examples but hasn’t found it yet but the trump admin is already punishing blue states 3- we need to protect social service programs 4- the admin is going to try and use this to turn people against Dems for the midterms
The argument for providing the services to everyone through government systems bring the new proposals from Mamdani to mind. He and Hochul (sp?) have already put the plan for 4K forward, and are working on the childcare for 3K. It makes sense. Every time we have conservatives wanting to privatize a service the contracts go to their friends and we see less than optimum services provided. But they keep saying it’s better - like trickle down economics, which demonstrably don’t work, neither does privatizing our services.
This was a very balanced and thoughtful explainer - and is much appreciated.
Excellent fact based report, but I want to know more. I want to know exactly what the fraud was, how they did it and who (the names) of who did it and the price they are or will pay for having done it. I suggest you keep going with this and develop a chart that gives an view of the dollars, % involved and prison time.
Whenever Trump accuses a Dem of something, it’s because he’s doing the same thing 10 times worse. Remember the PPP fraud? Qatar bailing out the Kushner family’s stupid investment in 666 5th Avenue, the Saudi billions given to Kushner, pardons for Trump coin purchases?
It takes competent staff and updated systems to catch fraud—how has Trump’s and the Republicans war on government funding impacted audit and financial controls? Total hypocrisy.
It's interesting to see the reaction to this as compared to other alleged fraud, by orders of magnitude: https://howtotrainyourrobot.com/a-mathematical-look-at-recent-alleged-fraud/
It's the same old story... blast out some narrative that pushes people's buttons. Truth is optional, and actually discouraged, because it takes too much time to check things out. Why bother when you have lots of people waiting on the next hit of grievance or anger?
This is the most comprehensive of the explanations I have yet seen...
I am trying to figure out what special Medicaid program would include housing though, unless perhaps for disabled people... I've not heard of it?
I think there was a lot of fraud everywhere during the pandemic because we didn't have the compliance infrastructure to check up on that much aid going out during the pandemic to a lot of people who hadn't done that type of work before and in some cases, had no intention of doing any of the work. I would bet a lot of fraud was done by white guys, but we can never acknowledge them as a demographic of anything bad for some reason.
I think this is a shame because I think Tim Walz is, overall, a decent guy and would have been a good standard bearer for the sports-bro crowd we don't recruit well, I don't think he's overall the most responsible for this, but what he says isn't untrue and it's annoying because no republican would have done the same and yet their continuous corruption never becomes an issue for anyone on their side.
This is 100% manufactured hype fueled by inflated "view" metrics on Twitter. The Minnesota House Republican Caucus admitted they spoon-fed this fraud-related data to David Hoch, which then fueled the content for Shirley’s video. It’s a coordinated hit job masquerading as organic outrage.
Let’s look at the actual numbers. On YouTube, where people actually have to click and watch, the entire 45-minute video sits at around 3 million views. But on X? Elon’s repost claims 138 million views; Vance’s claims tens of millions more. But how exactly does Twitter count a "view?" It’s a joke: a view registers if a user watches for just 2 seconds with 50% of the video on screen. Even if you scroll past it while looking for a meme, you’re counted as a "viewer." Since the video was hosted directly on X, we'll never know the real count, but 2026 industry benchmarks suggest completion rates for long-form content are 2% or less.
The reality? Of those 138 million "views," it’s highly probable fewer than 2.7 million people watched the video in its entirety. Most people saw 15–30 seconds of Nick Shirley standing in front of a locked door, felt the "outrage," and hit repost.
We are seeing the "FEMA Coffin" playbook brought back to life. Just as Alex Jones filmed empty lots to claim they were death camps, Shirley used selective filming during nap times or at closed locations to manufacture a narrative of "ghost fraud" out of thin air. He intentionally ignored context—like security footage proving children were present earlier that day, or staff refusing entry to masked men out of fear of ICE raids—to provide the "visual evidence" necessary to trigger a massive federal response without the burden of an actual audit.
We are treading some seriously dangerous, fucked up waters right now. This is post-truth governance, where viral "vibes" supersede administrative reality. They used the perception of mass viewership to freeze $10 billion in funding to five blue states (MN, CA, CO, IL, NY), claiming a mandate based on vanity metrics. In this environment, the objective truth matters less than the speed at which outrage can be weaponized. When a two-second scroll is treated as a democratic mandate to justify federal crackdowns, the system is officially broken.
I wish more people would read your reply. Thank you.
If you believe in the power of the government to do anything good and impactful in healthcare, social services, education, heck even in policing or the military you have to insist on airtight transparency and accounting. For 50 years I've been watching Republicans seize upon the Welfare Queen narrative and Americans fall for it.
I didn't see any mention of AG Ellison. I would imagine maga would make race and religion a centerpiece of their grievance.
You don't have to repeat MAGA talking points or concede any of their bad-faith arguments. Ever.
Jonathan, thank you for digging deep and writing this. Love the comparison to safety nets provided by governments vs. those contracted out to the sincere and fraudulent alike. Excellent coverage of actual cases and reasons proponents of government action must do better, all the while making clear that Trump and his cronies are still exaggerating and lying to their hearts' content. Social progress is hard, and I'm glad Walz is dropping out of race to focus on battening down some hatches that were left open too long and for some of the wrong reasons. Can't wait to see a proper audit of how ICE is spending their bolus of funds just now...