#1044 - Nick Shirley - Inside Minnesota's $10B Childcare Fraud Scandal

32:39The HHS made a video. Have they got a YouTube channel? They should collaborate. They've been tagging me in their post on X. Okay, that's interesting. Are they adversarial with you? Are they collaborative with you? What's their tone like with this? I think they're just appreciative of the effort because they saw how obvious I made it to the American public that fraud was happening. And so I think it's amazing what they're doing, and I think this kind of could help combat fraud in a lot of states and across America, is, all right, obviously there's a lot of fraud happening. Let's take a week break.

33:11Let's freeze the funding. And now everyone show us proof of legitimacy. And if you can't, we're not going to give you the money. Have you got any idea what proof of legitimacy looks like? Probably showing, like, there's kids inside the daycares maybe. Maybe that'd probably be a good place to start. here's our video cameras of us receiving our 90 kids that we have a capacity for that'd probably help prove they're a little bit more legit in other news you've probably heard me talk about element before and that's because i am frankly dependent on it uh and it's how i've started my day every single morning this is the best tasting hydration drink on the market you might think why do i need to be more hydrated because proper hydration is not just about drinking enough water it's having sufficient electrolytes to allow your body to use those fluids.

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35:02Yes. That's been a fallout. Just the other day, the protesters stormed ICE and ICE actually killed a protester. I saw it. Was that the lady in the car? Yes. That was very sad to see. I wanted to talk about this, dude, because I think one of the concerns that everybody has is we've already got some pretty sort of tight tensions around this sort of stuff at the moment the UK maybe even more so than here uh do you think how much do you think your video contributed to the tension of what happened in Minneapolis the other day well they surged the city with federal agents and they launched these investigations which is a good thing.

35:48Do we want crime to be happening? Do we want illegal migrants running rampant in our cities? Do we want millions of dollars being funneled across to other places? These are all good things. But now the left is saying that you're a bad person for trying to crack down and uphold the law. And so for that lady to be out there and impeding law enforcement and then attempt to run him over, like the video is pretty evident that she was going to, her target was to run him over and he shot her super tragic i was super sad when i saw that video i said like that didn't that did not need to happen she didn't need to put law enforcement in risk she could have supported law enforcement and she could have abided by what they said they told her to get out of her door to get out of her car and then she goes and hits the ice agent and he's fearful for his life and he shoots her.

36:42Super sad, right? No one wants to see that happen. And it's just gotten to a point where people need to really come to their senses and think, okay, this is law enforcement. If they're going to tell us to do something, we should probably do it. But then you're seeing these politicians come out and say, ice, get the F out of our city. Little Guy Fry says that, the mayor of Minneapolis. And then Tim Walz is calling this a war against the federal government. Why can't they deescalate and say, all right, you guys, fraud's bad, illegal migrants, if you're here, local law enforcement, federal law enforcement's here.

37:20If they get you guys, you're going to go back to where you came from. How many of the Somali people are there legally versus illegally? Is there any idea? I don't know. What's your estimation? Well, with Biden, a lot of people came into the country over 10 to 20 million. And so there's a lot of them. And then people undocumented, people have been doing their asylum cases. So who knows exactly how many. You had no indication of how many people were actual citizens versus illegal? No. Yeah. But because, for instance, some of them came here, like Ihan Omar, she's a naturalized citizen of the United States.

37:58She was born in Somalia, brought over. She became a U.S. citizen. Now she's in Congress. And so there's a lot of people who are naturalized citizens. and because this happened a long time ago, people like Yan Omar then have kids and then those kids are foreign citizens. And so that's what makes it super complex with the topic of illegal immigration because you have parents who are illegal, kids who are illegal, and the option is, well, if we find you, you have the option to go back with your children or your child will be here. It's very, like the topic of illegal immigration is super hard. That's why you should do it right.

38:34Yeah, it's a brutal situation. So the influx of ICE agents, that was specifically kind of in response to this. Yeah, and ICE was already there. They had been there for since back in June. When I was there for the first time back last June, there was an ICE raid that took place, and they've been operating there for months since Trump took office because a lot of people that came over the border, we didn't just have immigration from Latin America. We had people coming all the way from Africa. All across the world, they came over. And so there's a high likelihood that tens of thousands of people from Somalia also came in and where do they go when they get here to the United States a place where they feel like they're being represented Somalia or to not Somalia it's a minute we might be now little Somalia yeah um have you got any idea who masterminded this are the Somalis that innovative that they just kind of played the system over and over until they found an exploit and stood next to a spawn point and started to generate like free government money yeah I'm sure someone just saw that it was easy no one was really checking i mean they had they had fraud tourism people were coming all across the country to move to minnesota to commit fraud because it wasn't getting stopped well i think i remember when i was in downtown san francisco for the first time and i was looking around and i couldn't believe how many homeless people there were and you know i come from austin where there's a pretty big homeless population, but it's not that much.

40:11And I realized that, well, you've got basically the perfect climate. Like meteorologically, you've got the perfect climate. It's not going to get too cold that you freeze. It's not going to get too hot that you get cooked alive. And I suppose this is kind of the equivalent, but it's a fiscal, financial, legal loophole. Weird. That's perfect. Like, yeah, and that was kind of my big question coming into this was like, why Minnesota? Why Minneapolis? And it just seems like, well, maybe this is available elsewhere, but someone found it and then just rinsed and repeated and told their friends and told their friends.

40:48And now, I mean, they're very well, maybe some sort of blueprint playbook that someone's got printed out on. This is exactly what you need to submit. This is exactly what you need to say. This is exactly what you need to do. Oh, I'm sure of it. And also like that people are very scared to speak up in Minneapolis, Minnesota in general. You had George Floyd that happened there and you saw what happened. They let the city burn. And so politicians, especially, they're afraid of being politically correct and calling things out for what they are. And so I think that kind of helped cultivate that fraud and enable it to continue.

41:22Because everybody's scared of being called a racist. So no one wants to call out something legitimate for being seen as being xenophobic. Exactly. And I mean, that happens all across the world. That happened in the UK with the grooming stuff that happened that took place. And I've talked with Tommy Robinson before and he's like, political correctness got so bad that British men and women let their children get you know what. and it's it's sad that people are afraid to speak truth but now i believe since we have freedom of speech back with x um trump he'll say whatever and so people feel like they can say how they really feel and if it's a fact it's a fact are you concerned that this could result in xenophobia around a particular like an entire community of people when it's only one small portion of them somalis that live in new york or somalis that live in austin texas or whatever well i don't think if you're if you're not committing fraud you shouldn't be worried it's just uh kind of a blatant fact that you you shouldn't be worried unless you're committing fraud some man came up to me in part two and he comes after me he says are we the only community that commits fraud i'm like well you just admitted you commit fraud like come on man and so it's like stop investigating my fraud investigate their fraud exactly i'm like well it just happens that 89 percent of the population that are committing the fraud are Somalians here.

42:47And there was a lady who got, who was, who got charged for committing fraud with, it was called Feeding Our Future. And she was the head, head honcho of it. She got charged and she's in jail. However, there was a man inside Minnesota who got caught for$7.2 million. Somalian man, he was charged, found guilty and the judge overturned it and let the guy walk. Why? I don't know. Interesting, right? Why would you, after finding a man being charged guilty of$7.2 million in fraud, why would you let him walk? When was this? Just a few months ago, maybe a year or so ago. Wow. Medicaid fraud, I believe.

43:27Have you seen any displays of this sort of wealth? Because if we're talking about millions, tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars going to a community of people, which is at most 200 ,000, I have to assume that there's some other communities. It's not, the Somalis aren't going to be able to completely ring fence this around themselves. I have to guess that there's going to be some other groups that have done this too. Have you seen, is there anyone driving around in a Lambo? Someone got a big house? Outside one of the daycares, there was three BMWs and one Range Rover. Okay.

44:02Midday during a weekday. That was interesting. I believe some kids - No kids, but three cars. No kids here, but four really nice luxury cars. Yeah. Someone one here also in LA, they did a video and they went and found a daycare and it was an Iranian man who was in a Rolls Royce. Okay. That's pretty good. And so it's kind of like, there's that one movie, I can't remember what it's called, but there's that one movie where they steal all the money and they start buying houses and then people are wondering, well, how'd these hicks start getting rich? And then they find the fraud. And I mean, the lady who got caught for feeding our future scam, that was a$250 million fraud scam.

44:36She was driving around a Porsche. i'm pretty sure that the didn't the the lady or one of the ladies that founded blm she got investigated quite aggressively a bunch of mansions huge of huge houses everywhere yeah yeah what a shame dude what a shame because i think two things can be true at once there can be loads of fraud and we should actually invest more to make these sort of legitimate versions of these sorts of businesses available for people who really need them. And in my question about, is there going to be a challenge if you're a normal law-abiding Somali? What if you're a normal law-abiding daycare?

45:13You're going to get scrutinized. The kids are maybe going to be a little bit disrupted or maybe a lot disrupted. You're going to be worried about security concerns. And yeah, it's weird when you think about this, because what people would say, I can imagine one of the criticisms would be something like, this is going to make it harder for legitimate businesses to do the thing that they need to do. Like, yeah, that's true, but I don't know what the solution is. I don't know how you step in and investigate misuse without there being a blast radius of scrutiny around people who aren't misusing. Yeah, I think transparency is very important.

45:51So if you're operating a daycare and you're operating legally, if someone asks you for a brochure, have that brochure form. don't come after them and then cry victim after it happened but be running your business legitimately and so that's why i was like i was really happy to see that they froze the funding because that gives every opportunity for every business to prove their legit business well i mean it does sound like in retrospect because the businesses have already been running it sounds kind of intrusive or restrictive in some sort of a way. But if you were to say from the get go, in order for you to get funding to open up a daycare, you need to prove to us that you have adhered to this list of things, you go, that seems like a reasonable request for a daycare.

46:39The problem is that these daycares have been operating without that. And then when you bring the scrutiny and you just have anchoring buyers. Exactly. I mean, Biden literally like that came out just the other day, like the restrictions, the guidelines to get a daycare going was very low when he was in office. So a lot of this fraud has been enabled to happen and now people are saying, Nick, you need to go do fraud here in California. You need to go to Ohio, Seattle, Washington. There's all this fraud taking place. And so I think now you're going to start seeing a lot of people speaking out against fraud because, I mean, some people are paying upwards of more than 50 % of their paycheck to the government.

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48:37California, really bad, obviously. the next one would be ohio i've heard that one's really bad in new york's bad as well so those would probably be the top three what have you learned about those places as someone said it's a particular it's a different is it the same scheme different one a lot of it is the welfare scams here in california you had 24 billion dollars randomly randomly go unaccounted for for homelessness you have that train they've been trying to build for years upon years califraud And then Ohio, you have welfare programs as well. New York City got welfare programs as well, where people are just kind of stealing from the government.

49:17Who are the highest profile politicians or departments that are working with you now or that have reached out? Well, I'm not working with any of them. People have reached out. For instance, I was on Patrick Wett David. He's like, Nick, put out a tweet right now, calling out Cash Patel and Pam Bondi and ask him how you can help. And so then I'm like driving to the airport. and I get a phone call and I could, I screened it before and it said, this is the FBI calling and I was in Uber, so I don't want to answer and have the Uber guy overhearing it. And so I was like, okay, I'll wait to answer it.

49:50By the time I had gotten to the airport, by that time I had received five or 10 other calls and I couldn't figure out what one it was. And so like a lot of people have been reaching out to me, but also at the same time, I'm like, okay, well I'm not a fed i'm not gonna do your guys's job for you um i showed you guys what was happening i'm willing to talk but i'm not a fed like this is kind of your guys's job to go in i'm willing to do my job as a citizen to give you as much information as i can but at the end of the day you guys are the ones with the papers and you guys are the ones with all the who have all the the laws in your power to go and find these fraudsters so you ended up speaking to the fbi no i didn't actually oh You had so many missed calls, but just never could call them back.

50:35I couldn't find it. Like this week, my phone, I can't even keep up with it because if I fall asleep for two hours or go to bed at night, I wake up and I have 100 text messages I could show you. My phone's in the room, but I have just like 300 messages that I haven't even gotten back to. Wow. Just because there's so many people. Yeah. What's been the response of the mainstream press to this? Yeah, so you think they'd be happy that somebody goes in and goes and shows that fraud is happening. But instead of investigating the fraudsters, they investigated me. They tried to come in and debunk my whole entire story.

51:09They couldn't do it because it was true. And they labeled me as a MAGA YouTuber, conservative, right-wing journalist. Would you call yourself conservative? Yeah, I am conservative. I think a lot of the values from conservatives are stuff I just share equally as well. I just think it makes the most sense. But I had this conversation with a left-leaning journalist. I said, well, are you a journalist or are you a left-wing journalist? He's like, well, I'm a journalist. I'm like, okay, same thing here. I'm a journalist too. And I'll talk to the liberal. I'll talk to the homeless man. I'll talk to the guy running the daycare.

51:48I'll talk to the person who's been living in the neighborhood for eight years. I'll talk to everyone inside my video. And that's why my video, I think, resonated with so many people because I was showing and I was talking to quite literally everybody from the daycare owner to the man who's been doing his own investigation for years to the guy who's been living in Minneapolis for eight years who'd never seen a kid inside a quality learning center and then the crazy liberal who's yelling at me telling me I'm ice. So I'll talk to everybody and I'll go to these protests and I'll do these live streams and I'll talk to the protesters and I just let people talk.

52:25And if they want to come after me, so be it. I'm there to give each and every single person I interview an opportunity to explain what they're doing, what they think, and ultimately why they're behind the cause that they're behind. Why do you think it is that the mainstream press had such a problem with it? Is it just good optics to seem like you're sort of fighting for the underdog brown person? Or is there something deeper going on? I think it's because they're trying to delegitimize me. Because I pose a threat to everything that they are. I pose a threat to their viewership, to their dollars, to their fan base.

53:02And so why would they want me to get credit for a story that they should have been reporting on? They have thousands of employees. I have me and myself. And your mom. My mom. That's pretty much it. I'll have my cameraman. And that's it. And we just did over 100 million views on an expose that they should have covered as well. But instead, they come after me. So I think that's kind of why. And they know that the mainstream media, it's dying. Their viewership is getting less and less each and every single year. And so if they can come in and they find somebody like me who goes and does this story, gets way more views than they did, why would they want to say, oh, good job, Nick Shirley.

53:47That's amazing reporting you just did. Let's do everything to make people know that, at least try to make them know that whatever Nick Shirley did was not true, but it was true. Yeah. There's certainly a rivalry between independent and legacy media in that way. I would say at least again, the immediate benefit that these people get in the same way as the immediate benefit that Tim Waltz perhaps got is the optics that if you're not seen to be pushing back against this, you seem to be implicitly agreeing with and endorsing the worst possible explanation of why you could have done it, that you don't like brown people, that you're the secret agent for Donald Trump, that you're a Fed, that you're a whatever.

54:34I think that to me makes the most sense, but I don't disagree that for the first time ever, it was really funny. There was some gossip in the evidence-based fitness community a couple of months ago. And it was the first time that I'd ever seen the press commenting on a really niche internet story. So typically, YouTubers, we would react to shit that happened in the real world or that's in the press. Press does an investigation. We talk about it, right? Today in the New York Times, did you see the article about such and such? This was the first time where it happened the other way around. It was like some niche internet beef had gotten sufficiently big that the press had gone, oh, that's a story that we can have.

55:19And that was when I really realized that sort of the flow of traffic is moving in the other direction. It very much is that the independent media stuff, I'm still hesitant about like completely sucking off everybody who's doing independent stuff. Mainstream press still gets a ton of reach in places that we simply can't. Like we just can't reach most of middle America soccer mom people. There's not, they're not going to hit your algo, no matter how many times Elon Musk retweets it. The only way it works is if NPR pick up on Musk's tweet. But there is definitely a rivalry going on. And as with any sort of dying institution, it tends to not go down without a fight.

55:58There's a rivalry going on and it's competition at the end of the day for them. They're trying to keep up with people like me and you. I mean, we're able to run our operatives a lot smoother and smaller than they are. Just think about what they have to do to go out and get a story. They have to book a cameraman. They have to carry around this huge backpack. They have to get approval from the senior editor. And then when they want to post the video, then it goes through two different hands and then they have to approve it. And then it goes live versus me. I book my flight. I get to the location.

56:29I film. I edit and I post. Well, the frictionlessness is a massive advantage. It's why you were able to basically turn it around in 10 days. The criticism of that would be, well, because you're not going through the appropriate amount of scrutiny with having higher levels, there will be an error, some sort of an implication error or many in the video that you put out and in the next one and in every podcast that I have ever done, because it's not going to go through an entire team of fact checkers. I think the reason that people feel particularly aggrieved when the mainstream media make errors, it's the same reason that you feel super pissed if you ever to see a cop texting while driving.

57:07Like, hey, you're supposed to enforce the law, because you enforce the law, you're kind of meant to adhere to it more rigorously than we are. But, you know, the concern that people have about citizen journalism is that it's fast and loose with the facts. And if it just gets clicks, it doesn't matter. So I think, you know, if I was to give you a piece of advice, I think certainly as you move forward, which you're probably already doing, you need to unfortunately become increasingly squeaky clean with your own fact checking as you go on because the amount of scrutiny the amount of eyeballs now is just going to keep getting more and more and if you fuck up what's going to happen is that's going to be used that uh is going to be um a microcosm to try and smear the rest of the world oh see see the error that was in there actually he's not as such and such and then that's the rest of it i mean i've made my mistakes too and when you're going through making a video like that the editing process is long and that takes a lot of time to edit.

58:05So you're also doing back checks as well when you're editing it because I edit all my videos. I'm also going through and if something's not true, I'm not, I'm going to call it out for what it is. And, uh, everything in that video that I posted was true. And have I made mistakes before? Yeah, I have. I'm 23 years old and I've been doing this sort of journalism for about two years now. Like I'm not going to say I've never made mistakes, but in this case of the Minnesota fraud video, it's been proven to be completely true, not only by me, but by the government, by the locals. I mean, Quality Leering Center, it just got shut down the other day, got closed on January 6th.

58:46And also when the same day that that guy came out and he was talking about Quality Leering Center, we're open. And that same time, the commissioner of children, Tiki James, was doing a live stream, And she announced that the daycare had been closed while he's out there telling people it's open. Wow. Talk to me about the security concerns that you've got now. Yeah. So security now, I have to have it because I exposed fraud. And right now I have somebody with me 24-7. I have somebody at the house as well. It's super expensive. And as a YouTuber, I don't make enough money to be able to afford it, unfortunately.

59:26So I was able to raise some money. I don't know if you know him his name is Officer Tatum he has a non-profit side of a security company and people can go ahead and donate to that donate to that where it's helped me it's called Black Line Guardian and they have a security side I go they have like a non-profit side of it where people can donate so your big scary dude with the beard outside is organized by him yes wow cool so that helps a lot and so that's been critical because they're just like the threats that I've received talk to me about those what have you got yeah so for instance somebody sent me a photo of somebody in a ditch dead and they said well this will be you on a text just on a just through private messages like dms people are posting you'll be curved um people on certain platforms just went ahead and doxed me so that was great which is why you need the security at your house yes luckily we got the info taken down but it just sucks that There's people who get so mad about you doing something or the point where they want to kill you.

1:00:32I mean, we saw it with Charlie Kirk. Rest in peace to Charlie Kirk. And now it's very dangerous. Like being well-known in politics is different than being well-known for having an amazing song because politics is now very polarizing. And so I thought on an issue of just fraud happening, I didn't think, to me, I was just making another YouTube video for my weekly uploads. I've uploaded a YouTube video every week for the past 100 weeks. And so for me to post that video, then all of a sudden, kind of my life to be changed overnight to the point where I have to have a 24-7 security guy with me right now.

1:01:07And it's not the funnest thing to have to go through and try to navigate and plan stuff. It feels like you're just going from point A to point B now. And you kind of have to figure out how to live life a little bit different for at least these past few weeks and going forward for the next few weeks as well. What's that been like emotionally to navigate? weird I'm not a very emotional person I think what was harder was going through like Constantly defending yourself and like fighting back against all this fake news that was coming out There were people trying to debunk me It just felt like you're kind of like fighting a war online and that it's just it was weird because you feel like Because I actually never really gave my opinions on the internet before this I was just interviewing people and talking to people and then when everyone comes after you You feel like you have to stand on business.

1:01:54And so I had to do that and um I gained millions and millions of supporters literally who support me and it's been amazing and it's also been pretty exhausting like I think the three days after I posted that video I maybe slept for 10 hours for the three days combined and so I just have barely been catching up on sleep and uh yeah it does take a bit of a toll on you emotionally but it's just a battle you have to fight does it make you hesitant about doing more if it means that your life's going to be in jeopardy yes and now you're trying to think of different ways to do it or if you're going to go film this video what security measures do you have in place beforehand it's just stuff you didn't have to think about before before it's just i'd run around i'd grab my gopro and my camera and i would go no one knows who you are no one cares no one cares and it increasingly started to get like a little bit more dangerous for instance the riots here in la people were singling me out trying to kick me out of interviewing people.

1:02:54And then I go to - Because they know who you are. They've got an idea about the sort of perspective you're coming into this with. Yes. Protest in New York City. I'm live streaming a protest that's happening in New York City, just asking people questions, not even giving my opinion. NYPD has to pull me out because a bunch of protesters surround me. They start throwing stuff on me. NYPD pulls me out. And so it had increasingly been getting to that point. And then someone also in this sphere, they're like, well, Nick, it was just a matter of time before this happened, especially with the topics you're covering.

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1:04:41Death threats aren't cool. but if you're talking about taking away hundreds tens of millions hundreds of millions and up to billions of dollars from people who are potentially criminally minded the prospect of you having death threats does not surprise me like this is i mean there will be there is an 100 certainty that organized crime like proper proper proper organized crime is involved at some point in some portion of this or maybe in a big chunk of it because no one is able to come up with a scheme allegedly that is this good that is able to churn out this sort of cash and it not be picked up on by some big burly guy covered in tattoos who wants to have a piece of that so yeah man i mean i get it i get that it feels, and it is, that's scary and unfair.

1:05:39But yeah, if you start attacking that kind of resource, there's going to be a lot of people that are very upset. Yeah, no one likes to get their money played with. No, well, including the taxpayer. Isn't there a movement at the moment for a tax strike? Aren't people tax striking? Whatever that means. Yeah, we'll see if it happens. Yeah, well, I mean, it is kind of a bit like, I'm not giving you my money because you're giving it to the daycare centers that I don't like. It's like, okay, go to jail. Like you need to pay us your taxes. I don't know whether a tax strike works. You can't ethically object to your taxes being taken.

1:06:14You can just try and then the law comes up against you. It's going to be interesting if people actually hold their word onto it because no one wants to go to jail. I mean, the Boston Tea Party, we fought over just a few percentages. That's a very difficult day for me. Be careful with that. Have you got any lawsuits coming your way? as of right now no no lawsuits i guess it's still kind of early days what i did was it was true and if someone wants to prove me otherwise well i think the issue that you have is lawsuits don't need to be predicated on anything that's untrue they can be predicated on truth and just drown you in paperwork try and send as much um worry and concern your way i mean you saw do you see um Sean Ryan and Dan Crenshaw, they're in a big fallout at the moment.

1:07:00And then it didn't happen. It felt like I'd been edged up to the point of orgasm and then it didn't end up occurring. Fucking nightmare. That entire process on Sean's side is somebody is using the legal system to bully me in a way, bully a journalist, bully someone who's investigating in a manner that is not because I crossed the line, but is because I'm just inconvenient. Yeah, I pray it doesn't ever get to that point. And that's why I had avoided stuff like this for so long. And that's why I always feel like in my videos, I just kind of give other people the option to voice their opinion, whether it was the daycare lady or whether it's at talking to people at the border, just giving people their opinions.

1:07:44And so I really hope I never have to get into any of that. Have you got a legal team or is people reviewing stuff that you put out now? Like the next video, is that going to be filtered through? Or is it still just you again, camera, Premiere Pro, caffeine, and just shipping it? Lots of caffeine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll put you on the rotation for Nutanik. It'll help. I'm changing a little bit how I go about things. I think that's a smart idea. Yeah, it's kind of necessary. I think that's a smart idea. But it's been amazing to see the support as well. A lot and lots of people want to support me.

1:08:17Because a lot of people's lives are being affected by this fraud stuff. A lot of people are getting pushed out of places. Tell me about part two. Part two, yes. So the daycare fraud is only one part of the fraud. And what really holds the fraud together is these transportation companies. Like shipping? No, they're called non-emergency transportation. Okay. And so, for instance, these daycares and these home healthcare companies, adult daycares, they need to be able to prove that they're doing stuff. So they have created these transportation companies. You'll see them all across Minnesota, all across Minneapolis.

1:08:55You'll drive, you'll see a van, and there's never anybody in these vans. It's just always a driver. So in order to make it look like they're doing stuff, they get these drivers. They'll say, all right, here's our client. So imagine you have an adult daycare center and then you have a healthcare clinic. in order to kind of prove that you're doing legit business. Okay, well, we're going to take this adult to healthcare clinic and we're actually not really providing a service and there's no person to actually take. So we'll have the transportation company. We'll write it up that they took that person there, they got that service, and then they brought her back.

1:09:36And nothing actually ever happened. It's just the transportation moving from one place to the next to be able to continue this fraud. So it's like what keeps the hamster ball going. Why is the transportation so important? Is that a crucial part of logging the activities? Yeah, so it's basically so they can log the activities and then the transportation company also makes money and it's logging what's happening. Right. So it makes it a lot harder to kind of prove that something fishy is going on because no, we had the transportation company take the client. This is the proof. I suppose the problem is because every business doesn't talk to every other business, what you would pretty easily be able to do is say, well, go to the healthcare and say, did this person come in at this time?

1:10:21It's not the job of the healthcare company to work with the benefit company to see that the daycare company dropped the person off with the transport company. Yeah, but they're all in on it. Including the healthcare? in one building in my video 22 healthcare companies inside of one building right okay okay so

1:10:45so is it right to say that the transport thing is part of the crux of this because it is one of the areas that's scrutinized by the the government is that what's going on i just don't understand why the vans and the minibuses are so important yeah so well like you said it helps log and so that way they can then if someone was like well show us the proof oh well look um safari transportation took muhammad to the doctor i guess it makes it harder but in my part too we go to these transportation companies to their addresses where they're listed on the state of minnesota website and there's no company there's no vans yet they are then we did the math it's about$50 per travel one way to the next.

1:11:35And an average NEMT, a transportation company, has about 20 vehicles. So on average, every day in Minnesota, about$2 million is being sucked out from these companies. Wow. So it's just part of the welfare fraud. Wow. So the next part two is primarily about the transport stuff? Yes, and some daycares as well. Okay, okay. That's already been filmed? It's already been filmed. Because there's no way that you're getting back into Minneapolis. No, just to go back, I had to have four security guards. Yeah. You couldn't get, and when was that? Just the other week. Okay. And so I had legit people stopping at intersections.

1:12:14At a red light, their car's parked in the middle of the intersection. They're coming out, coming for me, and security's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, and stops the guy. This is what's funny. Meanwhile, I'm speaking to a black man, and then this other black Somalian's calling me a racist. I'm like, yo, I was just talking to... I've got a black friend. Yeah, I got a black friend right here. This isn't a race thing. Like, it's all just about fraud. But it got political for some reason. Well, of course it did, because everything gets political. Nowadays it does. But wouldn't you think it'd be like a good thing to kind of show that fraud's happening?

1:12:48Look, I totally get it, man, that inefficiency and anybody manipulating the system, especially if you're the sort of person who really cares about the working class, if you're supposed to be raising those up out of poverty, who don't deserve to be in it, shouldn't be in it. Well, if someone is illegitimately taking funds and using them, that is fewer funds going to the people who genuinely need them. And then when you start to sort of spin in, well, these people might not be here legally. They might be sending money back. Okay, so we're literally exporting, potentially, allegedly, U.S. taxpayer dollars through Dubai back to some country in the Middle East.

1:13:34It doesn't surprise me that people have got super passionate about it. Like, if what you're saying is true, this is wild. I mean, you have to have predicted that this is basically going to be an entire new content meta for probably the next two years. That there are going to be mini Nick Shirley's. the one in New York and the one in, there'll be one in Toronto and there'll be one in LA. People need to be careful too, because I did my due diligence when I went and did that video. I've seen a lot of people just like go into daycares. I'm like, you guys, no, you don't just do that. What was your due diligence?

1:14:06What did you do? So I'd been investigating it for a while. And then David had all the paperwork and it had testimonies from other people as well. So I knew that it was happening. I wasn't just showing up to random daycares. we had all the numbers with us in hand when we went to them and we had done our due diligence what would be your what are the ways to do it right and do it wrong if there's a mini nick shirley that thinks i'm going to go and give this a crack in austin texas what should they and shouldn't they do you i would look up do all my due diligence a lot of the information's on the state's websites, you don't just go to a daycare and say, hey, are you guys committing fraud?

1:14:48That's what CNN did though. They came after me and they're like, and then we called seven of the daycares. They didn't say that they were committing fraud. And only one of them answered and they said they weren't committing fraud. But yes, be very weary of what you do and make sure you do your due diligence because one, you don't want to accuse somebody of doing something that they're actually not doing and you don't want to put yourself in a place of danger so people should be very careful and that's why you just don't go up with a camera or microphone start talking to people and about fraud if you have to know and there's a way about caring caring yourself about it a lot of people come across confrontational it's not good you don't want to come across cross confrontational you just want to act like you're going and to get the truth because that's what you are doing and uh people i've learned something over the past few years as i've been doing this just people will kind of show themselves for who they really are after a few conversations after a few sentences and after a few questions so no a lot i feel like i'm very well socially like i can kind of get the gist of the vibe of places and who i'm talking to and a lot of people don't so it does take you just can't go and do it you need to test the temperature a little bit before you steam in.

1:16:08I thought it was interesting that you mentioned you try to be kind of low profile with filming equipment as well. I think that's a smart move. Yeah, I just want people to feel like they're inside the video. And I mean, having a big camera, this is why the news isn't successful. If you watch any news person, they got these huge cameras. They got another guy holding the microphone on top. They got a light. They're putting a, you'll see them in New York City, the news anchors. They're like standing on a box. They got a light brightening up their face. Changes the dynamic of everything. Changes the dynamic of everything.

1:16:38And what do people want more than anything nowadays? Just pure authenticity. And so I like to do that by my style of filming where it's just kind of like run and gun. Like I know it's not the best quality, but we're running. Yeah, it'll work. I heard that you'd also been to Seacot as well. Yes. What was that like? Craziest experience of my life probably. Tell people the story behind that. So Seacot's this maximum security prison. It's actually like the central of terrorism in El Salvador. El Salvador used to be run by gangs completely. Grandmas couldn't go from one street to the next to go visit their nieces and nephews because gangs controlled the areas.

1:17:16So Naive Ukele, he actually created his own political party inside of El Salvador called New Ideas. And part of this was that we are going to go down and he's rich, so he actually doesn't need funding. So that's like how you can tell a political person can't be really corrupted because they don't need the money. So Naive Ukele, he goes in and he says, we're going to fight the gangs and we're going to lock all the prisoners up. All the gangsters were put inside of Sekhat and they are never leaving. So they go through and they lock up all the prisoners. They turn El Salvador from the most dangerous country in the world to the safest country in the Western Hemisphere.

1:17:53And they put all these prisoners inside of Sekhat. and this prison it's like a bunch of massive costcos for prisoners and they're never leaving and no uh american youtuber had ever gone in and i saw that luizito comunicas the he's the most popular latino youtuber he went in so i was like oh there has to be a possibility to go and so i went to el salvador i made a separate video and i had in the back of my mind like i need to find a contact so I can figure this out. And I ended up meeting with one of the mayors in my video. He said, no, but maybe here's this phone number. Thanks to this person.

1:18:30That person says, no. I'm like, well, where do I go? They're like, I don't know. Kind of just gave up on me. And so I started following people on X and I started sending messages like, Hey, I want to come into this prison. And finally just random person was like, okay, I'll put you in contact with the secretary of press. And I was able to go in and in that video, you'll see me walk in And right as you walk into Sekot, anything that you were feeling good about before just leaves your body. Like complete emptiness fills your body. And then you look these prisoners in the eyes, emptiness. Why? Pure emptiness.

1:19:14I think any goodness of them had been taken away from what they had committed. And so like, whether it be like the light of Christ or just any good vibes they had, gone. Is it designed in a way that's meant to make it more soulless than a normal place? 100%. Right. The lights never turn off. You're given a sheet. You eat the same meals every day. You get no protein. Like you get rice and beans and tortillas, I think, and milk. And you have no form of entertainment. You don't have books. and the only time you actually get to leave your cell is to touch your toes and do some push-ups and work out a little bit or to listen to somebody preach the gospel.

1:19:57If you want to go pee or poop, you have to do it in front of everybody inside your cell. And these gangs, rival gangs, MS-13, Biodies, Yocho, they're all in the same room. You're locked up with your enemies. How many people are on site? Do you know? I think upwards of 1 ,000 probably inside. I think there's around seven. I can't exactly remember the number, I don't want to say, but I think there's more than 10 ,000 of them. Wow. And they used to literally control that country. I remember when it first happened, I watched some videos about it, and it basically looks like football stadiums, right?

1:20:30These huge, like, monstrous constructions. And then this morning, I wanted to have a little look at what it was like inside. And it does, look, these people are allegedly criminals and have done horrible things and the country is undeniably better now. Is there some collateral damage? Yes, I'd absolutely heard that, you know, two people are criminals in a house and five other people are also whisked away. Not great. Would it be nice to be more precise? Yes, it absolutely would. But when I looked at that photo and it's, you know, the bunks are super high, the four or five bunks high if you fell off the top you would really damage yourself and it's just this sort of wall of humans sort of peering and looking through the bars fuck me man like the fact that human civilization has got to this stage it's a really shocking image like that's how prisons work i get it right but to just see that image of humans locked up a lot like animals in fact animals have got better conditions in some ways again not excusing what fucking criminals do at all but i found that i found that image to look at pretty difficult to see like holy shit yeah it's a lot and by the time when you're about to leave you do almost feel sympathetic for these people the conditions are so brutal well you're like dang dang, that would just suck.

1:22:03Like, can you imagine that? Like no lights, you never see your family, you have no contact with the outside world. And they're never getting out? Never getting out. So everyone's in there for a life sentence? For life. And if you are, if you do have proof that you are innocent, you can then prove that you are innocent from inside there. So there is like a system, because they did just go round up. They checked for tattoos. If you have MS-13 on your chest, goodbye. thigh one of my friends tried to get a free trip to el salvador by getting ms13 tattooed on his thigh didn't work oh that's bad but he's still got the tattoo oh no that's a bad idea yeah yeah and uh they do have a whole separate prison system that rehabilitates these people not the gangsters but there's also a lot of other criminals as well and uh that's pretty amazing to see how a country had once been controlled and ran by these gangsters to a country being entirely entirely liberated by one man and the people there are just like ecstatic like you go there and it's the weirdest feeling because it's like we have freedom here in the united states so we take it for granted these people didn't now they do and they're able to live great lives they're able to just to live free like how we are able to live here and so it is like you do feel like there was liberation that did take place unreal what's next you've got part two got part two any Any idea of a published date?

1:23:28Hoping for this coming week. It's been super hard to even edit with everything I've been going on. I've been from Nashville to Florida, back home to here. Tomorrow I'm going back to Florida. And it's just been, someone just called me right before this podcast to help me go testify in front of Congress. So it's just a lot. And I need to maybe help my team a little bit. So part two at some point in the next week, hopefully. And then what? I would love to go to Venezuela. but we'll see what happens there okay that's i think that's el salvador on steroids at the moment yeah i do have a lot of other videos planned but now a lot of things have changed as far as how i go about filming and lots of fraud to expose here in california lots of fraud it exposed across the world has well yeah i was gonna say do you want to rinse and do you want to become known as kind of the fraud investigator guy for a little while to keep on rinsing and repeating that before you move on to something else yeah i'll do another fraud video let's just take a lot of time because you don't like i said with my video i did my i did the due diligence david had done his proper investigation i had done mine you need to find a david for each city a little bit yeah and uh you can just you can also just continue to find that information it just takes a lot longer well if you had a even partially competent team behind you they would very easily be able to nick shirley tips.com submit your stuff here they can go through and verify everything and you've just got a pipeline of portfolios of, wow, we've got this many from this particular street and this city.

1:25:00It seems like this is the next place to go. But yeah, dude, the rapid ascension from being degenerate solo YouTuber with mama's camera person to needing security around you is, I think you'll look back on this period and kind of just look at it like a fever dream. It's going to be the wildest month, a few months of your life. yeah it's been super weird and i mean i already had a million subscribers before and now i'm like 1.5 almost and like an ex i had 200 000 now i have 1.2 million followers youtube instagram i had 800 and now i have 2.3 million wow so i was already somewhat popular on the internet before like that that's still a lot of people watching you but now it's new level because you had the whole entire mainstream media come after me like for that That entire week, you couldn't turn on the news without hearing my name or seeing my footage.

1:25:55You had the leftist on X coming after me. You had people like Elon Musk sharing my videos. You had J.D. Vance sharing your videos. So it was almost undeniable, impossible to not see my video that week. And it turned out to be controversial. Tim Waltz decided to step down from running for re-election because of that video. yeah anybody that says that the internet doesn't cross over into the real world just needs to check out the last couple of weeks yeah one video and then the subsequent aftershocks of that is crazy yeah a lot of people were calling it like modern day david and goliath just from you have the goliath who's tim waltz and you have a little david just throwing some stones and took out one of the one of the top democrats in the united states yeah what uh What do you want to achieve?

1:26:48Because it seems to me like there is an obvious like anti-woke or anti-progressive bent to some of the stuff that you're doing. What is it that you want to achieve? Let's say that you look back on 2026. What would success look like to you? I think helping more people come to sense on common sense matters, such as fraud, providing and creating real change within the country. I mean, no video has ever created so much change in such a short period of time. Literally, millions, potentially billions of dollars could have been saved for that one video. And so I think creating that change, helping people see stuff for common sense, bring some more common sense into the world, and just make it a better place.

1:27:36And it stinks that stuff's getting politicized by this because I really just want to be able to live in America where I feel like I can afford things. I feel like my fellow friends and people around me can afford things, that we have hope that our taxes are going to the right place, and that for generations like myself, that we can have the same opportunities that our parents and grandparents had. And we're seeing this corruption making it very hard between corruption and the influx of migrants, and it's made it very, very hard for people to be able to buy houses, to just live in a country where you feel like you're being represented.

1:28:15You have people on the left who are more passionate about protecting illegal migrants than going after fraud. And we just want to be able to have the same opportunities that our parents and grandparents had. And so when I think about what I want to accomplish, I just really do want to see America be better than where it's been. And to support and to get behind causes that really do make changes. because now I have the opportunity to. We just saw what I just did and will continue to see me make effects in other ways, whether that be through talking with people one-on-one, giving a speech, presenting a video that gets millions of views, or simply just helping that old lady get her into her car, pick up her groceries.

1:28:57Just being a good person and creating real-world change. And I think that's possible. Yeah, man. Look, I don't know if exclusively corruption and migrants the reason that the cost of living is as high as it is at the moment. I think it's a great factor, and I think it's something that we can talk about. It's something you've got more control over than what's the price of milk. So I agree in terms of that. Dude, I... We got breaking news. We have got breaking news. Holy shit. J.D. Vance announces the Trump administration will create a new assistant attorney general position who will have nationwide jurisdiction over the issue of fraud, focusing first primarily in Minnesota and then expanding nationwide.

1:29:40If you're a young parent struggling to afford child care in the United States of America, there are programs that we have to make it easier for your kids to get in daycare, for your kids to get in preschool. Those programs should go to American citizens, not be defrauded by Somali immigrants and others. Make it hard for you to get the access to the resources you need. But number two, making it easier for people who shouldn't even be in this country to fleece the United States and our taxpayers to begin with. We have actually activated a major interagency task force to make it possible to get to the heart of this fraud.

1:30:15We have Department of Agriculture resources that are focused on snap fraud so that people who need food benefits can get them, but illegal aliens and other fraudsters don't. We have over 1 ,500 subpoenas the Department of Justice has issued to get to the heart of the fraud ring. We've done almost 100 indictments, mostly Somali immigrants, but also a few others. And, of course, we're looking in with broad investigatory authority to a number of the instances of wrongdoing that we've seen in Minneapolis. But we also want to expand this. We know that the fraud isn't just happening in Minneapolis. It's also happening in states like Ohio.

1:30:51It's happening in states like California. And so what we're doing in order to help coordinate this remarkable interagency effort from the Trump administration, but also to make sure that we prosecute the bad guys and do it as swiftly and efficiently as possible, is we are creating a new assistant attorney general position who will have nationwide jurisdiction over the issue of fraud. Now, of course, that person's efforts will start and focus primarily in Minnesota, but it is going to be a nationwide effort because, unfortunately, the American people have been defrauded in a very nationwide way.

1:31:27What do you think when you see that? Journalism that's creating change. I mean, the issue of fraud has been there. It's not new that we've been being defrauded. it's a complete result of my video showing that fraud is taking place to the point where the vice president of the united states needs to create a new role for an assistant attorney general to go after fraud it's crazy actually dude i think think about that like have you ever thought ever seen a video we've been there's been lots of reports for years has there ever been a point in time where they froze funding sent in feds to launch investigations and created a new job i was thinking about i was thinking about some stuff maybe during covid where people that had scrutiny around mass efficacy transmission rates vaccine stuff perhaps but it was nowhere near as direct it was much more kind of little pebbles here and there as opposed to this massive boulder that's just created it yeah dude i mean this this could be the beginning of a really huge tsunami of investigations around this stuff.

1:32:39So Nick Shirley, ladies and gentlemen, dude, get some sleep for me, please. Do I look tired? No, I just want you to sleep. I think that it's important for you to sleep so that you can keep on doing it. You look fantastic.

1:32:52I think the other lesson, at least to take away that I have from this is that you cranked out a video a week for two years and then you had the one that hit and that's kind of the way that it tends to not that you hadn't accumulated an audience before but this is the one that really really hit yeah i think it's just like i remember listening to your podcast with her mozi and it's just like you need to treat yourself i remember one thing that really struck me is he's like you need to treat yourself like you're the best athlete and whatever it may be whether it be making youtube videos or making sure you're the best person at your job wherever it may be but uh which I've dedicated essentially all my time and the past few years of my life to making these videos and creating conversation.

1:33:38And it wasn't a surprise that it just happened to be the fact that I made this video. It was just inevitable that something was going to happen. At some point it was going to happen. Yeah, dude. Yeah, that's the way it works. All right, where should people go? Keep up to date with your stuff, support you, do all the rest of the things. Nick Shirley on all platforms. Shirley Defense if you want a leering hoodie to leer a little bit. but yeah just nick shirley everywhere okay nick i appreciate you thank you man thank you got any advice for me get some sleep um i think that's important honestly dude get some sleep and go for walks i like we'll just keep you fresh what else advice would i give you you're a wise guy i think i think you need to try and delegate as quickly as possible uh in order to allow you to keep doing the thing that you're the best at because the sheer volume of inflow that you're going to get is going to cause you to miss the stuff that you really need.

1:34:36So what you, what you could do with is an assistant who is just with you at all times. And again, this is going to be hard because you need the money and you're going to get it funded from something, but assuming that you had the resources to do it and fuck me, text Elon. I'm sure he can spare a couple of no. Um, somebody who's just always on your phone and is scrutinizing everything, sending it through a team you probably need I don't know two or three people that would be really great to run in the background uh and then it means that you can focus on where am I going to go what's the story how's the edit look uh so I would look to delegate I would definitely get some rest as best I could uh and I would see this period as kind of like your Super Bowl because you're not going to be you may be but the likelihood is that this is the most relevant that you're ever going to be.

1:35:26So I think continuing to put your foot on the gas, which is why getting the sleep as best you can is good so that you can keep on going pretty hard. Keep on publishing at a rapid clip. Be careful about what you say. You don't want to have some horrible soundbite of you saying something horrendous that kind of smears the rest of your image, because that's exactly what opponents are going to look for. And I would say keep on reaching out to people because it's evident that people want to support your work. So if you have the desire to try and make something happen, just keep on. You've already got like the shameless DM gene that I also have, which is good.

1:36:09So just keep on sending that out because I think people are going to want to keep supporting you. Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it. Fuck yeah. Appreciate you too, man. Modern wisdom, baby. If you are looking for new reading suggestions, look no further than the Modern Wisdom reading list. It is 100 books that you should read before you die. The most interesting, life-changing, and impactful books I've ever read with descriptions about why I like them and links to go and buy them. And you can get it right now for free by going to chriswillx.com slash books. That's chriswillx.com slash books.