Nick Shirley Explains Why Media Missed Fraud ‘Kindergartener’ Could Find

Independent journalist Nick Shirley, who visited multiple Somali day care centers in the Minneapolis area, said Sunday fears of being labeled “Islamophobic” may have prevented local media from investigating the potential fraud.

Shirley posted a photo of one day-care center, which displayed a banner calling it “The Greater Learing Center” on X, along with a 42-minute video that went viral showing him visiting that and other day-care centers, Friday, touching off a storm on social media. Shirley told “The Big Weekend Show” co-hosts Tomi Lahren, Joey Jones, Tom Shillue and Kaylee McGhee White that local media feared attacks that could come if they pursued the story. (RELATED: Somali Scammers Stole Almost As Much In Blue State As Nation’s Entire GDP)

“I don’t know. Like, they are scared of being called now, because it’s Somalis committing this fraud, they are scared to be called Islamophobic, racist, which has nothing to do with what’s going on because fraud is fraud,” Shirley said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a black person, a white person, Asian versus Mexican, fraud is fraud and we worked too hard to simply be paying taxes and enabling fraud to be happening.”

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One organization investigated for fraud, Feeding Our Future, accused the Minnesota government of racism during litigation over the suspension of funds after earlier allegations of fraud. State employees accused Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota of engaging in “systemic” retaliation against whistleblowers who warned of the fraud schemes in a Nov. 30 release.

Shirley said that there was more to learn in the scandal and that Walz had things to answer for when questioned by Jones.

“In your experience or in your opinion, just spending the day you spent down there tracking this down, is there any way that this has not reached the Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz?” Jones asked. “You know, take aside ongoing litigation or what have you, but is there any way that he could claim ignorance on this, just in your experience over this investigation?”

“Oh, it is so obvious. If you are living in Minnesota, you have to raise your eyebrows and think, what is going on?” Shirley responded. “Literally, if you drive around Minnesota, around Minneapolis, you will see daycare centers, autism centers, you will then see transportation companies that have snow piled up as if they have not moved in months and then you also go into buildings where there will be 20 healthcare companies, 14 and 22 are the biggest that I published on X and YouTube, so it’s like a kindergartner could figure out that there’s fraud going on.” (RELATED: YouTuber Exposes Day Care Center Which Reportedly Reaped $4,000,000 From Taxpayers)

Assistant United States Attorney Joe Thompson announced in a Dec. 18 press conference that the amount of suspected fraud in Minnesota’s Medicaid program had reached over $9 billion. By comparison, Somalia’s GDP was $11.97 billion in 2024, according to a release from the country’s Bureau of National Statistics, a figure close to estimates made by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

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