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

Summary

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

Date: January 10, 2026
Host: Chris Williamson
Guest: Nick Shirley

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Episode Overview

In this explosive episode, Chris Williamson interviews Nick Shirley, the independent journalist behind the viral exposé uncovering a massive $10 billion fraud in Minnesota’s welfare and childcare system. Shirley details how a network of fraudulent daycare and welfare businesses—primarily operated by Somalian immigrants—exploited government systems, and how the story’s national attention has triggered sweeping investigations, political fallout, and threats to his safety. The episode explores the mechanics of the fraud, the hesitancy of legacy media, government accountability, and the personal toll of whistleblowing, all delivered in Nick’s revealing and dynamic first-hand narrative.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Viral Exposé and Immediate Fallout

• Nick Shirley’s investigative video went viral, reaching over 100 million views in 72 hours.

  • [00:33] “Within just one day of me posting my video…it got over 100 million views in 72 hours… It’s the most viral video, the expose on fraud in Minnesota…by anybody not named Mr. Beast in an expose format.” (Nick Shirley)

• High-level political and internet attention:

  • Multiple major political figures and public personalities including Elon Musk, J.D. Vance, and Pam Bondi shared or commented on the video.

• Impact on Minnesota politics:

  • Governor Tim Walz dropped out of his reelection campaign following allegations he allowed or ignored the fraud.
  • [01:20] “I did end Tim Waltz. He is no longer running for re election of governor.” (Nick Shirley)

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2. How the Fraud Worked: Mechanics and Scale

• Fraudulent Businesses

  • Hundreds of daycares, adult daycares, autistic centers, and transportation companies created, many with little to no real service or actual clients.
  • Most were unstaffed, with “businesses” operating in empty, poorly maintained buildings.

• Methodology:

  • The Department of Human Services (DHS), through the Childcare Assistance Program (CCAP), distributed funds based on self-reported numbers of children/adults served.
  • Businesses would claim the maximum number of clients (children/adults), receive government funds, and not deliver actual services.

• Examples from Shirley’s Investigation:

  • [06:51] “The first daycare we go to…had both been receiving money from the government, upwards of $5 million…all the windows were blacked out…nobody would answer.”
  • [08:33] “It’s still not 40 [children present]. So what’s the point of giving them a million dollars? So I believe that’s fraudulent.”

• Wider Systemic Abuse:

  • Massive hikes in funds for autism centers (from $1 million in 2017 to $200 million in 2024).
  • Adult daycare and “non-emergency medical transportation” (NEMT) schemes that logged fictitious trips to justify inflated reimbursement.
  • [71:03] “Safari transportation took Mohammed to the doctor…it makes it a lot harder to kind of prove that something fishy is going on.”

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3. Demographic and Political Context

• Somalian Community’s Role and Political Sensitivity

  • Concentrated Somali immigrant/refugee population in Minneapolis, heavily targeted by local politicians for votes.
  • 81% of Somalian Minnesotans on welfare; 89% of fraud attributed to Somalians.
  • Political correctness stifled early whistleblowing—critics were labeled racist or xenophobic.
  • [13:05] “But they go into certain areas and they pretty much move out any other race or religion, and it just becomes a Somalian area…Politicians…started panhandling to this group of immigrants, one for votes…they attached onto welfare programs.”

• Political Reaction & Accountability

  • Both Democrats and Republicans implicated—lack of adequate oversight and action.
  • Shirley asserts “the buck stops” with Governor Walz, who had repeatedly promised to fight fraud.
  • [03:25] “He said it himself. The buck stops with him. He said that multiple times, and he’s known about the fraud forever.”

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4. National & Legal Consequences

• Federal Response

  • Massive surge of federal and ICE agents to Minnesota; all childcare funding temporarily frozen until providers prove legitimacy.
  • As of recording, no business has provided legitimate proof to reinstate funds:
    • [32:26] “To this day, time of this recording, no businesses have submitted to prove legitimacy.” (Nick Shirley)

• Cash-back International Ties

  • Some of the fraudulent proceeds funneled out of the US, even linked to terrorist organizations in Somalia.
    • [23:12] “Some of that money has been traced back to go back to the Al Shabaab…millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash going through TSA…”

• Legislative Impact

  • Breaking news live on the show: Proposed creation of a new Assistant Attorney General role for nationwide anti-fraud enforcement, starting in Minnesota.
    • [89:27] “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.”

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5. Media Coverage, Public Perception, and Personal Risk

• Mainstream Press Reaction

  • Media tried to debunk Shirley’s story, focused on his background rather than the fraud.
    • [51:18] “They tried to come in and debunk my whole entire story. They couldn’t do it because it was true. And they labeled me as a MAGA, YouTuber, conservative, right wing journalist.”
  • Shirley claims both legacy and independent media have biases, but he tried to give all sides a voice in his reporting.

• Personal and Security Fallout

  • Shirley describes rapid escalation in notoriety, security threats, and needing around-the-clock protection due to death threats and doxing.
    • [59:57] “Somebody sent me a photo…in a ditch dead. And they said, this will be you… It just sucks…you’re doing something to the point where they want to kill you.”

• Impact on Future Work

  • Increased attention has made investigative fieldwork more dangerous and complex. Shirley expresses intention to delegate, enhance vetting, and continue fraud reporting—in Minnesota and nationally.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [01:20] On political impact:
  “I did end Tim Waltz. He is no longer running for re election of governor.” – Nick Shirley

• [04:14] On discovering the story:
  “Back last June, I went to Minnesota to make a video about the rise of Islam…while I’m there, I’m talking with locals and they’re like, nick, you have to do a video on the fraud…”

• [13:05] On demographic shifts and political correctness:
  “They pretty much move out any other race or religion, and it just becomes a Somalian area…If you come out and speak against the fraud, you’ll be called the white supremacist, like Tim Waltz did with me.”

• [17:25] On systemic government failure:
  “If someone’s stealing $100,000, a million dollars from your bank account, how fast are you gonna find out? Pretty quick. And Tim Waltz has been saying they’ve been fighting fraud since 2019. And so six years later, he’s been enabling fraud.”

• [32:26] On accountability:
  “To this day, time of this recording, no businesses have submitted to prove legitimacy.” – Nick Shirley

• [41:22] On political correctness:
  “Politicians…are 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.”

• [44:39] On the proceeds of fraud:
  “The lady who got caught for feeding our future scam, that was a $250 million fraud scam. She was driving around a Porsche.”

• [53:16] On press competitiveness:
  “They have thousands of employees. I have me and myself and your mom. My mom. And that’s pretty much it…we just did over 100 million views on an expose that they should have covered as well, but instead they come after me.”

• [89:27] Breaking news (J.D. Vance):
  “We are creating a new Assistant Attorney General position who will have nationwide jurisdiction over the issue of fraud.”

• [91:28] On impact:
  “It’s a complete result of my video showing that fraud’s taking place to the point where the Vice President…needs to create a new role for Assistant Attorney General to go after fraud.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:33 — The viral video goes live; how the story exploded.
• 04:14 — Nick’s original motivation, interviews, and how locals directed him to the fraud.
• 06:51 / 07:37 — Visiting suspect daycares; red flags and lack of transparency.
• 13:05 — Discussion of demographic concentration, welfare dependence, and political effects.
• 17:25 — How government oversight failed; Nick explains bureaucratic passivity.
• 21:36 — The theorized interplay of cash, multiple wives, and welfare benefits.
• 23:12 — How fraud funds are exported abroad—links to terrorism.
• 32:26 — Aftermath: Funding frozen, and no legitimate proof returned by providers.
• 41:22 — Why fraud continued: fear of being labeled racist or xenophobic.
• 59:57 — Shirley’s safety: death threats, doxing, and the cost of whistleblowing.
• 83:25 — What’s next: upcoming investigations and future plans.
• 89:27 — Breaking news: new federal position announced live on the podcast.

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Final Reflections & Advice

• Advice from Chris ([94:15])
  “I think you need to try and delegate as quickly as possible in order to allow you to keep doing the thing that you’re the best at…what you could do with is an assistant who is just with you at all times…” – Chris Williamson

• Nick’s Mission ([87:05])
  “Helping more people come to sense on common sense matters such as fraud, providing and creating real change within the country…”

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Key Takeaways

• Nick Shirley’s high-impact investigative YouTube work catalyzed national and political action against fraud in a way that traditional journalism had not.
• Governmental systems for childcare and welfare are highly susceptible to abuse through systemic loopholes and weak oversight.
• Political correctness and fear of social backlash contributed to both the perpetuation and delayed exposure of the fraud.
• Personal risk for whistleblowers and citizen journalists is real and significant, especially when challenging powerful financial interests.
• There is a rising rivalry (and interdependency) between independent/online journalism and the mainstream press, with shifting dynamics in audience trust and story influence.

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Where to Follow Nick Shirley

• YouTube, X (Twitter), and Instagram: @Nick Shirley

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For listeners curious about the intricate mechanics of large-scale government fraud, the realpolitik of American immigrant communities, and how one viral video can upend a state’s political landscape, this episode is an unmissable deep dive.

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Transcript

[Chris Williamson]

Who are you on the phone to this morning?

[Nick Shirley]

A lot of people have been calling me. I actually can't even keep track of all the numbers. And so today I just got asked to go talk in front of Congress just a moment ago. So people are just calling me saying, hey, we want some information. Can you tell us about this? We're just trying to gather information. And for instance, today someone just called me, said, hey, we have a meeting. We'd like you to testify in front of Congress January 21st. So I'll see if I'll do that Right.

[Chris Williamson]

So it's starting to hit the bigger levels of sort of real law, real government now.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. I mean, within just one day of me posting my video, well, it got over 100 million views in 72 hours. But within the first day alone, you had Elon Musk retweet it. You had J.D. vance retweet it. You had quite literally every major politician retweet it. The next morning, Kash Patel puts out a post on X about it. And then that same day, Attorney General Pam Bondi also puts out a post mentioning my name in that video. Same day, Mike Johnson as well. So it's spread across the entire Internet. And it's the most viral video, the expose on fraud in Minnesota. It's the most viral video by Anybody not named Mr. Beast in an expose format. Over 100 million views in 72 hours.

[Chris Williamson]

Did you end Tim Waltz?

[Nick Shirley]

I did end Tim Waltz. He is no longer running for re election of governor.

[Chris Williamson]

Tell me the story, though.

[Nick Shirley]

So Tim Waltz, everyone knows him. He was almost the Vice President of the United States and he has a record going on in Minnesota talking about fraud. Ever since 2019, he's known about fraud. He's been talking about how they've been fighting fraud and he's been enabling this fraud to happen. And so I go and make this video and I showed the fraud happening. And you would think people would be like, oh, amazing, this kid just showed that fraud's happening. Instead, Tim Waltz goes on tv, he calls me a white supremacist, calls me far right, and he also calls me a delusional conspiracy theorist.

[Chris Williamson]

Are you any of those things?

[Nick Shirley]

No. And so then Tim Waltz, after calling me all that, he drops out of running for re election of governor. So I was right. I show people the truth. And Tim Waltz, he couldn't handle it. So therefore he went to deflecting mechanisms of calling me far right. Delusional conspiracist. Delusional conspiracist and a white Supremacist when I was just talking about fraud.

[Chris Williamson]

You think that the reason that he's not running for reelection is exclusively because of this story?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, 100%. He knows the baggage is so much that he could not. He can't run from it, and he's hoping probably people would think less of it. And so he's going to step. Step aside and not run for reelection.

[Chris Williamson]

How much is he culpable? Because Minnesota is a big state. There's lots of stuff going on. He had an election campaign to look after not long ago. Is it his job to be paying attention directly to this sort of stuff?

[Nick Shirley]

He's obviously part of it. There's obviously larger communities like the DHS inside of Minnesota.

[Chris Williamson]

What's the dhs?

[Nick Shirley]

Sorry, the Department of. You have the Department of Homeland Security, but then you also have DHS that receives the money and they kind of give the money money to welfare, Medicaid programs, everything like that.

[Chris Williamson]

So not entirely unculpable, then.

[Nick Shirley]

No, I mean, his office kind of. He's the. He said it himself. The buck stops with him. He said that multiple times, and he's known about the fraud forever.

[Chris Williamson]

It is an interesting challenge. Right. Because you have some people. Anybody that is running for office wants to show I've got agency and I make things happen inside of my state. And it kind of sounds powerful, ubermenschy to say the book stops with me. But when it turns out that the book is kind of messy and on fire and deserves investigation, you become culpable for the promises that you've made in the past.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. And at the end of the day, he knows about. He knew about it. He knows that there's daycares all around Minnesota. He actually bragged about that in a debate with Tim Waltz. He said, you can go visit him. I visited him. There was no kids.

[Chris Williamson]

Give me the story from the start of how this came about.

[Nick Shirley]

So last June, every week for the past 100 weeks, I've been making YouTube videos about something happening in the US or other countries. And so back last June, I went to Minnesota to make a video about the rise of Islam because I have heard how mosques were replacing Christian churches and how the Somali population was growing. And so I wanted to go do a video on the rise of Islam. And while I'm there, I'm talking with locals, and they're like, nick, you have to do a video on the fraud. There's these daycares, there's these adult daycares, there's assisted living homes popping up right next Door to us. And they're all ran by Somalians. You need to do a video on the fraud. And I said, well, I can't just come and just paint fraud to be happening and bring no evidence. So I made my video about the rise of Islam, and I saw it firsthand. I saw communities that had been overtaken by Somalians. Actually, me and my mom. My mom was my camera woman for that video. She comes on to me. She comes with me on a lot of trips. We got jumped in Cedar Riverside. They snatched the camera, and they threatened me, my mom. And so I. After that, Somalians inside of Cedar Riverside, because inside there, they also have rivalry gangs, and there's a kind of a whole gang thing going on inside of these Somalian communities. And so I knew there was a something there, and I went back home and I kept trying to do my own investigation to get the get down to the fraud. And I couldn't really get the number specifically. And then a man by the name of David, who's in the video, he reaches out to me and he says, nick, I have all the information. I've been researching this for years.

[Chris Williamson]

Why did he reach out to you?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, so he's been trying to get the story out for years, but did.

[Chris Williamson]

He reach out to you before you did your documentary?

[Nick Shirley]

Well, he had seen some of my other videos on YouTube.

[Chris Williamson]

Right.

[Nick Shirley]

As well. So he kind of just knew maybe this kid would be interested because he's been trying to get it from local people, and local news has been reporting on the fraud for years and a lot. So they've been reporting on it for years, but it's never blown up on a national level. And this man, David, had all the numbers. Somebody from inside the capitol had given him the information on the CCAP funding, which is federal and state money that goes to these programs. It's called the, I believe, the Childcare Assistance Program. So he had all the information, and he said, nick, I have been looking into this for years, and I have never seen a single child at one of these daycares. And so we went and made this video about the fraud that was taking place.

[Chris Williamson]

When did you make it?

[Nick Shirley]

December 16th is when we filmed it.

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, wow. So you really turned it around quickly.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, within just a few weeks. And so I had no idea. I thought we were just gonna go to these daycares, and I thought you'd be able to open up the door and go to the reception, receive a brochure for your child, and that the first daycare we go to, it's a one building that has two of the same daycares inside of it had, it was named Mako. And there was another one that's also inside of that daycare. They had both been receiving money from the government, upwards of $5 million. And it was strange because all the windows were blacked out. The sign above it said open 7am to 10pm you open the door, nobody would answer. You ring the doorbell, nobody answers. And then a Somalian woman comes up and we're asking her, where's the kids at? She says, I don't know. I was like, what the heck? Like, what's wrong with these daycares?

[Chris Williamson]

She came out of the, she drove.

[Nick Shirley]

Into the parking lot and she went into a store next door. And I was like, what the heck is going on with these daycares? That was weird. Okay, let's go to the next one. Let's see what happens. We go to the next one. They also received a million dollars. They're licensed for 40 children. All the windows were completely blacked out. I knock on the door and I hear a lady talk. And I said, well, hey, I'm trying to enroll my son, little Joey in the daycare. And she's like, no. And she wouldn't give me any more information. And so you would think that even if they didn't want to talk with me that they would maybe give you a brochure, right? Just to kind of show that they're actually legit daycare and they're licensed for 40 children. It's funny because then after that I post my video, Local news. CBS then tells that daycare they're going to go and they film a video and there's 12 kids inside the daycare.

[Chris Williamson]

Well, either way, not 40.

[Nick Shirley]

What?

[Chris Williamson]

It's still not 40?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, it's still not 40. So what's the point of giving them a million dollars? So I believe that's fraudulent. And then we go to the next daycare and this one had received $3.45 million.

[Chris Williamson]

Can I ask about where this is? You mentioned Cedar?

[Nick Shirley]

Cedar Park, Cedar Riverside. That's like the well known community inside of Minneapolis. But this is, this video I filmed is all throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul.

[Chris Williamson]

Right.

[Nick Shirley]

And so then we go to the next one. It's actually right where George Floyd happened, just a few blocks away from it. $3.45 million and this lady opens the door. I kept all the, I kept all my security, I kept other vans. I put David kind of far to the side. I was like, all right, we're going to have a genuine interaction. I don't want anyone to make any excuses. So this lady opens up the door and I say, hey, I want to enroll my son, little Joey. And she says, no. I'm like, well, can I at least get a brochure? She says, no. I said, well, can. Well, would my son have friends here? She said, no. And there were no kids. No snow. No. No footprints in the snow. And she was the only one there. Broad daylight, I believe, on December 16, which I believe was a Tuesday, there should be children inside the daycare. What time we were there. Hers was around 12, I believe. And then also Quality Leering Center. This one is so bad because they had received $1.9 million. They had over 90 violations, and they're just a few blocks away from downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks away from where the Timberwolves play. And their sign literally said Quality Leering Center. Like, imagine that you're trying to teach children to learn, but you can't even spell learning right on your head.

[Chris Williamson]

Hadn't that been incorrect for nine years or something?

[Nick Shirley]

For many years. Because they were originally inside on the road, and then. And then they, like, cut out this door and they opened up a restaurant where Ihan Omar has photos of her outside that same restaurant, and the owner also has photos with her and the mayor. And the guy who came out saying that my video was false, he has videos of him partying with the mayor of Minneapolis. And, like, it's all intertwined. And so there's all this fraud happening. Millions of dollars are being given out to these daycares. And then on top of that, you have adult daycares. You have autism centers.

[Chris Williamson]

Adult daycares, yes. What is that?

[Nick Shirley]

Adult daycares. Place for adults to get taken care of.

[Chris Williamson]

People with special needs.

[Nick Shirley]

I don't know. There's no way.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay, how do you advertise an adult daycare? What is it? It's literally called adult daycare.

[Nick Shirley]

Adult daycare. And then you have assisted living, so that's kind of confusing. You have adult daycare and you have assisted living, right?

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. Because they can't be the same thing if you've separated them out and if you've got stuff. Because there's loads of stuff happening with autism.

[Nick Shirley]

Autism?

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah.

[Nick Shirley]

Like, there was not just a random surge in autism, but there was an increase from $1 million to $200 million.

[Chris Williamson]

In funding for autism.

[Nick Shirley]

For autism.

[Chris Williamson]

In Minnesota. In Minnesota, $200 million?

[Nick Shirley]

Yes. In 2024, there's $200 million compared with, I think, in 2017, there's a million dollars.

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, wow. So it's in, what, seven years?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. So just in a short period of time, it went from a million dollars to $200 million. Autism wasn't just springing up like that. And you don't. And you didn't need to prove that. You didn't need a license. Like, it came out just the other day that, like, the Biden administration opened up these systems and you didn't have to really prove much in order to get the funding. And so a lot of people just took advantage of.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. I think my first question is, what is it about Minnesota or Minneapolis in particular, and the bylaws and the small print which has caused this particular scheme to flourish?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, it doesn't really make much sense why Somalians would go to Minnesota. Somalia, the temperature and the climate's completely different than Minnesota. I think people realize, like, Minnesota is known for being Minnesota Nice. Everyone was accepting. They brought all these refugees, and it wasn't a problem until it became a problem. And so then you get politicians like Tim Waltz and Amer Little Fry over there who start panhandling to the Somalian community, who's just a small percentage of the population there. It's about anywhere from 80 to 200,000. No one exactly knows the ranges are from 80 to 200,000 people.

[Chris Williamson]

It's not a big number of people.

[Nick Shirley]

No, it's not. But they go into certain areas and they pretty much move out. Any other race or religion, and it just becomes a Somalian area. And so it's not. So it becomes an issue when you don't feel like it's still your city or you don't feel like you're being represented by your politicians. And so Tim Waltz and Ihan Omar, they kind of started panhandling to this group of immigrants, one for votes. And then also they. They attached onto the welfare programs. I believe 81% of Somalians in Minnesota are on welfare. 89% of the fraud being committed by people inside Minnesota is by Somalians. And then if you come out and speak against the fraud, you'll be called the white supremacist, like Tim Waltz did with me. He'll call you far right. He'll call you a delusional conspiracy theorist. And so all this political correctness made it to where people kind of feel like they couldn't speak out. That's why David, he had been trying for years to get the story out to tell people. And I was one of the only people who would listen to him and give him the time of the day to go show what was happening.

[Chris Williamson]

So I understand that you've got this unusual microcosm of a very particular demographic in a very tightly dense area. What I don't understand is what is it about Minnesota? Tim Waltz has been saying, you can come here, they're kind of nice, but there has to be a specific loophole or legal. I mean, is this available everywhere? If I just dumped 200,000 people from one particularly innovative culture. It's into an area. Would they be able to scheme and do that across the whole country?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, well, I talked to some of the Somalians, and they tell me, well, if one Somalian moves, we all move, essentially. So, like, they kind of move in these groups. So there's like, groups of them in Texas, there's groups of them in Minnesota. And I think they just saw how much money you can make from these welfare programs. They're going unchecked. I mean, Quality Learning center, they had 90 violations.

[Chris Williamson]

Stop calling it Quality Learning Center.

[Nick Shirley]

That's what it is. Quality Learning Center. And they learned their lesson.

[Chris Williamson]

Fuck. Okay, can you explain to me the exact journey of a dollar, where it comes from, where it goes to, and what you think is going on? I imagine that there's a variety of different paths that it can take, but money has to come from somewhere, go to somewhere, get fed back to some. What's the. What's the story there?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, so, for instance. So, for instance, with childcare, there's this thing called the hhs, and that's a federal. It's, I believe it's Health and Human Services. So they allocate a certain amount of funds to stuff like childcare. For instance, they allocated $185 million to childcare. And then that money you then go submit. You go get license for your daycare. And then you say, we want this many children. And then you're able to receive this money for these daycares. Cause it's part of their. Like Tim Waltz openly bragged even on X and in the debate with. With J.D. vance, like, we're going to give child care and daycare a raise. Like, why would you do that? There's a lot of hard, hardworking parents that are paying to put their kid in childcare. And so that's kind of how they go about making their money. And then they realize, well, daycare is great. Let's do adult daycare. Let's do assisted living.

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[Chris Williamson]

So you've got this fund that can help to pay for daycare, but somebody needs to create A business and file a business. And what's the structure of what's going on on the ground there? Who's working there? Are they being paid in cash? Are they being paid?

[Nick Shirley]

Yes. So that's kind of the problem right now. That's why the federal government has surged Minnesota with investigators to figure out what's actually happening. Because it's been like this kind of weird liquid thing where no one really knows. And so that's kind of the problem. That's why you're seeing it's kind of hard to track down what's actually happening.

[Chris Williamson]

You know that there's money going in, but you're unsure where it's coming from or how it's being distributed.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, so I went to a fraud community meeting and this one lady, she's a Republican representative for the state, she, she laid out one of these frauds that was happening. You had one man, he also ran a daycare, assisted living, and he had multiple violations, but the government kept giving him money. And so somebody from inside the state, dhs, was cutting the checks. And they continued to give these people money even though they're violating and having violations. And so that's why they had been enabling this fraud to happen for so long. That's why Tim Waltz, he needs to be held accountable for it because like you said, the buck stops with him. And so if someone's stealing $100,000, a million dollars from your bank account, how fast are you gonna find out? Pretty quick. And Tim Waltz has been saying they've been fighting fraud since 2019. And so six years later, he's been enabling fraud.

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[Chris Williamson]

You have unlicensed people don't need to show that they've got registered teachers, any accreditation. What's the level of scrutiny to be able to build? If I want to go now and start the quality Leering Center 2.0, can I go do that now?

[Nick Shirley]

It would probably be a lot harder because of everything. But I mean people were starting up, starting them up everywhere. I mean, if you just drive around Minneapolis and you pay attention to all the daycare centers or whether it be daycares or adult daycares or assisted livings or home health services, you'll be shocked. Like literally almost every block there's some sort of welfare program, whether it be autism daycare. You're like, what is going on? And they're not like nice buildings. They're like these almost like warehouse style buildings and they just slap a daycare on top of it and there's no children to be seen anywhere.

[Chris Williamson]

Have you looked at the landlords of these buildings? Who owns them?

[Nick Shirley]

I haven't looked into whose landlords.

[Chris Williamson]

That'd be interesting to work out how culpable it sort of goes back. Okay, so that's, I suppose, the business side. And it's kind of obvious. You find a loophole inside of the government and some of the subsidy money which can be paid to these kinds of facilities. You start one, you gain all of.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

The money to pay your costs, but.

[Chris Williamson]

Because you're not operating it fully, you don't have to pay the costs. And you're able to arbitrage. You just scrape off the top of whatever's left.

[Nick Shirley]

It's tax exempt.

[Chris Williamson]

Right.

[Nick Shirley]

And so like for instance, a lot of the women working in there, there's videos of this is. You can look this up. There's videos of men going in, women bringing their children, and then there's a man who gives them cash. And so a lot of these guys. And this is also makes me, I have Some theories about this. So, for instance, Muslims, they can marry four wives. And so all these people inside of these daycares, a lot of the women are probably related or married to the man who's receiving the checks.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay.

[Nick Shirley]

Right. So he's receiving quality learning. He's receiving $1.9 million. He has all these employees. Well, I'm not actually going to give them. Put them on a W2 or 1099 because then I have to report their taxes and they're going to have to pay taxes on that money. So let me just pay them cash. And then what will we do? We'll collect welfare. 81% of the population's on welfare inside of Minnesota. Because Somalians are on welfare.

[Chris Williamson]

Because you.

[Nick Shirley]

Because they're not.

[Chris Williamson]

Haven't registered the employees as employees. They still get to be paid in cash from the front end and receive the benefits from the back end.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. So now I'm thinking about it. If they do put them on taxes, they're probably paying them bare minimum, so they can still receive those benefits. So whether it's like $30,000, just the bare minimum to get by to still be able to receive those benefits.

[Chris Williamson]

And you think the multiple wives thing, you're just saying that's kind of free and easy labor from somebody that you know, which happens to be in your house. Have you got any evidence of guys that have got a whole family of wives that are working in a single place?

[Nick Shirley]

Well, it's kind of just a theory I have, but, I mean, they're able to marry four. And all the woman inside the date, all the people working inside the daycares are women. And then when you think about how many, what the percentage of people are on welfare that are Somalians, kind of makes sense. And then you see, like their economy they have there, whether with all of these welfare programs, how are there so many people living on welfare still?

[Chris Williamson]

Is this money being sent back to Somalia at all? Have you got any idea?

[Nick Shirley]

Yes. So some of that money has been traced back to go back to the Al Shabaab reporter found that out. And I actually talked to a man who worked at TSA. This is coming out my part two. So. And there's a video from 2017 from Fox Local News there where they had reports of millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash going through tsa, literally in cash, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So they then take this money, they get it through tsa, they then take them to the back of a room, they then claim the money, whatnot, because you can't you can't. Me and you, we can't go through without saying if we have more than $10,000, you have to let people know. And so then they let them go through.

[Chris Williamson]

And.

[Nick Shirley]

And all they have to do is get to a country like Dubai where they can then send that money and wire it over to a place like Somalia. And it can go through.

[Chris Williamson]

I was gonna say. Cause it's all cash. Yes, this is cash.

[Nick Shirley]

Cash.

[Chris Williamson]

Cash. Which is a kind of a bit of a nightmare. It's good that it's untraceable. When you start shifting big volumes of it around up to $9,999. Yeah. You're gonna have to have a pretty sophisticated operation to distribute it.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. And so that's why, like, for instance, that's why I think a lot of the women there aren't actually getting paid money or aren't getting paid legally, because they just give them cash because it's a way you don't have to report. And if you work in cash, everyone knows that you don't. You can kind of move around taxes. If you working around cash, primarily business.

[Chris Williamson]

Have you got any evidence that it's coming back into the government at all?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. So it is interesting for. For instance, that Ihan Omar, she's outside of the daycare with the lady who operates another daycare, who then's also giving the mayor a tour of her daycare. And there has been funneling to some of these campaigns, allegedly, for instance, Tim Waltz. It was very weird when Kamala Harris chose Tim Waltz to become the vice president to run with her. Nobody really knew who he was, and I wanted to make sure I had the right stat for when I came and talked to you about this. So Tim Waltz, the day he's chosen become vice president, he raises a record high $36 million in one day for his campaign with Kamala Harris.

[Chris Williamson]

Record high in one day of all vice presidents or all.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, like the first day, that's like the most amount of money a vice president has brought into a campaign. $36 million. Tim Waltz, he's a football coach. He's from Nebraska. And how does he raise $36 million in one day? They're anti billionaires. They're anti Elon Musk.

[Chris Williamson]

I suppose the argument might be maybe some rich donors on the left are able to. Or they're concerned about the potential of a second Trump term. So people are going to dump. Do you need to register where that money comes from? Do people need to register donations in that sort of way. Is it trackable?

[Nick Shirley]

I think so.

[Chris Williamson]

It should be pretty easy to work out where that's come from then. And if there's a ton coming from Cedar river, the Quality Leering Centre, you'd think, okay, well we could trace that back.

[Nick Shirley]

Oh, but we've also like, how are they not able to trace down all this fraud that's happening right now? It's just like, it's kind of been disheartening to see on both sides, Republicans and Democrats. Side one, you had Democrats coming after me and to start defending fraud. And then you had Republicans like, all right, how do we crack down this fraud? It's like, well, aren't you guys like government officials? Like, how did you guys just let this happen as well? So it's like both side issue. And nobody likes fraud to be happening.

[Chris Williamson]

Disheartening is a good way to put it. I think that no matter what your perspective, I mean, unless you're somebody who is benefiting from a scheme like this, nobody, everyone feels crappy about how much money is taken from them for taxes. Everybody does. And the prospect of seeing so much waste go on must just drive people insane. I know it does for me. I mean, when I was living in the uk, the different deductions that we have for taxes are so insane. People get pissed at the fact that the roads aren't very good. My taxes go toward these roads and there's potholes in my roads or my bins won't get collected, et cetera, et cetera. But when you see schemes like this, that just feels like how much of that could be back into the pockets of people who really, really need it and are working hard to basically do this weird like trickle down pyramid scheme where a small number of people, a relatively small number of people who aren't working are taking tons of money from a pretty big number of people who are.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. And it feels like we're being robbed. Hardworking, law abiding, taxpaying citizens, it literally is robbery. I mean, they're stealing our money. It's happening everywhere across America. Come to find out, Elon Musk, he tried to do Doge. And who was one of the proponents, who was most against Elon Musk? Tim Waltz. He know like all this stuff happening now, it's like starting to make sense.

[Chris Williamson]

Well, with stuff like that, I get what you mean. Tim Waltz realizes that the skeleton's in his closet. And I am going to push back against a potentially very invasive investigation which is gonna find out what's on. I, I get the sense that especially if you're sort of caught up in the furore of popular politics and you're on the front page of CNN every day and you're potentially going to be the vice president, I think it's more likely to be. Elon is the bad guy. He's on the other side. Maybe this will benefit me a bit behind the scenes. I always get a little bit skeptical of, like, attributing to real personal aspirations. Shit that's going on when someone is mega, mega time because they're so concerned about optics. And how does this play? Maybe. Maybe this is the driving force in the back of his mind. I just get the sense that when there is a big tsunami of stuff happening, you're playing much more for kind of the big game than the smaller personal stuff back home. But I could be wrong.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. And it's just interesting because, for instance, something as simple as Government efficiency, that's what DOSH stands for. Department of Government Efficiency. Shouldn't that be something we all celebrate? And so when you hear these politicians come out and speak against this stuff, it's like, has common sense left your brain? Because we all just want more efficiency inside of our government. Like, 3 to 7% of all taxes go towards fraud.

[Chris Williamson]

Tell you what's interesting. I did the first long form podcast episode with anybody from DOGE ever, and it's a guy called Sam Korkos who is currently the CIO of the Treasury Department. So we did the episode on the same set as the McConaughey one, but instead we had the US debt calculator on the big video wall behind us. And I was asking him just how sort of inefficient. And he's very much on the technical side of this. What are the algorithms that we're using? How are we tracking these things? He's very much sort of in the matrix of this, trying to reprogram it to make it more efficient from a technical standpoint. He's got a big technical background, but if you just think, okay, that's the system which is designed and relatively easy to be able to investigate. Relatively easy to investigate. We've got all of these different systems. How. Let's put them all out on a whiteboard and we can work it out. If you go, okay, you need to fly to Minnesota, go to this place, investigate this. Is there a person there? When did the kids arrive? When do they leave? Has this guy got four wives? What's going on? Is the money being paid in cash? That's so much more arduous. It's like that's whack a mole as opposed to what Sam's doing, which is much more like an atomic bomb of trying to improve efficiency. And he was having challenges, he was hitting limits. So I guess the first thing it makes me think about is when you have a country of this size, the diseconomies of scale of 330 million people, there's going to be so much slippage in the system and so many holes and little exploits and speed runs that you can go through. This is kind of inevitable. This isn't me excusing the fact that it happens, but just how could it not? How would it not? But the point is now, okay, we have found this. So we play whack a mole. And this is not a small mole. Right. What's the total amount of fraud?

[Nick Shirley]

It's estimated above 9 billion with a B. 9 billion, right?

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. That's a significant amount of money. It's a lot of just in. Just in Minnesota.

[Nick Shirley]

Just in Minnesota. Well, and so it makes you think, like one thing I'm super proud about my video is it's the first video you've ever seen where journalism really created instantaneously change. You had feds go and launch multiple investigations. They decided to freeze all childcare funding for the state of Minnesota.

[Chris Williamson]

Frozen all childcare funding for the state of Minnesota.

[Nick Shirley]

Yes.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay, well, I mean that sounds good. That sounds good. But that, that has got to impact people who are legitimately trying to get their children looked after.

[Nick Shirley]

My next point is they said, we'll give you back the funding once you prove your legitimate business.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay.

[Nick Shirley]

To this day, time of this recording, no businesses have submitted to prove legitimacy.

[Chris Williamson]

None.

[Nick Shirley]

None.

[Chris Williamson]

How are you tracking that?

[Nick Shirley]

The department of the HHS made a video about it just the other day.

[Chris Williamson]

The HHS made a video. Have they got a YouTube channel?

[Nick Shirley]

They should come probably. They've been tagging me in their post on X.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay, that's interesting.

[Nick Shirley]

So are they.

[Chris Williamson]

Are they health and adversarial with you? Are they collaborative with you? What's the tone like with this?

[Nick Shirley]

I think they're 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, let'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.

[Chris Williamson]

Have you got any idea what proof of legitimacy looks like?

[Nick Shirley]

Probably showing like there's kids inside the daycares. Maybe, Maybe. That'd probably be a good place to start. Hey, 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.

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[Chris Williamson]

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[Chris Williamson]

Okay, so what's been the rest of the fallout sort of structurally of what's gone on in Minnesota? Childcare stuff's been halted until you prove and then you can get it back.

[Nick Shirley]

Yes, that's been a fallout. Just the other day their protesters stormed ice and ice actually killed a protester.

[Chris Williamson]

I saw that. Was that the lady in the car?

[Nick Shirley]

Yes. Yeah, that was very sad to see.

[Chris Williamson]

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, do you think. How much do you think your video contributed to the tension of what happened in Minneapolis the other day?

[Nick Shirley]

Well, they surged the city with federal agents, and they launched these investigations, which is a good thing. Do 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 ICE agent, and he's fearful over his life, and he shoots her. Super sad, right? No one. 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, should probably do, listen.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, but now you're.

[Nick Shirley]

But then you're seeing these politicians come out and say, ice, get the F out of our city. Little. Little guy Fry says that the mayor of Minneapolis, and then Tim Walt is calling this a war against the federal government. Why can't they deescalate and say, all right, you guys, fraud, bad, illegal migrants. If you're here, local law enforcement, federal law enforcement's here. If they get you guys, you're gonna go back to where you came from.

[Chris Williamson]

How many of the Somali people are there legally versus illegally? Is there any idea?

[Nick Shirley]

I don't know.

[Chris Williamson]

What's your estimation?

[Nick Shirley]

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.

[Chris Williamson]

You had no indication of how many people were actual citizens versus illegal.

[Nick Shirley]

No. Yeah, but because, for instance, some of them came out here, like Ihan Omar, she's naturalized citizen of the United States. She was born in Somalia, brought over. She became a US 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 Ian 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 and. 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?

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, yeah. It's a brutal situation. So the influx of ICE agents that was specifically kind of in response to this.

[Nick Shirley]

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 a 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.

[Chris Williamson]

It might be now.

[Nick Shirley]

Little.

[Chris Williamson]

Little Somalia.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

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?

[Nick Shirley]

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.

[Chris Williamson]

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. And 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 cucked alive. And I suppose this is kind of the equivalent, but it's a fiscal, financial, legal loophole.

[Nick Shirley]

Weird.

[Chris Williamson]

That's perfect. Yeah. And that was kind of my big. 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. And now, I mean, there very well may be 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.

[Nick Shirley]

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.

[Chris Williamson]

To continue, because everybody's scared of being called a racist. So no one wants to call out something legitimate for being seen as being xenophobic.

[Nick Shirley]

Exactly.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah.

[Nick Shirley]

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 sad that people are afraid to speak truth, but now I believe since we have freedom of speech back with X 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.

[Chris Williamson]

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.

[Nick Shirley]

Well, I don't think if you're not committing fraud, you shouldn't be worried. It's just kind of a blatant fact that 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.

[Chris Williamson]

And so it's like, stop investigating my fraud. Investigate their fraud.

[Nick Shirley]

Exactly. I'm like, well, it just happens that 89% of the population that are committing the fraud are Somalians here. And there was a lady who got. Who got charged for committing fraud with is 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.

[Chris Williamson]

Why?

[Nick Shirley]

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?

[Chris Williamson]

When was this?

[Nick Shirley]

Just a few months ago, maybe a year or so ago.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow.

[Nick Shirley]

Medicaid fraud, I believe.

[Chris Williamson]

Have 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.

[Nick Shirley]

There was three BMWs and one range Rover.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay.

[Nick Shirley]

Midday during a weekday, that was interesting. I believe.

[Chris Williamson]

Some kid here, no kids, but three cars.

[Nick Shirley]

No kids here, but four really nice luxury cars. Someone here also in la, they did a video and they went and found daycare. And it was an Iranian man who was in a Rolls Royce.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay, that's pretty good.

[Nick Shirley]

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 people are wondering, well, how 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. She, she was driving around a Porsche.

[Chris Williamson]

I'm pretty sure that the didn't. The lady or one of the ladies that founded blm, she got investigated quite aggressively. Bunch of mansions, huge, 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 legitimate versions of these sorts of businesses available for people who really need them. And 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, you'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.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, I think transparency is very important. So 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.

[Chris Williamson]

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. The problem is that these daycares have been operating without that. And then when you bring the scrutiny in, you just have anchoring buyers.

[Nick Shirley]

Exactly. I mean, Biden literally, like came out just the other day, like the restrictions, the guideline to get a daycare going was very low when he was in office. So a lot of this fraud's 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, all 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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[Chris Williamson]

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[Chris Williamson]

If you were to create, based on the messages you've got and you were to make a hit list of the top few places that you would go to, where would they be?

[Nick Shirley]

California, really bad. Obviously the next one would be Ohio. I've heard that one's really bad. New York's bad as well. So those would probably be the top three.

[Chris Williamson]

What have you learned about those places? As someone said, it's a particular. It's a different kind. Is it the same scheme, different one?

[Nick Shirley]

A lot of it is the welfare scams. Here in California, you had $24 billion randomly, randomly go unaccounted for for homelessness. You have that train they've been trying to build for years upon years. 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.

[Chris Williamson]

Who are the highest profile politicians or departments that are working with you now or that have reached out?

[Nick Shirley]

Well, I'm not working with any of them. People have reached out. For instance, I was on Patrick Met David. He's like, nick put out a tweet right now calling out Cash Patel and Pam bonding. 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. By 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 you 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 job for you. 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 laws in your power to go and find these fraudsters.

[Chris Williamson]

So you ended up speaking to the FBI.

[Nick Shirley]

No, I didn't actually.

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, you had so many missed calls, but just never could call them back.

[Nick Shirley]

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 a hundred text messages I could show you, but my phone's in the room, but I have just like 300 messages that I haven't gotten back to.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow.

[Nick Shirley]

Just because there's so many people.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. What's been the response of the mainstream press to this?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. So you think they'd be happy that somebody goes in and goes and shows what that fraud is happening when instead of investigating the fraudsters, they investigated me. They tried to come in and debunk my whole entire story. They couldn't do it because it was true. And they labeled me as a MAGA, YouTuber, conservative, right wing journalist.

[Chris Williamson]

Would you call yourself conservative?

[Nick Shirley]

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, but I had this conversation with a left leaning journalist. I said, well, are you a journalist? 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. I'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 this. Living in Minneapolis for eight years, who'd never seen a kid inside Quality Learning center and then the crazy Libra who's yelling at me, telling me I'm ice. So I'll talk to everybody and I'll go to these protests, I'll do these live streams and I'll talk to the protesters. And I just let people talk. And 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 why they're ultimately, why they're behind the cause that they're behind.

[Chris Williamson]

Why do you think it is that the mainstream press had such a problem with it? Is it just a good optics to seem like you're sort of fighting for the underdog Brown person, or is there something deeper going on?

[Nick Shirley]

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. And 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. And that's pretty much it. I'll have my cameraman.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah.

[Nick Shirley]

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 so that's why you're seeing. And they know that the mainstream media, it's dying. Like 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, good job, Nick Shirley, like, that'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.

[Chris Williamson]

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. I think that to me Makes the most sense. But I don't disagree that.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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[Chris Williamson]

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. And 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 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, 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.

[Nick Shirley]

There'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, I film, I edit and I post.

[Chris Williamson]

Well, the frictionlessness is a massive advantage. It's why you were able to basically turn 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. This could. 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. Like, 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 gonna keep getting more and more. And if you fuck up, what's gonna happen is that's gonna be used. That is gonna be a microcosm to try and smear the rest of the world. See, See the error that was in there? Actually, he's not a such and such. And then that's the rest of it.

[Nick Shirley]

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 takes a lot of time to edit. So 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 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 Learning center, it just got shut down the other day, got closed on January 6th. And also when the same, the same day that that guy came out and he was talking about Quality Learning 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.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow. Talk to me about the security concerns that you've got now.

[Nick Shirley]

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 afford it unfortunately. So I was able to raise some money. I don't know if you know him, his name's Officer Tatum. He has a nonprofit 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 Blackline Guardian. And they have a security side, they have like a non profit side of it where people can donate.

[Chris Williamson]

So your big scary dude with the beard outside is organized by him?

[Nick Shirley]

Yes.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow, cool.

[Nick Shirley]

So that helps a lot. And so that's been critical because of just like the threats that I've received.

[Chris Williamson]

Talk to me about those. What have you got?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, so for instance, somebody sent me a photo of somebody in a ditch dead. And they said, well, this will be you on text, just on a. Just through private messages like DMs, people posting, you'll be kirked. People on certain platforms just went ahead and doxed me. So that was great.

[Chris Williamson]

Which is why you now need the security at your house.

[Nick Shirley]

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. I 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 I 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 247 security guy with me right now. And 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 this, these past few weeks and going forward for the next few weeks as well.

[Chris Williamson]

What's that been like emotionally to navigate?

[Nick Shirley]

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 or 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. And so to do that, and 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, yeah, it does take a bit of a toll on you emotionally, but it's just a battle you have to fight.

[Chris Williamson]

Does it make you hesitant about doing more if it means that your life's gonna be in jeopardy?

[Nick Shirley]

Yes. And now you're trying to think of different ways to do it. Or if you're gonna 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.

[Chris Williamson]

Would go, no one knows who you are. No one cares.

[Nick Shirley]

No one cares. And it increasingly started to get, like, a little bit more dangerous. For instance, the riots here in la, people are singling me out, trying to kick me out of the. Of interviewing people. And then I go to.

[Chris Williamson]

Because they know who you are. They've got an idea about the sort of perspective you're coming into this with.

[Nick Shirley]

Yes. Protest in New York City. I'm live streaming. 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 fear, they're like, well, Nick, it was just a matter of time before this happened. Especially with the topics you're covering before we continue.

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[Chris Williamson]

Modern Wisdom I think I don't mean to call you naive. I think you're right. Doesn't need to be said. Death threats aren't uncle. 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, it's scary and unfair. But yeah, if you start, if you start attacking that kind of resource, there's going to be a lot of people that are very upset.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, no one likes to get their money played with.

[Chris Williamson]

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?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, we'll see if it happens.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, well, I mean, it is kind of a bit like, I'm not giving you my money because you're giving it to me. 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, I don't know whether a tax strike works. You can't ethically object to your taxes being taken. You can just try and then the law comes up against you.

[Nick Shirley]

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.

[Chris Williamson]

That's a very difficult day for me. Be careful with that. Have you got any lawsuits coming your way?

[Nick Shirley]

As of right now, no.

[Chris Williamson]

No lawsuits. But I guess it's still kind of early days.

[Nick Shirley]

What I did was it was true. And if someone wants to prove me otherwise.

[Chris Williamson]

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 worry and concern your way. I mean, do you see Shawn Ryan and Dan Crenshaw that are in a big fight? Fallout at the moment, and 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 or bully someone who's investigating in a manner that is not because I crossed a line, but is because I'm just inconvenient.

[Nick Shirley]

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 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. Whether it's at talking to people at the border, just giving people their opinions. And so I really hope I never have to get into any of that.

[Chris Williamson]

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.

[Nick Shirley]

Lots of caffeine.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'll put you on the rotation for new tonic. It'll help.

[Nick Shirley]

I'm. I'm changing a little bit how I go about things.

[Chris Williamson]

I think that's a smart idea.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, it's kind of necessary.

[Chris Williamson]

I think that's a smart idea.

[Nick Shirley]

But it's been amazing to see the support as well. A lot and lots of people want to support me because a lot of people's lives being affected by this fraud stuff. A lot of people are getting pushed out of places for.

[Chris Williamson]

Tell me about part two.

[Nick Shirley]

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.

[Chris Williamson]

And so like shipping.

[Nick Shirley]

No, they're called non emergency transportation.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay.

[Nick Shirley]

And so for instance, these daycares, these home health care 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. You'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, 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 bought her back and 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 that, it's like what keeps the hamster ball going?

[Chris Williamson]

Why is the transportation so important? Is that, is that a crucial part of logging the activities?

[Nick Shirley]

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.

[Chris Williamson]

Right.

[Nick Shirley]

So it makes it a lot harder to kind of prove that something fishy is going on. Because no, we, we had the transportation company take the client. This is the proof.

[Chris Williamson]

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? That's not, it'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. And you know, yeah, but they're all.

[Nick Shirley]

In on it, including the healthcare in one building. In my video, 22 healthcare companies inside of one building.

[Chris Williamson]

Right. Okay. Okay. So, so 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 government. Is that what's going on? I just don't understand why the vans and the minibuses are so important.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah. So, well, like you said, it helps log.

[Chris Williamson]

Yep.

[Nick Shirley]

And so that way they can then if someone was like, well, show us the proof. Oh, well, look. Safari transportation took Mohammed to the doctor. I guess it makes it harder. But in my part two, 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. And an average nemt transportation company has about 20 vehicles. So on average every day in Minnesota, about $2 million is being sucked out from these companies.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow.

[Nick Shirley]

So it's just part of the welfare fraud.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow. So the next part two is primarily about the transport stuff.

[Nick Shirley]

Yes, and some daycares as well.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay, okay, that's already been filmed. It's already been filmed because there's no way that you're getting back into Minneapolis.

[Nick Shirley]

No, just to go back, I had to have four security guards.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, you couldn't get. And when was that?

[Nick Shirley]

Just the other week.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay.

[Nick Shirley]

And so I had legit people stopping at intersections, at a red light, their cars parked in the middle of the intersection. They're coming out, coming for me in security. He'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 Somalians calling me a racist. I'm like, yo, I was just talking to.

[Chris Williamson]

I've got a black friend.

[Nick Shirley]

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. Got political for some reason.

[Chris Williamson]

Well, of course it did, because everything gets political nowadays.

[Nick Shirley]

It does. But wouldn't you think it'd be like a good thing to kind of show that fraud's happening?

[Chris Williamson]

Look, I. 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. 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 US Taxpayer dollars through Dubai back to some country in the Middle East. It doesn't surprise me that people have got super passionate about it. Like, if what you're saying is true, this is. This is wild. I mean, you have to have predicted that this is basically going to be an entire new content matter for probably the next two years, that there are going to be many Nick Shirley's. The one in New York and the one in. There'll be one in Toronto and there'll be one in L. A.

[Nick Shirley]

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, going to daycares. I'm like, you guys, no, you don't just do that.

[Chris Williamson]

What was your due diligence? What did you do?

[Nick Shirley]

So I'd been investigating it for a while, and then David had all the paperwork and I 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.

[Chris Williamson]

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.

[Nick Shirley]

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? That's what CNN did, though, is in my. They came after me and they're like, then we called seven other daycares.

[Chris Williamson]

They didn't say that they were committing fraud.

[Nick Shirley]

And only one of them answered and they said they weren't committing fraud.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay.

[Nick Shirley]

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 a microphone, start talking to people about fraud. You have to know, and there's a way about caring yourself about it. A lot of people come across confrontational, just not good. You don't want to come across confrontational. You just want to act like you're Going and to get the truth, because that's what you are doing. And 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.

[Chris Williamson]

Need to test the temperature a little bit before you steam in. I thought it was interesting that you mentioned you. You tried to be kind of low profile with filming equipment as well. I think that's a smart move.

[Nick Shirley]

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, brighten up their face.

[Chris Williamson]

Changes the dynamic of everything.

[Nick Shirley]

Changes the dynamic everything. And 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 running gun. Like, I know it's not the best quality, but we're running.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, it'll work. I heard that you'd also been to Secot as well.

[Nick Shirley]

Yes.

[Chris Williamson]

What was that like?

[Nick Shirley]

Craziest experience of my life.

[Chris Williamson]

Probably tell people the story behind that.

[Nick Shirley]

So CE cot is this maximum security prison. It's actually like the central of terrorism in El Salvador. El Salvador used to be ran 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. So Naive Kelly, 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 doesn't. He's. He's rich, so he actually doesn't need funding. So he. That's like how you can tell a political person isn't. Can't be really corrupted because they don't need the money. So Naive Kelly, he. He goes in, 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 Secot. And they are never leaving. So they go through and they lock up all the prisoners. They turned El Salvador from the most dangerous country in the world to the safest country in the western hemisphere. And they put all these prisoners inside of secat and this prison, it's like a bunch of massive costcos for prisoners. And they're never leaving. No American YouTuber had ever gone in. And I saw that Luisito 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. Text this person, that person says no. Like, well, where do I go? They're like, I don't know, kind of just gave up on me. And so then I started following people on X and, 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 the, 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 rise you right as you walk into Sakat, anything that you were feeling good about before just leaves your body like complete, completely and complete emptiness fills, fills your body. And then you look these prisoners in the eyes. Emptiness.

[Chris Williamson]

Why?

[Nick Shirley]

Pure emptiness. I think any goodness of them had been taken away from what they committed. And so like, whether it be like the light of Christ or just any good vibes they had gone.

[Chris Williamson]

Is it designed in a way that's meant to make it more soulless than a normal place?

[Nick Shirley]

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 in 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. If 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.

[Chris Williamson]

How many people are on site? Do you Know, I think upwards of.

[Nick Shirley]

A thousand 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.

[Chris Williamson]

Wow.

[Nick Shirley]

And they used to literally control that country.

[Chris Williamson]

I remember when it first happened, I watched some videos about it, and it basically looks like football stadiums, right? These huge, 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. I was like, 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 criminals do at all. But I found that. I found that image to look at pretty difficult to see. Like, holy.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, it's a lot. And by the time when you're about to leave, you do almost feel sympathetic for these people.

[Chris Williamson]

The conditions are so brutal.

[Nick Shirley]

Well, you're like, dang, that would just suck. Like, could you imagine that? Like, no lights. You never see your family. You have no contact with outside.

[Chris Williamson]

And then never getting out, never getting out. So everyone's in there for a life sentence, for life.

[Nick Shirley]

And if you are. If you do have proof that you are innocent, you can. Then 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 check for tattoos. If you have MS.13 on your chest, goodbye.

[Chris Williamson]

One of my friends tried to get a free trip to El Salvador by getting MS.13 tattooed on his thigh. Didn't work.

[Nick Shirley]

Oh, that bad.

[Chris Williamson]

But he's still got the tattoo.

[Nick Shirley]

Oh, no, that's a bad idea.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Nick Shirley]

And 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 it's pretty amazing to see how a country had once been controlled and ran by these gangsters. To 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.

[Chris Williamson]

Unreal. What's next? You've got part two.

[Nick Shirley]

Got part two.

[Chris Williamson]

Any idea of a published date?

[Nick Shirley]

Hoping for this coming week. It's been super hard to even edit with everything I've been going on. I've went 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 up my team a little bit.

[Chris Williamson]

So part two at some point in the next week, hopefully. And then what?

[Nick Shirley]

I would love to go to Venezuela. Mm. But we'll see what happens there.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay. That's. I think that's El Salvador on steroids at the moment.

[Nick Shirley]

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. Lots of fraud to expose here in California. Lots of fraud exposed across the world.

[Chris Williamson]

Well, yeah, I was going to 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?

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, I'll do another fraud video. Those just take a lot of time because you don't. Like I said, with my video, I did the due diligence. David had done his proper investigation, I had done mine.

[Chris Williamson]

You need to find a David for.

[Nick Shirley]

Each city a little bit. Yeah. And you can just. You can also just continue to find that information. It just takes a lot longer.

[Chris Williamson]

Well, if you had a even partially competent team behind you, they would very easily be able to, nickshirleytips.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. It seems like this is the next place to go. But yeah, dude, the rapid ascension from being degenerate solo YouTuber with mum as 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 gonna be, it's gonna be the wildest month, few months of your life.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, it's been super weird and I mean I already had a million subscribers before and now I'm at like 1.5 almost. And X, I had 200,000, now I have 1.2 million followers. YouTube, Instagram I had 800 and now I have 2.3 million. So I was already somewhat popular on the Internet before. Like 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 entire week. You couldn't turn on the news without hearing my name or seeing my footage. You had the leftist on X coming after me. You had people like Elon Musk sharing my videos. You had JD 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 from re election because of that video.

[Chris Williamson]

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.

[Nick Shirley]

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.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, what, what do you want to achieve? Because 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, what is it that you want to achieve? Let's say that you look back on 2026. What would success look like to you?

[Nick Shirley]

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, 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. And 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. You 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 is 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 I now 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 into her car, pick up her groceries. Just being a good person and creating real world change. And I think that's possible.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, man. Look, I don't know if exclusively corruption and migrants are the reason that the cost of living is as high as it is at the moment.

[Nick Shirley]

I think it's a great factor, and I think it's something that we can talk about.

[Chris Williamson]

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. I hope.

[Nick Shirley]

We got breaking news.

[Chris Williamson]

We have got breaking news. Holy shit.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

J.D.

[Chris Williamson]

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.

[J.D. Vance]

If you're a young parent struggling to afford childcare in the United States of America, there are programs that we have to make it easier to. 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've actually activated a major interagency task force to make it possible to get to the heart of this fraud, we 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 1500 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. It'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 bad guys and do it as swiftly and efficiently as possible, is we are creating a new a Assistant Attorney General positioned 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.

[Chris Williamson]

What do you think when you see.

[Nick Shirley]

That journalism that's creating change? I mean, the issue of fraud has been there, but it's not new that we've been being. It's not new that we've been being defrauded. It's a complete result of my video showing that fraud's taking place to the point where the Vice President of the United States needs to create a new role for Assistant Attorney General to go after fraud. It's crazy, actually.

[Chris Williamson]

Dude, I think.

[Nick Shirley]

Think about that. Like, have you ever thought I've ever seen a video? We've. 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 for an attorney?

[Chris Williamson]

I was thinking about some stuff maybe during COVID where people that had scrutiny around mask 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 could be the beginning of a really huge tsunami of investigations around this stuff. So. Nick Shirley, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, get some sleep for me, please.

[Nick Shirley]

Do I look tired?

[Chris Williamson]

No, I just want you to sleep. I think that it's important for you to sleep so that you can keep on doing. You look fantastic. I 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.

[Nick Shirley]

Yeah, I think it's just like, I remember listening to your podcast with her Mosey, and it's just like, you need to treat yourself. I remember one thing that really struck to 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 at wherever it may be. But, like, I've dedicated essentially all my time and the past few years of my life to making these videos and creating conversation. And it wasn't a surprise that it just happened to be the fact that I made this video. It was just inevitable that something, at.

[Chris Williamson]

Some point it was gonna happen. Yeah, dude. Yeah, that's. 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]

Nick Shirley on all platforms. Shirley defense, if you want to learn. Hoodie to lear a little bit. But yeah, just Nick Shirley everywhere.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay. Nick, I appreciate you. Thank you, man.

[Nick Shirley]

Thank you. Got any advice for me?

[Chris Williamson]

Get some sleep. I think that's important. Honestly, dude, get some sleep and go for walks. We'll just keep you fresh. What else advice would I give you?

[Nick Shirley]

You're a wise guy.

[Chris Williamson]

I think. I think you need to try and delegate as quickly as possible 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. So 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, 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. And then it means that you can focus on where am I going to go? What's the story? How's the edit look? So I would look to delegate. I would definitely get some rest as best I could. 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. So I think continuing to put your foot on the gas, which is why getting to 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 sound bite of you saying something horrendous that kind of smears the rest of your. 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. You've already got like the shameless DM gene that I also have, which is good. So just keep on sending that out because I think people are going to want to keep supporting you.

[Nick Shirley]

Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Chris Williamson]

Fuck yeah. Appreciate you.

[Nick Shirley]

It's modern wisdom, baby.

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[Chris Williamson]

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[Chris Williamson]

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