The mother of conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley has hit out at critics of her son’s viral video report alleging widespread fraud in the Minneapolis day care sector, which has created a firestorm of controversy.
Shirley posted a 42-minute video on the streaming platform Friday in which he alleged that 10 day cares run by members of the city’s Somali-American community had misappropriated “upwards of $100 million” in taxpayer funds.
The influencer visited several of the centers for the film, including one Somali-owned business with a misspelled sign that has allegedly received $4 million in state funds, to interview the owners and ask where the children supposedly enrolled at the facility are.
Addressing the furore her son’s work has caused, Brooke Shirley appeared on Newsmax’s National Report Tuesday evening to attack local lawmakers for failing to stop the alleged fraud before now.
“The way I think of it is, if your house is burning down, are you going to try to stop the fire or are you just going to let it burn?” she said. “Our lawmakers in America have just let our country burn.”
Rebuking the state’s Democratic leadership, Shirley continued: “They’re the ones to blame. They’re the ones who have allowed this to happen.
“The Somalians have a perfect scheme. They found a perfect way to take taxpayer dollars. But the bottom line is our government leaders are the ones who allowed it.”
Going after Walz specifically, Shirley accused him of doing too little to address the issue and of attacking her son when he attempted to bring it to light.
“Tim Walz knew this was going on, and instead of doing anything about it, he calls people who are trying to call it out, like my son Nick Shirley, a white supremacist,” she said.
“They’re not saying, ‘Thank you for showing this. Thank you for showing what’s going on.’ Instead, we’re called white supremacists because we’re trying to save our country.”
Walz did link conservative outrage over the alleged fraud in Minneapolis to white supremacy at a press conference on December 23, but has not explicitly called Shirley a white supremacist.
Shirley claimed that her son had received support from local citizens, who, unlike the officials, appreciated his efforts.
“The people of Minnesota are thankful for this,” she said. “It’s literally taking people like me and my son… We’re the ones out there showing what’s going on because people are too afraid.”
The controversial video has already been viewed by more than a million people on YouTube and by tens of millions more on X, according to available metrics, attracting the attention of Vice President JD Vance and FBI Director Kash Patel, among others.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Monday that agents from her department were conducting “door-to-door” raids in Minnesota in response to the report, and the Trump administration moved Tuesday to pause federal childcare funds to the state, drawing an angry response from Gov. Tim Walz.
Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families commissioner Tikki Brown challenged Shirley’s approach Monday while conceding the ultimate validity of his concerns, commenting: “While we have questions about some of the methods used in the video, we do take the concerns that the video raises about fraud very seriously.”
“When were the videos taken?” she asked. “Were they during times that the center was scheduled to be open? Were they during the weekend?
Walz’s administration remains under pressure over the issue of fraud after the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota suggested earlier this month that the targeting of 14 vulnerable Medicaid programs in the state since 2018 could mean as much as $9 billion or more might have been stolen, approximately half of the total money made available.
The probe has become politically and culturally fraught as Somali-Americans make up 85 of the 98 defendants charged so far, according to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, prompting President Donald Trump to claim the community has “ripped off that state” while labeling Minnesota a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”
