Less than two weeks since YouTube personality Nick Shirley posted a 42-minute video alleging widespread fraud at Minnesota day care centers run by people of Somali descent, the Trump administration is freezing streams of federal funding — including $10 billion to five Democratic-led states — and has sent 2,000 federal agents to Minnesota to wage an immigration crackdown.
Furthermore, Minnesota's Democratic governor and former vice presidential candidate, Tim Walz, announced Monday he will no longer seek a third term, citing the need to focus on running the state rather than his campaign.
Pro-MAGA influencers on X declared victory as they also shared new, unsubstantiated fraud allegations about other social service providers in both Minnesota and other states.
"Tim Walz was almost Vice President of the United States," wrote Rogan O'Handley, a pro-Trump commentator with more than 2 million followers on X. "Now he's dropping out of the Governor's race in Minnesota in disgrace. All because a 23-year-old kid with a camera and a thirst for justice exposed billions of his fraud. May @nickshirleyy's work create 1,000 more Nick Shirleys."
Shirley himself posted to X on Monday, "I ENDED TIM WALZ."
Shirley's video was amplified by Vice President Vance and has garnered more than 138 million views on X — though his claims about specific day cares and other businesses receiving public funds without providing services remain unsubstantiated. But the swift policy and political repercussions the video helped propel illustrate the symbiotic relationship between online content creators and the Trump administration's policy goals.
Online content that purports to show evidence of a problem, like fraud in a Democratic state, can be harnessed by policymakers to justify policy changes they wanted to pursue, said Kate Starbird, a professor at the University of Washington who studies the spread of online rumors during crises and breaking news events. She said a similar dynamic has played out in the past with content alleging wasteful USAID spending, or posts claiming that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are to blame for accidents.
"They become really effective for driving policy that aligns with where those policy makers want it to go," Starbird said. "Whether that's de-fund social programs in blue states or eliminate DEI initiatives throughout all of the universities, these kinds of dynamics have been very effective for the second Trump administration."
One factor is that Trump's Cabinet is made up of people who understand the power of online content because that is the world they came from, said Shannon McGregor, a professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who studies the role of social media in politics.
"There's both people who are and were influencers with cabinet-level positions and other staff positions," McGregor said. "This is sort of all about harnessing the attention economy where attention equals power."
McGregor said another time this dynamic has been on display is when Trump-aligned content creators in cities like Portland have made videos presenting anti-ICE protests as violent and disruptive that helped bolster the Trump administration's justification to crack down, including by sending in the National Guard. The White House has given some of these creators special access and invited several, including Shirley, to participate in a roundtable to discuss antifa in October.
Some child care employees featured in Shirley's video have received threatening phone calls or been the targets of vandalism. While Shirley's video appeared to show there were no children present at the day cares he visited, Minnesota state officials from the Department of Children, Youth and Families said they visited nine of the day cares featured in the video and found children at all of them except one, which was not yet open for families. The agency also told media outlets one day care featured in the video had been closed since 2022.
At the same time, other fraud schemes in state social service programs have been well documented. At least 78 people have been criminally charged related to a $250 million scheme involving a COVID-era nutrition program. The majority are from the Somali community, which has a significant presence in the state and is often a target of Trump's ire.
These legitimate fraud cases make it difficult to interpret new unverified claims that have been made by social media influencers. Allegations that are now spreading online could be misinterpreting records or exaggerating minor issues — or could be exposing actual fraudulent activity.
"It's so hard to fact check the claims that come out in these ways," said Starbird. "And by the time they get fact-checked, the impact of those claims has already happened — people have already made up their minds of what they believe."
Content creators have posted videos of themselves in recent days knocking on the doors of what appear to be day cares and home health care businesses in other states, including in Ohio's Somali community. A parody video that purported to show a vacant day care in Los Angeles that received $42 million was also shared online in recent days by some users who did not appear to realize it was satire.
In an appearance on Fox News on Monday night White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned "great independent journalists like Nick Shirley" for helping the Trump administration uncover fraud, before describing the federal response in Minnesota and Trump's belief that Walz is "criminally liable."
The Trump administration indicated this week it is freezing $10 billion in funds for child care centers and cash welfare payments for Minnesota, California, Colorado, Illinois and New York due to fraud suspicions. The freeze followed other announced changes to federal funding for child care centers nationwide.
"California, under Governor Gavin Newscum, is more corrupt than Minnesota, if that's possible???? The Fraud Investigation of California has begun," Trump wrote on Truth Social early Tuesday but did not provide more details.
Just 23 minutes later, pro-Trump podcaster Benny Johnson posted to his 4 million followers on X that he would be heading to California next week to investigate fraud and asked for tips. By Tuesday evening he claimed he had received "over 1,000 messages from whistleblowers, public officials and State employees exposing California waste, fraud and abuse" and alleged $250 billion in potential fraud.
"The pipeline from rumor to policy is now shorter than the time it takes to verify a claim," wrote Renée DiResta, a Georgetown University professor who studies how information travels online, in her newsletter. "That's a remarkable — and dangerous — shift. People have always believed rumors, but now government elites ride them when they provide justification for what they wanted to do anyway."
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