President Donald Trump&#8217;s Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief placed blame squarely on sanctuary laws for Minnesota&#8217;s fraud scandal.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told Fox &amp; Friends Tuesday that sanctuary laws in cities like Minneapolis, which prevent local authorities from contacting or working with federal immigration agents, have provided a safe haven for fraudsters.
Earlier this month, federal authorities revealed that at least $9 billion in taxpayer funds may have been stolen as part of a massive fraud campaign that&#8217;s largely been tied to Minnesota&#8217;s Somali community.
The fraudsters allegedly funneled cash from state welfare programs through fake nonprofits and shell companies back to Somalia — and even Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab, City Journal <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/minnesota-welfare-fraud-somalia-al-shabaab" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> last month.
&#8220;There&#8217;s always a tie when it comes to sanctuary jurisdictions, where you can hide in plain sight. You see a lot of these fraudsters use a lot of sanctuary rules and sanctuary protections to enact in criminal fraud just like this,&#8221; Lyons said.
Homeland Security Investigations agents conducted door-to-door inspections in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-conduct-door-to-door-checks-at-suspected-minneapolis-fraud-sites?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Feds+Conduct+Door-To-Door+Checks+At+Suspected+Minneapolis+Fraud+Sites" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Minneapolis</a> on Monday, targeting suspected fraud sites.
It comes after independent journalist Nick Shirley posted a now-viral 42-minute video last week alleging that numerous daycare and learning centers in the area had no children on-site, despite receiving millions of dollars in taxpayer funding.
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&#8220;We&#8217;ve been on the ground for so long looking into these states that are conducting these type of material fraud, and when Homeland Security Investigations goes into these businesses, there is criminal activity when it comes to labor trafficking, child trafficking, human exploitation and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re looking at up there in Minnesota. And you&#8217;ll always come back to these sanctuary jurisdictions where you&#8217;ll find them hiding in plain sight and using those sanctuary protections to employ not only illegal aliens, but to conduct criminal fraud just like you&#8217;re seeing right now,&#8221; he said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Sanctuary cities like Minneapolis are HOTBEDS for criminal illegal alien activity.
Their radical policies serve only as protections for the WORST of the worst while Americans suffer the consequences of failed leadership. <a href="https://t.co/PLdd4oBBs5">pic.twitter.com/PLdd4oBBs5</a>
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/ICEgov/status/2006027537260924996?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
The Trump administration <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-minnesota-over-sanctuary-policies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> Minnesota in September over sanctuary policies in the state, with Attorney General Pam Bondi accusing the state of allowing illegal immigrants &#8220;to circumvent the legal process.&#8221;
Bondi is also looking into Minnesota&#8217;s fraud scandal, saying on X Monday that the feds have charged 98 individuals and that 85 of them are of Somali descent.
&#8220;We have more prosecutions coming … BUCKLE UP, LAWMAKERS!&#8221; Bondi said.

Gov. Tim Walz

Trump’s ICE Director Blames Sanctuary Laws For Minnesota Fraud

Department of Homeland Security

Donald Trump

Minnesota

Tim Walz

Homeland Security Investigations agents were on the ground in Minneapolis on Monday, conducting door-to-door checks at suspected fraud sites, as authorities examined the alleged involvement of Somali immigrants in a broader criminal scheme.
The Department of Homeland Security posted a video showing two agents entering a convenience store, where they ask the clerk about a suspicious business next door. Last week, independent journalist Nick Shirley posted a 42-minute video <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/independent-journalist-who-uncovered-minnesota-fraud-says-a-kindergartner-could-figure-it-out">alleging</a> that numerous daycare and learning centers in the Twin Cities area had no children on-site, despite receiving millions of dollars in government funding.
&#8220;The American people deserve answers on how their taxpayer money is being used and ARRESTS when abuse is found. Under the leadership of [Secretary Kristi Noem], DHS is working to deliver results,&#8221; Homeland Security posted on social media.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
DHS is on the ground in Minneapolis, going DOOR TO DOOR at suspected fraud sites.
The American people deserve answers on how their taxpayer money is being used and ARRESTS when abuse is found. Under the leadership of <a href="https://twitter.com/Sec_Noem?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Sec_Noem</a>, DHS is working to deliver results. <a href="https://t.co/7XtRflv36b">pic.twitter.com/7XtRflv36b</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/2005688262695018606?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin posted two more videos of federal agents on the ground in Minneapolis, adding that they are &#8220;conducting a large scale investigation on fraudulent daycare and healthcare centers, as well as other rampant fraud.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Right now in Minneapolis, Homeland Security Investigations <a href="https://twitter.com/ICEgov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ICEGov</a> are on the ground conducting a large scale investigation on fraudulent daycare and healthcare centers, as well as other rampant fraud.
More to come. <a href="https://t.co/GOXvZYSl5J">pic.twitter.com/GOXvZYSl5J</a>
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) <a href="https://twitter.com/TriciaOhio/status/2005714076702314966?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
FBI Director Kash Patel <a href="https://x.com/FBIDirectorKash/status/2005305530651189719">said</a> on Sunday that the bureau had already “surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota to dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs” before the issue gained traction on social media last week.
Patel pointed to the FBI’s role in uncovering the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, which received government funding to provide meals to hungry children during the COVID pandemic but allegedly never distributed food. The Feeding Our Future investigation was closed before Patel became the FBI director. The vast majority of the people charged and convicted were of Somali descent.
&#8220;The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. We will continue to follow the money and protect children, and this investigation very much remains ongoing,&#8221; Patel added.
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The recent revelations from Shirley have refocused attention on Minnesota and its Democratic governor, Tim Walz, who has been the subject of frequent criticism from President Donald Trump this year. Trump has recently targeted Minneapolis and its large Somali community in his immigration enforcement operations. Walz, meanwhile, has defended the Somali community and his own actions amid the fraud accusations.
A federal prosecutor said earlier this month that 14 Minnesota social programs have lost at least $9 billion from fraud since 2018. When asked earlier this month if the state government needed to do more to hold the Somali community accountable, Walz <a href="https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1999548617556722012">shot back</a>, saying that a majority of the crime was being &#8220;committed by white men.&#8221; In reality, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-fraud-feeding-our-future-medicaid-9911799c0d0149a64a042abed095be57">82 of the 92</a> people charged so far in the Minnesota fraud scheme are Somali Americans, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota.

Homeland Security

Feds Conduct Door-To-Door Checks At Suspected Minneapolis Fraud Sites

Crime

Fraud

Politics

Somalis

Trump Administration

Independent journalist Nick Shirley, whose recent viral video pulled back the curtain on tens of millions of dollars in alleged fraud in Minnesota, said the scheme was so obvious that &#8220;a kindergartner&#8221; could have put the pieces together.
During an <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6387013496112">appearance</a> on &#8220;The Big Weekend Show&#8221; on Fox News, Shirley described how he found suspicious daycare and learning centers in the Minneapolis area that appear to be fronts for massive scams. Shirley&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/nickshirleyy/status/2004642794862961123">video</a>, which has been reposted over 200,000 times on X, shows him visiting multiple government-funded daycares that seemed to have no children present.
&#8220;It&#8217;s so obvious,&#8221; Shirley said of the apparent fraud. &#8220;If you&#8217;re living in Minnesota, you have to raise your eyebrows and think, &#8216;What&#8217;s going on?&#8217; Literally, if you drive around Minneapolis, you&#8217;ll see daycare centers, autism centers — you will then see transportation companies that have snow piled up as if they haven&#8217;t moved it in months,&#8221; Shirley said.
&#8220;A kindergartner could&#8217;ve figured out there was fraud going on,&#8221; he added.
In his 42-minute video report, Shirley talks to a Minnesota resident identified only as &#8220;David,&#8221; who has been investigating the alleged fraud for years. David told Shirley that he first became suspicious when he noticed multiple daycare centers near his office with no children. David said he also noticed that he often saw Somali drivers from non-emergency medical transportation companies driving vans without passengers. He added that he found there are 1,020 non-emergency medical transportation companies in the state, and more than 800 of them are Somali-owned.
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Shirley, 23, said the people who supposedly worked at some of the daycare centers &#8220;could not answer the most simple questions,&#8221; such as where the children were or why their windows were blacked out. In one instance, Shirley and David ask two Somali women outside of a daycare center where the children are, and one of the women replies, &#8220;It&#8217;s not your business.&#8221;
Shirley&#8217;s video uncovers numerous examples of suspicious activity in the Minneapolis area shortly after a federal prosecutor said that, during Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz&#8217;s tenure, there has been at least $9 billion in fraud in the state. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/billions-paid-out-by-medicaid-in-minnesota-may-be-fraudulent-us-attorney/">revealed</a> earlier this month that 14 Medicaid services in Minnesota are at &#8220;high risk&#8221; for fraud.
The massive fraud scandal has already resulted in dozens of convictions and has involved many people from Minneapolis&#8217;s large Somali community. One accused Somali fraudster was still being paid by the Minnesota government to run assisted living homes, even as he awaited his trial for his alleged role in helping run a fraudulent charity, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/minnesota-is-currently-paying-an-indicted-somali-fraudster-to-run-assisted-living-homes">reported</a> earlier this month.
Walz and other Minnesota Democratic leaders have defended their actions amid the scandal and voiced support for the Somali community. A spokesman for the Minnesota governor said Walz &#8220;has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action. He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed.&#8221;
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shocking-video-exposes-more-apparent-somali-linked-fraud-in-walzs-minnesota">Shocking Video Exposes More Apparent Somali-Linked Fraud In Walz&#8217;s Minnesota</a>

Nick Shirley

Independent Journalist Who Uncovered Minnesota Fraud Says ‘A Kindergartner’ Could Figure It Out

Minneapolis

President Donald Trump presses on for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, a fraudulent daycare scheme adds to the scandals in Minnesota, and major cities tighten security for New Year’s Eve celebrations.
It’s Monday, December 29, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below or on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251229">The Daily Wire</a>:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/zelensky-visits-mar-a-lago-minnesota-daycare-fraud-12-29-25/id1576594336?i=1000743034813" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Trump Hosts Zelensky</h2>
As the war in Ukraine continues to rage, President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-peace-deal-in-ukraine-is-closer-than-ever-save-a-few-thorny-issues">hosted</a> Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, hoping to finalize a peace deal to end the war. Hours before the meeting, Russia hammered Kyiv with one of the most extensive airstrikes in months, killing four, wounding dozens, and knocking out power to much of the city. Trump described his meeting with Zelensky as “good and very productive.” Trump also said that “land” is a major sticking point in the peace process. Zelensky has vowed never to give up land to Russia, but did offer a compromise: turning some Ukrainian land in the East into a demilitarized zone. As an apparent show of good faith toward Trump, Zelensky has also expressed a new willingness to hold nationwide elections, a move Trump has long called for.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Empty Somali-Run Daycares Bilk Taxpayers For Millions</h2>
New reports of rampant fraud across dozens of Minnesota daycares have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shocking-video-exposes-more-apparent-somali-linked-fraud-in-walzs-minnesota">stirred</a> controversy online and even attracted the attention of federal lawmakers and the FBI. Independent journalist Nick Shirley posted a roughly 40-minute investigative documentary online that racked up tens of millions of views within days. Shirley claims that he uncovered more than $100 million in fraud involving Somali-run businesses. For example, Shirley and his co-investigator identified a childcare center that has received millions in taxpayer funds, but no one has seen the children purportedly cared for there. The explosive report has increased pressure on Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to be held accountable.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Trump Admin’s Anti-Terror And Immigration Operations</h2>
While Americans took time to unwind over the holiday season, the Trump administration was active on several fronts. Alongside its aggressive foreign policy and national security moves abroad, it continued its immigration and counterterrorism operations at home. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been ramping up her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-warns-that-islamist-ideology-is-freedoms-greatest-threat">warning</a> about the threat posed by terror actors, especially after the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia and the attacks on U.S. servicemembers in Syria. Major cities worldwide, including in the United States, have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/major-cities-scuttle-new-years-plans-amid-increased-islamist-terror-threats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">altered</a> or canceled New Year’s celebrations due to security concerns. In the meantime, the Trump administration’s deportation operations have continued.

MRN_251229_V1

Morning Brief: Zelensky Visits Mar-A-Lago, Minnesota Daycare Fraud & New Year’s Terrorism Risks

Media

Morning Wire

Tulsi Gabbard

Vladimir Putin

Volodymyr Zelensky

A shocking video confronting apparent fraudsters seems to expose even more Somali-linked fraud in Democrat Gov. Tim Walz&#8217;s Minnesota.
Journalist <a href="https://x.com/nickshirleyy/status/2004642794862961123?s=42">Nick Shirley</a> on Friday posted 42 minutes of video footage from an investigation into the fraud, largely focused on government-funded childcare operations that seemingly care for no children.
&#8220;Here is the full 42 minutes of my crew and I exposing Minnesota fraud, this might be my most important work yet,&#8221; Shirley captioned the video post. &#8220;We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable,&#8221; he added. &#8220;We ALL work way too hard and pay too much in taxes for this to be happening, the fraud must be stopped.&#8221;
In one jaw-dropping moment, Shirley and a resident named David, who&#8217;s been investigating the fraud for years, show up to a childcare center that seems completely empty. The building has no windows, and the word &#8220;learning&#8221; on the sign is misspelled. A man who&#8217;s lived in the area since 2017 told Shirley he&#8217;s never seen a single child at the center, and said that if Walz is to blame, the governor should be jailed and held accountable.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 HOLY CRAP! A Minnesota man who’s been living next to a Somali “daycare center” for eight years says he’s never seen a SINGLE CHILD there
“None! Not at all… and I’ve been here since 2017!”
“They’re stealing the money!”
He even called on Tim Walz to be JAILED over this. I… <a href="https://t.co/Zo1ZHlOaU3">pic.twitter.com/Zo1ZHlOaU3</a>
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2004669888518844689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
In the video, David tells Shirley that, per public records, some of these childcare centers have received millions of dollars from the state and federal government through a program called the Child Care Assistance Program, or CCAP. The program is run by the state, but there is federal funding included.
Another supposed daycare center the team visited on a weekday was closed up. David said he&#8217;s never seen &#8220;a single child&#8221; at the location in nine years. The center has received millions of taxpayer dollars.
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&#8220;I&#8217;m not sure, I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; one woman wearing a hijab tells the team when she&#8217;s asked if she&#8217;s ever seen children at the childcare center.
In another alarming moment, clipped by journalist Nick Sortor, two women in hijabs and face-coverings are confronted about why there is only one child at another taxpayer-funded supposed center. They yell at David and Shirley, but provide no answers. Notably, Shirley is also told he can&#8217;t enroll his son at the daycare and can&#8217;t view the area.
One of the women even tells Shirley that she&#8217;s afraid of him because of his &#8220;color.&#8221; Shirley is white.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 BREAKING: Elon Musk just called for the PROSECUTION of Tim Walz for the rampant taxpayer funded FRAUD in the Somali community
Walz has worked to COVER UP this fraud at the expense of the American people in order to buy votes
LOCK HIM UP! <a href="https://t.co/CZWDZ3UUx8">pic.twitter.com/CZWDZ3UUx8</a>
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2004757253145190894?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
The unfathomable amount of fraud, some of which is seemingly exposed in the video, sparked billionaire Elon Musk to call for the prosecution of Walz.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Prosecute <a href="https://twitter.com/GovTimWalz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovTimWalz</a> <a href="https://t.co/oSQprdo292">https://t.co/oSQprdo292</a>
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2004755989107757521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
A jaw-dropping press conference held earlier this month confirmed that $9 billion – or potentially more – of taxpayer money could have been stolen during Walz’s tenure.
As outlined by federal prosecutor Joseph Thompson, 14 taxpayer-funded programs in particular were found to be rife with fraud since 2018. Those programs cost $18 billion, and Thompson said it’s possible that half of that, or more, could have been fraudulently claimed.
“I think we’re an outlier in a bad way,” Thompson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NirLDCHIpr0">said</a> of Minnesota. “You don’t see fraud on this scale in other states. … Every day we look under a rock and find a new $50 million fraud scheme. That shouldn’t be the case in a state of our size. Certainly other states have problems with frauds, but I think our problem is unique.”
Thompson said Minnesota earned a reputation for being, essentially, easy to rip off, which sparked what’s called “fraud tourism” — or people moving to the state to commit fraud.
Fraudsters, he said, would create companies entirely dedicated to fraud, which is different from up-charging for services, which is typical in Medicaid fraud.
Walz, who’s unsurprisingly in the hot seat over the scandal, says Thompson is engaging in “sensationalism” and says there’s “<a href="https://www.startribune.com/walz-says-theres-no-evidence-of-9b-in-fraud-exposing-rift-between-state-and-feds/601549681">no evidence</a>” the scope is $9 billion or more.
View the full video, below:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
🚨 Here is the full 42 minutes of my crew and I exposing Minnesota fraud, this might be my most important work yet. We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day. Like it and share it around like wildfire! Its time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable
We ALL… <a href="https://t.co/E3Penx2o7a">pic.twitter.com/E3Penx2o7a</a>
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) <a href="https://twitter.com/nickshirleyy/status/2004642794862961123?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tim-walz-gets-more-bad-news-from-feds-after-massive-fraud-scandal-exposed">Tim Walz Gets More Bad News From Feds After Massive Fraud Scandal Exposed</a>

Screenshot 2025-12-27 at 12.17.14 PM

Shocking Video Exposes More Apparent Somali-Linked Fraud In Walz’s Minnesota

Somalia

U.S.

Democrat Gov. Tim Walz (MN) just had millions of federal dollars cut off from the Small Business Administration (SBA) to his state, due to the multi-billion-dollar fraud scandal that occurred under the governor&#8217;s nose.
SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler sent a letter to Walz on Tuesday, telling the governor that her agency will &#8220;halt&#8221; more than $5.5 million in annual support in the state &#8220;until further notice,&#8221; Fox News reported.
&#8220;I am notifying you that effective immediately and until further notice, the SBA is halting the disbursement of federal funds to SBA resource partners operating in the state of Minnesota, totaling over $5.5 million in annual support,&#8221; Loeffler said in the letter.
&#8220;This action is the result of a fundamental breakdown in the public trust,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Under your leadership, Minnesota failed to safeguard taxpayer dollars, and SBA will not continue to place federal resources at risk in a state where oversight measures are ignored and accountability is abandoned.&#8221;
A recent jaw-dropping press conference confirmed that $9 billion – or potentially more – of taxpayer money could have been stolen during Walz&#8217;s tenure. 
As outlined by federal prosecutor Joseph Thompson, 14 taxpayer-funded programs in particular were found to be rife with fraud since 2018. Those programs cost $18 billion, and Thompson said it’s possible that half of that, or more, could have been fraudulently claimed. 
“I think we&#8217;re an outlier in a bad way,&#8221; Thompson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NirLDCHIpr0">said</a> of Minnesota. &#8220;You don&#8217;t see fraud on this scale in other states. &#8230; Every day we look under a rock and find a new $50 million fraud scheme. That shouldn&#8217;t be the case in a state of our size. Certainly other states have problems with frauds, but I think our problem is unique.”
Thompson said Minnesota earned a reputation for being, essentially, easy to rip off, which sparked what&#8217;s called &#8220;fraud tourism&#8221; — or people moving to the state to commit fraud.
Fraudsters, he said, would create companies entirely dedicated to fraud, which is different from up-charging for services, which is typical in Medicaid fraud. 
Walz, who’s unsurprisingly in the hot seat over the scandal, says Thompson is engaging in “sensationalism” and says there’s “<a href="https://www.startribune.com/walz-says-theres-no-evidence-of-9b-in-fraud-exposing-rift-between-state-and-feds/601549681">no evidence</a>” the scope is $9 billion or more. 
As for the rest of the Trump administration, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services (CMS), has threatened to withhold federal Medicaid funds if Minnesota fails to address widespread fraud and implement corrective actions.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/minnesota-is-currently-paying-an-indicted-somali-fraudster-to-run-assisted-living-homes">Minnesota Is Currently Paying An Indicted Somali Fraudster To Run ‘Assisted Living’ Homes</a>

JD Vance And Tim Walz Face Off In Vice Presidential Debate In New York

Tim Walz Gets More Bad News From Feds After Massive Fraud Scandal Exposed

Tim Walz Gets Bad News From Feds After Massive Fraud Scandal Exposed

Federal Government

A man awaiting trial for his alleged role in the nation&#8217;s largest COVID scam is to this day billing the government millions for dubious services.
The man indicted in the Feeding Our Future scandal, in which Somali nationals billed the government to provide millions of non-existent meals for the needy, is currently operating multiple assisted living homes in which adults live and receive on-demand services at taxpayer expense. That&#8217;s according to Minnesota lawmaker Kristin Robbins, a Republican who chairs the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, which was set up in response to more than a billion dollars of fraud in roughly the last six years.
The person is <a href="https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/02/16/man-indicted-in-feeding-our-future-fraud-has-been-paid-49-million-by-dhs-since-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gandi Yusuf Mohamed</a>, who later changed his name to Gandi Abdi Kediye. &#8220;In February 2024, this person was indicted and charged for $1.1 million in money laundering in Feeding Our Future,&#8221; Robbins said at a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr9I2FqIwVY">hearing</a>. &#8220;This person was paid an additional $49 million for other state programs between 2019 and 2024. This person will have their trial in 2026.&#8221;
The suspected fraudster donated the maximum permitted campaign contribution of $2,500 to Minnesota&#8217;s Democrat attorney general Keith Ellison, according to a 2024 Minnesota Reformer article. That article quoted a Republican lawmaker explicitly calling on state authorities to review his contracts, yet he continued to operate. The federal Department of Justice said that Mohamed&#8217;s <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/us-attorney-announces-federal-charges-against-10-additional-defendants-feeding-our" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brother</a> was also part of the Feeding Our Future scheme.
Robbins said her tiny committee, with only one researcher using public documents, had found evidence of a sprawling fraud scheme that the Walz administration and Ellison had apparently done nothing to stop. The inaction raises questions about how many safety-net programs are being exploited in the state and whether Minnesota&#8217;s Democrat governor Tim Walz has taken even basic steps to stop fraud.
One real estate broker handled the purchase of a large number of single-family homes, including on behalf of Mohamed, the Feeding Our Future defendant, that were then converted into assisted living facilities that billed Medicaid. One assisted living company used three houses owned by the defendant and operated by his wife through a different company. The wife recently purchased a fourth home, again using the realtor, to which the state granted a provisional license in September, her committee found.
&#8220;Incredibly, the Feeding Our Future defendant changed his name just months before he was indicted, and used that new name to purchase the two [assisted-living facility] homes [as a business referred to as] ALF 17, that the state has paid $132,000 this year. One was purchased using the same LLC that he&#8217;s indicted for money laundering&#8221; over, she said. &#8220;If we haven&#8217;t cross-checked people who are indicted to see what other services they&#8217;ve received, we have failed.&#8221;
Another realtor purchased multiple homes, and one recipient testified months ago that he was not getting medical services despite the owner billing $1.6 million to the government. The government shut down payments to him in one program, Integrated Community Supports, but he is still operating in the assisted living program.
Another person, who used one of the same realtors, runs a mining operation in Africa and a restaurant in Minneapolis that was shut down for illegal gambling. He used the same address as a building that purported to house 100 different health care companies. One property he owns has only four bedrooms, yet &#8220;got $826,000 last year and is on pace to double that,&#8221; Robbins said.
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Another assisted living facility he purchased using cash and claimed it as his primary residence to avoid taxes, despite also claiming another home for that, she said: &#8220;That should be a basic internal control that is being flagged.&#8221;
One individual also purposed to operate an adult daycare center that billed $632,000 this year — at the same address as the African mine operator, suggesting the same home was being double-billed, she said.
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Minnesota has historically provided generous government programs to help the elderly, sick, and needy. But after an explosion of immigrants from low-trust societies like Somalia, such programs have grown at a pace that defies common sense and threatens the ability to operate such programs.
Minnesota&#8217;s Department of Human Services Inspector General James Clark told the committee, &#8220;Medicaid is a trust-based system; we don&#8217;t have the technology or staff to look over everyone&#8217;s shoulder.&#8221;
The number of people providing &#8220;adult day care&#8221; has increased 43% in the last decade, even though the number of people requiring such care has only increased 7%, and there is typically a shortage of qualified health care workers, state officials acknowledged.
&#8220;Just yesterday, we announced that effective February 1, we will enact a two-year pause on adult day care licenses,&#8221; said Shireen Gandhi, the Minnesota Department of Human Services&#8217; temporary commissioner.
Asked why the state would have approved so many providers for which there is no demand, Gandhi said she was pressured by &#8220;a whole host of legislators and providers.&#8221;
Clark said there was supposed to be a &#8220;needs assessment&#8221; required before new adult day care centers could be licensed, &#8220;but unfortunately, that was removed from the statute&#8221; by legislators.
He said as long as the spigots of Medicaid dollars are flowing, recovering fraudulent payouts is difficult If a provider pays kickbacks to a fake patient, both are in on the scam, and neither will talk.
Even as Walz acknowledged that <a href="https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/walz-pauses-payments-for-14-high-risk-medicaid-programs/">fourteen programs that pushed the boundaries</a> of what Medicaid is supposed to pay for using waivers from the federal government are at &#8220;high risk&#8221; of fraud, John Collins, Medicaid director at the Department of Human Services, said he did not even know the dollar figure of the growth in spending. &#8220;But it&#8217;s a very reasonable thing to ask,&#8221; he said.
Growth in payments for assisted living are 10 to 15 percent higher than growth in other programs, Robbins said. Democrat members suggested that could be because baby boomers are beginning to become elderly. Yet a county-by-county breakdown showed that almost all the growth came around Minneapolis, where Somalis are concentrated.
Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Brooke Cunningham said &#8220;we are not currently aware of any credible allegations of fraud within the assisted living space.&#8221;
Robbins told The Daily Wire in a post-hearing interview that Cunningham&#8217;s claim was &#8220;shocking.&#8221;
&#8220;That would imply that they don&#8217;t have whistleblowers to their own agency, which is false,&#8221; Robbins said. &#8220;And they just opened their own whistleblower tip line.&#8221;
Democrats on the committee faulted Robbins for not sharing her whistleblower leads with Attorney General Ellison in addition to the U.S. Attorney. But Robbins said many of the whistleblowers only approached her as a last resort after being ignored by the Minnesota executive branch.
Gandhi, the Department of Human Services commissioner, said, &#8220;Fraud is not a partisan issue. People of all races, ages and incomes commit fraud.&#8221;
But Robbins told The Daily Wire that Democrats opposed the creation of an anti-fraud committee in the legislature, and that Walz&#8217;s Human Services head opposed the creation of a government-wide inspector general.
She said one reason Democrats have opposed rooting out fraud is that most of it is done by Somalis. &#8220;One reason the fraud mushroomed is when they raised concerns, they were told to be quiet because they didn&#8217;t want to be considered Islamophobic,&#8221; she said.
Somalis have outright used that as a get-out-of-jail-free card, with some Feeding our Future culprits suing the Department of Education on the grounds that it was racist, she said.
If Democrats won&#8217;t stop fraud, then big-government programs cease to become an option, she said: &#8220;We need to refocus on the original intent of Medicaid, which is health care for the elderly and disabled. If we refocus, we&#8217;d see more support and higher reimbursements for our hospitals.&#8221;
The high-risk programs involve expanding Medicaid beyond its intended scope using waivers granted by the federal government. One such program has been terminated after going through a 90-day federal process, Rollins said. Medicaid bills are split by the state and federal government, and the feds could demand that the state repay fraudulent funds, which could cripple the state, she said.
Nate Olsen, a disability advocate, became emotional at the hearing, faulting Walz for looking the other way at fraud to an extent that there could be no money left for taking care of Olsen&#8217;s disabled brother.
&#8220;Our governor is not doing anything to help us except to sit here and decide he wants to blame the president of the United States, who has nothing to do with this,&#8221; Olsen said. &#8220;There is a time to hold our governor accountable, and I&#8217;m not seeing it. This fraud is outrageous and I&#8217;m very scared for my little brother.&#8221;

Brooke Cunningham, Tim Walz

Minnesota Is Currently Paying An Indicted Somali Fraudster To Run ‘Assisted Living’ Homes

Daily Wire Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak details his reporting on governmental waste and fraud before Congress, controversy swirls around Zohran Mamdani’s administration-to-be, and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) gives us an inside look at Minnesota’s fraud scandal.
It’s Thursday, December 11, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251211-member-exclusive">video version can be seen on The Daily Wire</a>:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dei-fraud-exposed-mamdanis-radical-moves-12-11-25/id1576594336?i=1000740820041" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Senate Digs Into DEI Fraud</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1013133" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Senate is investigating a multi-billion-dollar DEI fraud scheme, as the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, sending markets soaring. 
Senate drills into DEI: The Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program was initially intended to offer support for those deemed “socially and economically disadvantaged.” Under the Biden administration, federal agencies were instructed to ensure 15% of all contracts were given to businesses operated by minorities or women, meaning billions of taxpayer dollars were awarded based on race and gender in what became one of the largest DEI programs in the country.
Not only was the program intentionally excluding people based on race, but it was also ripe with fraud. Daily Wire Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak documented countless cases in which minority business owners would win a contract, then outsource all the work to non-minority-owned businesses, pocketing most of the money in the process.
On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Small Business held a hearing to address the fraud, and Rosiak testified about his findings.
“8A creates a random group of influence peddlers who like lobbyists, get rich by selling their access to government insiders to the benefit of big businesses, while driving up the cost for all of us. This is the kind of thing people hate about Washington. You owe it to voters to end this program,” <a href="https://x.com/realDailyWire/status/1998848540135555157?s=20">said</a> Rosiak.
Interest rates: On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Board voted to cut interest rates by a quarter point to the 3.5%-3.75% range. That means rates have now come down by nearly 2% over the last year and a half. They’re now at their lowest point in more than three years.
There was not unanimous agreement from the voting members of the Fed Board. For the first time in six years, three of the twelve officials cast dissenting votes, with two saying cuts weren’t needed, and one saying the cut should be bigger.
Essentially, the disagreement stems from whether the Fed should prioritize the labor market, which has slowed significantly, or inflation, which remains well above the target range of 2%. Typically, rates are raised when inflation is high, and lowered when the labor market is cool. Ultimately, the Fed Board, led by Chair Jerome Powell, viewed the labor market as a more pressing matter, and said these cuts would help with hiring and unemployment. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Mamdani’s Rule Already Stirring Controversy</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1013135" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: As New York City braces for a seismic shift in leadership with democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani taking the helm as mayor next month, a wave of controversy is erupting over his early moves.
Many political pundits, particularly those on the Right, warned that Mamdani would endanger public safety and undermine law enforcement, and now they say they’re seeing evidence for these claims even before he has officially taken office.
One of the most talked-about moves came just days ago, when Mamdani put out a video addressed to immigrants living in New York City. In it, he <a href="https://x.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1997801475066745259?s=20">told</a> viewers they have the right to “stand up to ICE.”
Critics argue this goes beyond merely explaining constitutional rights. Some say it could embolden illegal aliens, even those with criminal records, to resist or evade lawful ICE action.
Mamdani’s transition: The transition team has been an explosive topic as Mamdani has tapped Mysonne Linen to be a key voice on justice reform on the “Committee on the Criminal Legal System.”
Linen was once a rising hip-hop star signed to Def Jam. But in 1999, he was convicted of two armed robberies where he held up taxi drivers at gunpoint. He served seven years and was paroled in 2006.
He then rebranded as a Black Lives Matter activist and co-founded Until Freedom with Linda Sarsour, a controversial pro-Palestinian activist who has also served as a Mamdani advisor.
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The choice has driven law enforcement apoplectic. Correction officers’ union head Benny Boscio called it “disheartening and deeply disturbing.” Retired NYPD brass such as John Chell see a pattern with Mamdani filling his team with anti-cop firebrands like black nationalist Lumumba Bandele, defund-the-police guru Alex Vitale, and others.
Mamdani says he just wants a broad array of “experiences and analysis” to draw from.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What’s Behind The Massive Somali Fraud Scandal?</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1013137" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The sweeping fraud allegations coming out of Minnesota have sparked demands for more investigations and further action from political leaders in D.C. to protect against billions more in taxpayer dollars getting funneled into the hands of fraudsters. Morning Wire spoke with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who represents Minnesota’s 6th congressional district, about the scandal. (This interview has been lightly edited.)
Morning Wire: We have this massive fraud scandal continuing to unravel this week. What do you believe were the most critical oversight failures within the Walz administration? And how should Minnesota restructure its safeguards to prevent this from happening again?
Emmer: The first thing you do is you got to get rid of [Minnesota Democratic Governor] Tim Walz and [Minnesota Attorney General] Keith Ellison and [Congresswoman] Ilhan Omar. I mean, there&#8217;s your biggest structural problem right there. Let me put some context around this for your viewers, your listeners. … The facts are this: today, there are roughly 80,000 Somali immigrants that are living in Minnesota. The vast majority of them live in Minneapolis or Hennepin County–an area called Cedar-Riverside. … Tim Walz and Keith Ellison cannot get votes in greater Minnesota. Think about this: in the last election, Tim Walz outspent the Republican candidates $15 million to $1.7 million, and he won with 52%, just over 52% of the vote. If you look a little deeper, we have 87 counties. Tim Walz only won the 13 metro counties. We&#8217;ll go a little farther. If you look at the 74 counties that he lost, he got 37% of the vote, including losing his former congressional seat by eight points. So, what is this about? This is about the fact that when he and Keith Ellison took office, Keith Ellison instantly set up a policy in his attorney general&#8217;s office that required his approval before any further investigations into fraud could go forward. Guess what? He&#8217;s never approved one of them. … And it&#8217;s not that all Somali immigrants are bad. It just so happens that 90% of the crimes we&#8217;re talking about have been committed by people that are in the Somali community. And by the way, they have been sending millions back to Somalia into the hands of Al-Shabaab, a known terrorist group. So, if you look at Keith Ellison, he won by a little less than one point in his last election. What is this all about? This is all about them getting re-elected. They need that 60 to 80,000 Somali population. They need them to be voting for them. That&#8217;s what this is all about.
Morning Wire: You mentioned the word accountability. We do have some individual actors being convicted, but what about on the government level? What about some of these officials? Is there any action being taken to hold people accountable if they looked the other way knowingly? What investigations are going on with that, and what do you hope to see pursued?
Emmer: Look, I think our U.S. Justice Department is starting to pick up where Minnesota should have been involved investigating not only the fraud but who might have been not just incompetent but actively engaged in the fraud because they should be criminally held, criminally responsible. You&#8217;ve got Dr. Oz, who&#8217;s investigating a fraud on the Medicaid program. You&#8217;ve got Kelly Loeffler, who&#8217;s investigating fraud in the SBA program. You got Kash Patel, who&#8217;s busy with his team investigating Somali gangs that have frankly been running rampant in the Twin Cities committing crimes and no one will hold them accountable for it.

MRN_251211_V2

Morning Brief: DEI Fraud Exposed, Mamdani’s Radical Moves, & Minnesota Scandal Reveals Fault Lines

Morning Brief: Senate Digs Into DEI, Mamdani Picks Stoke Controversy, And The Politics Of MN Fraud

Federal Reserve

Jerome Powell

Keith Ellison

New York City

Zohran Mamdani

The Supreme Court takes up a case that could decide the future of so-called birthright citizenship, elected leaders in Minnesota are scrutinized for links to the state&#8217;s massive welfare scandal, and the announced Netflix-Warner Bros merger sends shockwaves through Hollywood.
It’s Monday, December 8, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251208">video version can be seen on The Daily Wire</a>:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/birthright-citizenship-showdown-minnesotas-fraud-firestorm/id1576594336?i=1000740192995" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Trump vs Birthright Citizenship</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1011047" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/SCOTUS-Weighs-Citizenship.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Supreme Court will soon decide the fate of birthright citizenship in what could be a historic court case brought on by the Trump administration.
On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that children born in the United States to illegal immigrants and other short-term visitors would no longer be considered American citizens.
That order was immediately challenged in multiple lower federal courts and subsequently put on hold. But on Friday, the White House got some major news: the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case and will decide on the constitutionality of birthright citizenship. A ruling is expected by this summer.
Preview: The case will hinge on the court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Supporters of birthright citizenship say that sentence includes virtually everyone born on U.S. soil, but opponents say those born to illegal immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and thus are not Americans.
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Essentially, the White House says birthright citizenship was originally a good-intentioned provision meant to extend citizenship to the children of former slaves after the Civil War.
But they argue it’s now been abused by millions of illegal immigrants and even tourists, who race across the border while pregnant to ensure their children will get citizenship. 
Lawyers for the White House argue that Trump’s executive order would simply “restore the clause’s original meaning.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Massive Minnesota Fraud</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1011049" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Welfare-Scandal-Widens.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Somali-linked welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota is now being tied to Democrat leaders in the state, drawing more attention from the Trump administration and Congress.
Catch up: Billions of tax dollars have been stolen in the state of Minnesota during the tenure of Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. City Journal reporting has uncovered that at least a billion dollars in welfare and social service schemes have largely been connected to the Somali community in Minnesota. Alarmingly, some of this money was allegedly <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/minnesota-welfare-fraud-somalia-al-shabaab" target="_blank" rel="noopener">funneled</a> to Somalia-based terrorist group Al-Shabaab.
How could it be worse? Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller says the welfare fraud scheme is far worse than the American people think, involving “complicit” state government officials and totaling more stolen money than initial early estimates stated.
“We believe we have only scratched the very top of the surface of how deep this goes,” <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1997135207707615556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1997135207707615556%7Ctwgr%5E79d8d486c99e2a14a41c75308117655867895db2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fthe-somali-welfare-fraud-scandal-is-even-worse-than-you-think">said</a> Miller in an appearance on Fox News. “We believe the state government is fully complicit in this scheme, and we believe that what we are going to uncover is going to shock the American people.”
Miller also underscored the Somali ties to this fraud, connecting it to a larger conversation the nation is having about immigration from third-world countries.
“Seventy-five percent of the Somali population in Minnesota is on welfare, and that’s likely a significant undercount of just how much of a financial burden the Somali refugee population is imposing on this country,” <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1997135207707615556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1997135207707615556%7Ctwgr%5E79d8d486c99e2a14a41c75308117655867895db2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fthe-somali-welfare-fraud-scandal-is-even-worse-than-you-think">said</a> Miller.
Who knew what: Reporting from the New York Post has tied Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar to the scandal. Omar held parties at one of the key restaurants named, and she knew one of its owners, who is now convicted of stealing millions in funds. Additionally, one of her own staffers has been convicted of stealing millions. Omar even introduced the bill that led to $250 million in fraud.
“I just think that a lot of the COVID programs were set up so quickly that a lot of the guardrails did not get created,” Omar <a href="https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1996395142001864889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1996395142001864889%7Ctwgr%5Edaf0b98b351595e957decab8d8baed2dec55e0db%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Filhan-omar-says-trump-supporters-might-attack-somalis-brushes-off-fraud-scandal">told</a> CNN last week when asked about the fraud.
There have also been questions about Walz’s oversight. The Treasury Department is investigating this scandal, and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has announced a congressional investigation.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Netflix-Warner Bros Seismic Merger</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1011051" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Streaming-Studio-Shake-up.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: In a seismic shift for Hollywood, Netflix has struck an $83 billion deal to acquire Warner Brothers. The merger would potentially reshape the entertainment business for generations.
Announced just days ago, Netflix&#8217;s binding offer will give it not just Warner Bros the movie studio, but also streaming assets like HBO Max. And it&#8217;s gobbling up classics like Batman, Superman, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Looney Tunes, Friends, etc.
It’s being called one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mergers in Hollywood history. It comes after a bidding war that saw heavyweights like Paramount Skydance and Comcast get outmaneuvered or outspent by Netflix.
The Netflix angle: Netflix has been in a content arms race with Disney and Amazon. The Warner Bros. vault offers instant firepower.
Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos says it&#8217;ll “accelerate HBO Max growth” while blending Warner&#8217;s “theatrical expertise.” But many critics are concerned that this means Netflix will shorten theatrical windows and further decimate the moviegoing business.
That’s part of the reason many creatives hate this deal. During the bidding war, director James Cameron <a href="https://x.com/Todd_Spence/status/1996991743116591550?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that Netflix&#8217;s acquisition of Warner Bros would be “a disaster” for the industry.
Batman director Christopher Nolan is representing the Directors Guild in meetings with Netflix to express concerns. Both the East and West Writers’ Guilds issued a joint statement unequivocally opposing the sale and asking regulators to block it.
Could it be blocked? There are already rumbles in Washington that the Trump administration doesn’t like this merger.
And opposition is bipartisan. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), chair of the antitrust subcommittee, said Netflix should “Buckle up for an intense antitrust hearing.” Meanwhile,  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has called the merger an “anti-monopoly nightmare,” warning that it could lead to higher subscription prices and fewer choices for consumers.
There’s no question that because Netflix is already the largest global streamer, adding Warner Bros. content and HBO Max subscribers would give it extraordinary dominance–over a third of the streaming market.
Netflix, though, already seems to be trying to soothe customer jitters. It sent a message to subscribers on Saturday night, repeatedly assuring them that their plans, fees, content access, and the separate operations of both Netflix and HBO Max will not change.

MRN_251208_V1

Morning Brief: Birthright Citizenship Showdown & Minnesota Fraud Firestorm

birthright citizenship

Ilhan Omar

Netflix

Stephen Miller

Supreme Court

Warner Bros

It seems that the Somali welfare fraud scandal is now breaking into full view, and it&#8217;s hitting a lot of people who are elected officials, including the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, and possibly Ilhan Omar.
To understand why this matters so much, we have to understand that it is all tied to a couple of major national issues. One, of course, is mass migration from third-world countries. Is that something America should be pursuing?
The second is a gigantic, unaccountable welfare state in which billions of dollars can simply go missing, which takes years to uncover.
The two stories are intertwined. When it comes to the question of mass migration, the Trump administration has taken an incredibly strong position that mass migration, particularly from countries that do not adhere to American values, should be significantly limited or curtailed.
This is a very open question, implicated by not only the Afghan national who shot two members of the National Guard, killing one, but also by this gigantic Somali welfare fraud case in Minnesota.
As The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/minnesota-welfare-fraud-feeding-our-future-smart-therapy-immigration-entitlement-state-1af9cce6?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqfP4B6pv3eMh572ufYeXbMnTh4yprnMCoN0NfvinI8Fm3CPFcYsQLPo&amp;gaa_sig=WIg-EyVCa4rusgxC1lc_jfv3U5mW5GLP0tEWFn9lCpzt6AJX2qYNaPAE1sdSlYP4j7hqpCKVfm_280nvVWWONw%3D%3D&amp;gaa_ts=693323b7&amp;utm_source=chatgpt.com">points out</a>:
<blockquote>What happens when welfare becomes not a temporary hand up but an ingrained expectation of American life? For an ugly glimpse, look at the astonishing fraud unfolding in Minnesota. Turns out those GOP reformers were right to call out fraud in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 
The White House this week published a memo titled, “‘Yes, ‘There’s Something Wrong with Walz’—and it Cost Taxpayers $1 Billion,” highlighting various swindles in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. There may be as many fraud schemes as lakes in the state given the ease in which scammers tapped government funds.
Some 86 individuals have been charged with defrauding Medicaid and the Federal Child Nutrition Program in Minnesota—yes, literally stealing lunch money from kids. “No one was doing anything about the red flags,” one defendant’s attorney told the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/NYT">New York Times</a>. “It was like someone was stealing money from the cookie jar and they kept refilling it.”
One of those alleged schemes, The Outfit Feeding Our Future, recruited individuals to set up a network of sham companies and sites that claimed to feed children in the pandemic. They then submitted false invoices and fake attendance rosters to the state. In fact, one of those rosters actually grabbed names from another web site called <a href="http://listofrandomnames.com">listofrandomnames.com</a>.</blockquote>
And somehow this worked for years.
<blockquote>In another scheme, a 28-year-old woman allegedly launched a company, Smart Therapy, that claimed to provide one-on-one behavioral therapy to autistic children. She employed relatives with no formal education and recruited parents to enroll their non-autistic kids in her therapy sessions by paying them kickbacks of up to $1,500 a month per child.
In a darkly comic twist, some parents allegedly extorted the woman by threatening to enroll their children in other autism centers if they weren’t paid bigger kickbacks. Smart Therapy allegedly billed Medicaid for the kids’ supposed therapy as well as their transportation to the appointments. It also submitted false claims for meals to the state’s food programs. In another indictment, eight individuals this fall were charged with fraudulently billing Medicaid to help recovering addicts find stable housing. 
Yes, housing. Minnesota pioneered the use of Medicaid money to help beneficiaries secure housing on the questionable rationale that this would improve their health and reduce healthcare spending.</blockquote>
Democrats built this entire massive infrastructure. And now, it turns out, lots of people took advantage of it. And those people were, in this particular case, Somali.
It&#8217;s hilarious to watch members of the media try to create a rationale for why Somali immigrants to the United States, overall, have been a massive boon.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2328-what-did-ilhan-omar-know-and-when-did-she-know-it?elementPosition=5&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
In order for all this to happen, you need complicit politicians, because when the fraud is this big, and so many people seem to know about it, it seems almost impossible not to have elected officials who knew about it.
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/12/04/us-news/what-did-ilhan-omar-know-about-the-1b-welfare-fraud-case-in-her-minnesota-district/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>US Rep. Ilhan Omar’s close ties to the $1 billion welfare scam in her Minnesota congressional district are being uncovered. Omar (D-Minn.) held parties at one of the key restaurants named in the fraud, knew one of its now-convicted owners, and one of her own staffers has also been convicted — both for stealing millions. Omar even introduced the bill that led to $250 million in fraud. Yet she claims to have been completely unaware of it. 
“[Rep. Omar] knew who these people were. People she personally knew were making tens of millions of dollars in this program,” claimed Bill Glahn, a policy fellow with the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment, to The Post. “She had been inside the [Safari] facility on numerous occasions and couldn’t put 2 and 2 together? Either she’s terminally naive, or knew and didn’t care,” Glahn added. 
Around $250 million was handed out by the Minnesota government to provide meals to schoolchildren during the pandemic from 2020 onward. Instead, it was pocketed by corrupt business owners, including Salim Ahmed Said. He’s the co-owner of Safari Restaurant, where Omar held her 2018 congressional victory party. Said was found guilty in August of <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/federal-jury-finds-feeding-our-future-mastermind-and-co-defendant-guilty-250-million">stealing over $12 million</a> for serving 3.9 million “phantom” meals during the COVID-19 pandemic.</blockquote>
This happened inside Omar’s district. Her defense is, “Everybody who mentions this sort of stuff is racist.”
That is always and forever the defense.
President Trump, of course, has been highly critical of the Somali American mass migration issue. Omar says Trump is an abusive, deranged old man.
This woman, who once suggested that 9/11 was “something some people did” and who herself wrote a letter to a judge asking that an ISIS recruiter be granted mercy because of the evils of having to integrate in America, is now calling the president an abusive, deranged old man because he&#8217;s been critical of Somali mass migration.
Omar published a piece in The New York Times calling herself a victim, of course, because this is the way the Left always tries to get out of this. If you know a bunch of people who engaged in tremendous welfare fraud and they are big donors to you in your district, and you&#8217;ve made your career on pandering to that particular category of people, the best way out is to call everybody who notes it “racist.”
“All Americans have a duty to call out this hateful rhetoric when we hear it,” she said.
 Listening to Omar lecture people about calling out hateful rhetoric is truly an amazing and astonishing thing.

What Did Ilhan Omar Know And When Did She Know It?

Ben Shapiro

Opinion

President Trump Orders Hundreds More National Guard Troops to D.C. After Shooting Of Guardsmen

Another Violent Attack From An Immigrant Proves We Need Denaturalization

Afghanistan

Deportations

illegal immigrants

Immigrants

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Matt Walsh

Virginia

WASHINGTON — The Department of Transportation is giving Minnesota an ultimatum, The Daily Wire can first report: revoke illegally issued licenses given to non-domiciled commercial drivers, or face losing over $30 million in federal highway funding.
A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration audit found that one-third of Minnesota’s non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses were issued illegally, the Transportation Department shared with The Daily Wire. Minnesota will be given 30 days to revoke the illegally issued licenses, Duffy says, or else it will pay a significant price.
“Our audit exposes yet another example of foreigners taking advantage of Minnesota services under Governor Walz’s watch,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy explained. “Minnesota failed to follow the law and illegally doled out trucking licenses to unsafe, unqualified non-citizens — endangering American families on the road. That abuse stops now under the Trump Administration.&#8221;
&#8220;The Department will withhold funding if Minnesota continues this reckless behavior that puts non-citizens gaming the system ahead of the safety of Americans,&#8221; he promised. 
Walz did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Wire.
The move comes after a number of <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/08/21/ice-arrests-illegal-alien-involved-fatal-18-wheeler-crash-caused-illegal-aliens">reports showing that illegal foreign drivers</a> caused deadly crashes, prompting the Transportation Department to zero in on states that refuse to follow the law.
In a letter sent Monday, first reviewed by The Daily Wire, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration informed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz that his state had issued an alarming number of non-domiciled commercial driver&#8217;s licenses illegally. The administration also outlined that its audit had found that the state issued these licenses to drivers whose &#8220;licenses were valid long after their lawful presence in the U.S. expired&#8221; and drivers who were &#8220;prohibited from holding a non-domiciled commercial CDL.&#8221;
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The state also failed to initially verify that some drivers were lawfully in the U.S.
The Transportation Department wants Minnesota to pause issuance of the non-domiciled commercial driver&#8217;s licenses, identify all unexpired non-domiciled licenses that fail to comply with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations, revoke and reissue all the noncompliant licenses that failed to comply with their regulations, and conduct an internal audit to figure out how these massive errors were allowed to happen in the first place.
“Minnesota is openly and blatantly defying our rules, plain and simple,” Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Derek D. Barrs said on Monday. “Under the Trump Administration, states have two choices: meet our standards or face the consequences. Following the law is not optional.”
The move comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring proficiency in English for American truck drivers.
&#8220;They should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers,&#8221; the president said. &#8220;Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English. This is common sense.&#8221;
Following Trump&#8217;s order, the Transportation Department launched an audit of non-domiciled commercial driver&#8217;s licenses and has highlighted severe violations in a number of blue states, including California.

DuffyWalz – 1

EXCLUSIVE: Sean Duffy Warns Tim Walz To Revoke Illegal Licenses Or Lose Highway Funding

EXCLUSIVE: DOT Warns Tim Walz To Revoke Illegal Licenses Or Lose Highway Funding

Department of Transportation

Sean Duffy

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