Massive Somali Fraud in Minnesota with Nick Shirley, California Asset Seizure, $20B Groq-Nvidia Deal

Summary

This episode features investigative journalist Nick Shirley discussing his viral 42-minute video exposing potential daycare fraud in Minnesota, which uncovered $110 million in suspected fraud as part of an estimated $9 billion in overall entitlement fraud in the state. The besties discuss how Shirley’s citizen journalism approach - simply going to daycare centers receiving millions in government subsidies and finding them empty with blacked-out windows - has prompted responses from federal officials including Kash Patel and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who sent agents to inspect facilities.

The conversation expands into broader themes about government waste, fraud, and abuse across the country, with particular focus on California’s fiscal problems. The hosts discuss a proposed California “Billionaire Tax Act” that would impose a 5% tax on assets of residents with over $1 billion in net worth. Freeberg argues this represents an unprecedented step toward government seizure of private property, as it would tax assets rather than income - a system that has failed in other countries like France. The hosts warn this could set a precedent for eventually targeting middle-class Americans.

The episode concludes with Chamath discussing the $20 billion Groq-Nvidia deal, explaining the technical rationale behind the partnership. Groq’s architecture excels at the “decode” phase of AI inference (generating responses token by token), which complements Nvidia’s strength in the “prefill” phase (processing prompts). Chamath credits the deal to Groq founder Jonathan Ross’s technical vision and CEO Sunny Madra’s operational excellence.

Highlights

”Industrial-scale fraud”

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“The magnitude cannot be overstated. It’s staggering. Industrial-scale fraud.” — Federal prosecutor on Minnesota fraud, 2:30

”Autism claims spiked 130x in 5 years”

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“Medicaid claims for autism in Minnesota spiked like 130x in 5 years. From 2018 to 2023 it went from 3 million to $400 million.” — Jason Calacanis, 32:20

”Beginning of the end of American Empire”

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“If this is true, if nothing happens and we deem this kind of theft acceptable, it is the beginning of the end of the American Empire.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 1:00:00

”Democrats denouncing waste is like Don Corleone denouncing the mafia”

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“Democrats denouncing government waste is like Don Corleone denouncing the mafia.” — David Sacks, 1:08:30

”Groq founder is a genius of biblical proportions”

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“Jonathan Ross, who invented the TPU for Google, is a genius of biblical proportions. He’s the one who saw this from the beginning.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 1:40:30

Key Points

• Nick Shirley’s Investigation (0:00) - 23-year-old investigative journalist Nick Shirley’s viral video exposed $110 million in potential daycare fraud in Minnesota, showing daycare centers receiving government funds that appeared to not have any children enrolled
• Minnesota Fraud History (0:49) - Entitlement fraud in Minnesota dates back over 10 years, with local investigative reporter Jeff Balon first exposing it in 2013 at Fox 9 News
• Scale of Fraud (2:28) - Since 2018, Minnesota has seen approximately $9 billion in entitlement fraud - about half the total spent on 14 entitlement programs in the state
• Feeding Our Futures Scandal (2:45) - In 2022, 47 defendants were charged in a $250 million fraud scheme called “Feeding Our Future” meant to feed hungry children; 82 of 92 people charged have been Somali
• Nick’s Background (3:32) - Shirley has been doing YouTube since high school, did a Mormon mission in Chile, and his background gave him the confidence to knock on doors and confront subjects
• CCAP Funding Mechanism (9:00) - Daycare fraud operates through Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), a federally-funded state program providing subsidies for childcare
• Autism Claims Spike (17:45) - Medicaid claims for autism in Minnesota spiked 130x in 5 years, from $3 million in 2018 to $400 million in 2023
• Media Coverage Gap (16:36) - Despite local news covering the fraud for over a decade, national media largely avoided the story until Shirley’s viral video
• Patronage System Analysis (32:00) - Sacks argues the fraud operates as a political patronage system where politicians turn a blind eye to fraud in exchange for votes and donations
• Tim Waltz Flag Controversy (33:00) - The hosts discuss Tim Waltz changing Minnesota’s flag to one that resembles the Somali flag as evidence of the community’s political influence
• Al-Shabaab Connection (44:00) - Discussion of allegations that some fraud money may be funneled to the terrorist group Al-Shabaab through money transfer networks
• Qui Tam Lawsuits (47:00) - The hosts encourage Shirley to explore whistleblower laws that could reward him with 20-50% of recovered funds
• Polymarket Predictions (55:00) - Polymarket shows 29% chance Tim Waltz gets charged before 2027, 94% chance someone is charged over Minnesota daycare fraud by end of 2025
• California Fiscal Crisis (1:03:00) - California faces half a trillion in bonds outstanding, $18 billion deficit, and looming pension obligations requiring another half trillion dollars
• Municipal Bond Warning (1:05:00) - Chamath warns the bond market will eventually reprice state debt risk, creating a fiscal crisis for states that haven’t addressed fraud
• Billionaire Tax Act Introduction (1:09:06) - A California ballot initiative proposes 5% tax on assets of anyone with net worth over $1 billion
• SEIU Origins (1:11:00) - The billionaire tax was proposed by SEIU union leader Dave Regan to cover healthcare shortfalls for union members
• Private Property Precedent (1:14:00) - Freeberg argues this is the first time the US would create a tax on private property rather than income, allowing government to audit all personal assets
• France Wealth Tax Failure (1:18:00) - France’s 1988 millionaire tax raised 4-5 billion euros but caused 200 billion euros of net worth to flee, reducing overall tax revenue
• Middle Class Target (1:21:00) - US billionaires hold $8 trillion vs $170 trillion held by everyone else; the hosts argue the middle class is the real target
• California Audit Report (1:28:00) - California state auditor released a 92-page report showing $72 billion in taxpayer funds “lost” including $24B on homelessness and $18B on high-speed rail with no track laid
• Healthcare as Root Cause (1:34:00) - Jason argues lack of universal healthcare creates fear that drives populist policies like wealth taxes
• Groq-Nvidia Deal Announced (1:33:56) - Nvidia entered a licensing agreement valuing Groq at approximately $20 billion
• Prefill vs Decode Explained (1:36:00) - Chamath explains AI inference has two phases: prefill (reading prompts, Nvidia excels) and decode (generating responses, Groq excels)
• Groq Architecture (1:38:00) - Groq used conservative process technology with lots of on-chip SRAM memory to optimize for the decode phase rather than competing directly with Nvidia
• Jensen Huang Involvement (1:40:00) - The deal accelerated after Jensen Huang personally got involved following summer experiments proving the chips could work together

Mentions

Companies

• Nvidia (1:33:56) - Entered $20B licensing deal with Groq for inference chips
• Groq (1:33:56) - Chamath’s AI chip company, valued at ~$20B in Nvidia deal
• Google (1:38:00) - Where Groq founder Jonathan Ross invented the TPU
• Slack (1:42:00) - Chamath’s previous $25B exit sold to Salesforce
• Fox 9 News (0:59) - Local Minneapolis station that first exposed Minnesota fraud in 2013
• SEIU (1:11:00) - Union that proposed the California billionaire tax
• United Healthcare (1:34:30) - Mentioned in context of CEO murder reflecting healthcare frustration
• Spotify (1:35:30) - Daniel Ek’s 3D scanning health initiative mentioned
• Function Health (1:35:30) - Self-directed healthcare company mentioned
• Superpower (1:35:30) - Healthcare startup mentioned

Products & Technologies

• TPU (1:40:30) - Google’s Tensor Processing Unit, invented by Groq founder Jonathan Ross
• SRAM (1:39:00) - On-chip memory technology key to Groq’s architecture
• CCAP (6:00) - Minnesota Child Care Assistance Program, vehicle for daycare fraud
• Qui Tam (47:00) - Whistleblower lawsuit framework allowing citizens to sue on behalf of government
• Polymarket (55:00) - Prediction market used to gauge probability of fraud charges

People

• Nick Shirley (0:16) - 23-year-old investigative journalist whose viral video exposed Minnesota fraud
• Jeff Balon (0:59) - Fox 9 News investigative reporter who first exposed fraud in 2013
• Tim Waltz (32:30) - Minnesota Governor, accused of enabling fraud and changing state flag
• Kash Patel (0:34) - Sent agents to inspect Minnesota facilities after video went viral
• Kristi Noem (0:34) - DHS Secretary who sent agents to inspect facilities
• Ilhan Omar (42:00) - Congresswoman whose net worth increase was discussed (with “allegedly” caveat)
• Keith Ellison (56:30) - Minnesota Attorney General who credited Somali community for his election
• Scott Bessent (51:00) - Treasury Secretary who discussed fraud on TV
• Elon Musk (14:00) - DOGE efforts vindicated by fraud exposures; estimated 20% of federal spending is fraud
• Gavin Newsom (1:04:00) - California Governor, criticized for state’s fiscal problems
• Dave Regan (1:11:00) - SEIU leader who proposed the billionaire tax
• Ro Khanna (1:08:00) - Democrat who said he supports investigating government inefficiency
• Jensen Huang (1:40:00) - Nvidia CEO who personally drove the Groq deal
• Jonathan Ross (1:40:30) - Groq founder, described as “genius of biblical proportions,” invented Google’s TPU
• Sunny Madra (1:41:00) - Groq president who helped execute the Nvidia partnership
• Gavin Baker (1:36:00) - Investor who explained prefill/decode concepts

Surprising Quotes

“The magnitude cannot be overstated. It’s staggering. Industrial-scale fraud.” — Federal prosecutor on Minnesota fraud (2:30)

“I don’t even have a friend that owns a house at this point in their life. And they’re 23 years old. And we talk to our grandparents and they’re all talking about how they bought their first house.” — Nick Shirley on young Americans’ struggles (5:51)

“Medicaid claims for autism in Minnesota spiked 130x in 5 years. From 2018 to 2023 it went from 3 million to $400 million.” — Jason Calacanis (17:45)

“If this is true, if nothing happens and we deem this kind of theft acceptable, it is the beginning of the end of the American Empire.” — Chamath Palihapitiya (1:00:00)

“Democrats denouncing government waste is like Don Corleone denouncing the mafia.” — David Sacks (1:08:30)

Transcript

0:00 All right, we have a massive show for you today, besties, but it’s not going to be our prediction show. We thought we were doing predictions end of the year, but we had so many amazing stories to cover in the news that we’re going to do predictions next week. The first story is we have investigative journalist Nick Shirley on. He has uncovered in a breaking 42-minute video that went viral $110 million in potential fraud in Minnesota. It’s part of $9 billion in overall fraud, and we’ve got him on the show here exclusively.

0:34 This video apparently perhaps prompted responses from Kash Patel and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem who have sent agents in to inspect these facilities. Here’s some sort of important context. These entitlement frauds in Minnesota have been going on for over 10 years. It’s a 13-14 year old story. It started by an investigative reporter named Jeff Balon. He launched his first investigation into this in February of 2013 at Fox 9 News, local investigative journalist. And after that expose, charges were brought in 2014 against a Somali woman and her husband. They skipped bail. They never faced trial.

1:23 Here’s a 45-second clip from 2016 from Balon: “Ali is facing numerous counts of theft by swindle and racketeering. She ran a daycare business and home healthcare company that catered to low-income families. But former employees told the Fox 9 investigators back in 2013 that it was really part of a scam to collect millions in public subsidies.” “When I saw the bank account for the business, there were large cash withdrawals on a continuous basis.” “A year after our investigation, Ali was arrested and charged with billing the state out of about $4 million.”

2:17 Since 2018, Minnesota has seen around 9 billion in entitlement frauds according to federal prosecutors. Just to give you guys a concept of what that means, that’s half of the total amount spent on 14 entitlement programs in the state. So here’s the direct quote from the federal prosecutor on the Minnesota fraud: “The magnitude cannot be overstated. It’s staggering. Industrial-scale fraud.” There have been over 90 convictions for more than $800 million in fraud since 2022.

2:45 In 2022, 47 defendants were charged in a $250 million fraud scheme called Feeding Our Future that was supposed to feed hungry kids. Then up to 220 million was stolen in funds for kids with autism. Then 300 million was stolen in Medicaid funds meant to help people with disabilities avoid homelessness. So starting with that Feeding Our Futures fraud in 2022, 82 of 92 people charged have been Somalian.

3:07 Joining us right now, 23-year-old investigative journalist Nick Shirley. Welcome to the program. “Thank you. It’s been a crazy past few days out here in Minnesota.” So I guess a good place to start is you could tell the audience a little bit about your background, when you got into investigative journalism. Obviously, you’ve got a YouTube channel. I watched some of your early videos when you were 16, 17 years old. I would say along the Mr. Beast vibes and then suddenly making a turn into politics specifically around immigration and some vox pop kind of man on the street stuff.

3:52 “Yeah. So, I’ve been doing YouTube as far as I can pretty much remember since I was a sophomore in high school. It was just something I thought I would be good at. So I’d do YouTube videos and all I could do in high school was do prank videos, sneaking into places, just kind of fun stuff you can do on the weekend. And then as I’ve grown older and I’ve had other experiences, I’ve matured and I’ve wanted to get more into more serious topics.”

4:28 “And so as I’ve been able to go places and kind of see the world for what it is in different countries and whatnot and have different experiences, it kind of led me to get into this more investigative journalism content. And also, back in around 2020, you couldn’t even make political content on YouTube without being demonetized. For instance, if you were to put Trump in a YouTube title or thumbnail on my channel, you would get demonetized because I was a smaller channel. So it was impossible to make that sort of content and I was younger, about 17, 18 years old at that time.”

5:09 And now YouTube allows you to monetize. I noticed you had ads baked into the program like many podcasters. And you’re not affiliated with any news source. And to the best of my knowledge, you’re not backed by any special interest groups. You’re not backed by some rich billionaire. Where’s the money coming to do this reporting from? “Yeah. Everything I do, I’m 100% independent and so I make my money off of YouTube, off of brand deals inside of YouTube videos. And if people want to donate money, they can do that. However, everything I do is straight from my own hands and I don’t have any other people really working for me other than me, myself, my mom, and a few other editors.”

5:55 “So, tell us about the origin of this story, and then I’ll hand it off to the rest of the besties to do some follow-up questions.” “Yeah. So, I’ve been looking into this fraud for a long time. Since last June, I came to Minnesota to kind of do a video on what was happening with the Somali population as far as like how much it was increasing and how certain towns have been, the demographics have changed, and how churches are turning into mosques and how mosques are growing inside of Minnesota. I thought it’d be an interesting topic for people to see.”

6:33 “And when I was there, a lot of people were starting to tell me about the fraud that was taking place. And I was like, well, how do I… I just can’t come and label everyone saying there’s fraud happening. I need evidence. I need actual proof. And so I’ve been doing my own investigation. And then a man by the name of David who’s inside my YouTube video, he’s been doing his own investigation for years as he works next to some of these childcare centers and he’s driven by and he’s never seen a single child at any of these daycares.”

7:07 “And so he started looking into the funding and he was able to get the numbers of how much money these people were receiving from CCAP funding which is tax exempt and it was in the millions of dollars. And so I told him, ‘All right, I’m coming to Minnesota. Let’s go see what’s happening at these daycares.’ And when I got there, I was shocked to see when the first daycare we went to, all the windows were blacked out and you didn’t even have the option to open the door. Everything was locked.”

7:45 “So explain the mechanics of the fraud just so the audience if they haven’t seen this understand how these frauds are being played out.” “Yeah. So massive welfare fraud is being committed. People are opening up these daycares, home healthcare clinics, you name it. Anything that has anything to do with like health welfare or even just like helping people in general like with daycare or with healthcare, they’re opening up these companies and then they’re able to receive millions of dollars. And the state, for instance, I don’t know if they’re doing any checkups on these places because these places literally had signs that said ‘learing’ instead of ‘learning’ on their doors outside. And what business is operating in a way where you can’t even go inside or the windows are all blocked out? Very strange.”

8:35 “Nick, let me ask you a question that I think a lot of people have, which is when your video… first of all, let me just say, took a lot of courage and it was well produced and you communicated some very complicated information in a very simple way, which I think is a tremendous skill. But the question that everybody asks is how do we know that you are right? And in traditional investigative journalism, there’s a process that people follow and there’s insurance that you have to get and then there’s errors and omissions and you typically have to deal with lawyers. Did you go through that process when you made this?”

9:15 “Yeah, I think everyone knows that fraud’s been going on for years now. Like Jason was just saying, everyone knows that the fraud’s being committed, but nobody’s actually went to go see it firsthand. They know this fraud’s been happening, right? And that’s why it’s been so hard for people to say, ‘Well, this is happening.’ Or this is why mainstream media’s had such a hard time to actually get exposure on the fraud because they’ve actually never gone and seen it firsthand or they’ve had the opportunity to have a platform where they can share on their own.”

9:50 “Right. But did you check all the traditional boxes that the New York Times or other people? Because what I’m trying to get to is how do we make sure that then you’re not attacked and that you’re not discredited and that people say this process is faulty and he’s mudslinging and how do we make sure that you’re not sued into oblivion?”

10:15 “Yeah. And to be specific to build on that, Chamath, the allegation has come out: ‘Oh, you went on a Saturday. Oh, you went during Christmas.’ And I guess you could address that because now people are obviously vetting your journalism.” “Well, I went on December 16th, a weekday before Christmas break. So there’s that. And then the man who helped me lead the investigation himself, David, he had all the paperwork from the capital. He had somebody from inside the capital leaking him the information. So my fact check, per se, was he had a source from inside the capital. That’s how we were able to get the numbers specifically.”

11:00 “Do you think that it’s going to be important for you to have lawyers that help you navigate? Because like if you build on this, there’s obviously more fraud in Minnesota. There’s a bunch of stuff in our home state. A lot of people would love you and people like you to start looking in all of these crevices. But how important will it be that you have all of the legal i’s dotted, t’s crossed here?”

11:30 “Yeah, that’s a good question. I haven’t really thought too much about that because I’ve never been in this position where you have hundreds of millions, like I think over 500 million people saw that video just alone from all the impressions aside from the main video getting 100 million, 125 million views, right? So yeah, that’s something I definitely need to think about. But I think more than anything, I’m not trying to go in and I’m more so just giving people transparency from the outside where people can’t see it when they’re sitting from behind a desk talking about it.”

12:10 “I wasn’t trying to barge in any of these businesses. I was simply asking like, ‘Is it possible to enroll a child into here?’ And they would say no. Like what daycare center doesn’t have a paper for somebody to enroll a child? So I think like yeah, I guess if I was going to do defamation on specific people and stuff like James O’Keefe style, I know he’s always having to lawyer up which I don’t want to ever have to do.”

12:45 “Are you done with Minnesota? Like, have you uncovered everything you need to uncover and now you’re going to look at another state? There was a lot of traffic this weekend about Ohio, Illinois, California. What do you do now?” “Yeah. So, I’ve been making YouTube videos consistently for the past 104 days, and I’ll continue to definitely show the fraud that’s taking place here inside Minnesota. It’s not like I only just do videos on fraud, but I think just showing people what’s happening inside the country is super important.”

13:20 “And yes, there’s a lot more fraud taking place here in Minnesota. And I do have a part two episode on a whole different segment of the fraud that is taking place within the state of Minnesota. And like you said, a lot of people have reached out to me, whether it be California, Ohio, and at that point, I will have to kind of, I’ll be doing my research as well to then not have to be in a position where somebody can try and sue me.”

13:50 “What does it make you feel, Nick, as an American and also as a young American? You grow up, whatever your belief system is, what do you think? Put aside the investigative journalist part, what do you think as just an American, as a young American about the fraud?”

14:10 “Yeah. I think it’s very upsetting. I mean, so many of my friends and so many people are working. We’re like, we’re working so hard just to be able to get by. Like, I don’t even have a friend that owns a house at this point in their life. And they’re 23 years old. And we talk to our grandparents and they’re all like talking about how they bought their first house. We’re married. And it’s like that’s not even a possibility for most of us, right?”

14:45 “And so when you see that people are making millions of dollars and not only is it millions of dollars, it’s tax exempt money. They’re getting it from CCAP funding, which is tax exempt, right? And so when we’re working hard and we’re paying anywhere from 20 to 50% of our money back into the hands of the government while people are just funneling money, it makes us all mad and it’s not fair to anybody quite frankly.”

15:20 “It’s interesting. Freeberg, I know you’re interested in the media as well, like I am. This story has been covered for over 10 years by local news. You came in and did this. It became essentially a national story. But when we did our research, we did find a New York Times story last month, but none of the CNN’s of the world have actually covered this. So, there seems to be a little pocketing going on here, Freeberg. The local news covering it doggedly, run and gun journalists like yourself, Nick, doing an incredible job knocking on doors, but there’s this vacuum, Freeberg, on the national level. Any thoughts on that?”

16:00 “Well, Nick, I think one of the things that makes your content so compelling is that it is long form. When you watch 60 Minutes or CBS or whatever, they’re cut down. They’re sort of like segment pieces. It’s seven minutes long. What’s so great about your footage is you get the raw true experience. It really is what citizen journalism is meant to be.”

16:30 “And you and I have talked for a while. I think you know we talked months ago about some of the work you were doing in Portland because I was asking all these questions like, ‘What is everyone else in Portland up to?’ Because all the video from all the news stations was what’s going on right outside that gate where the ICE facility was and there was like 20 people going crazy but like what’s the rest of Portland like? And you went out and collected that content. That’s the sort of stuff that I think makes your work so compelling is it feels so real.”

17:05 “There just isn’t a way for a network news station or CNN to do that sort of work where you can sit down and spend 45 minutes looking at the very real footage that you put out, which is awesome. Can I ask you a question? So, you grew up Mormon, is that right?” “Yeah.” “And did you do a mission?” “Yeah, I did do a two-year mission in Chile.”

17:25 “Do you think that that prepared you like knocking on doors or engaging people openly in your missionary work to be able to do this? Because I can tell you I know so many journalists who would be scared shitless to go do the stuff you’ve done in New York City and Portland, now in Minneapolis where you’re actually going into these facilities looking people face to face. Like how did you develop that capability? Was it rooted in your missionary work?”

17:55 “I mean, I think that might come from a little of it, but I think being the youngest brother also really just always having to impress your older brothers and being the daredevil for him and his friends. Like, I just didn’t grow up with fear. Like, it wasn’t even a concept for me to go and do the bike jump when I was 5 years old, right? So, it’s always been something that I haven’t been afraid of and I’ve never been afraid of rejection as well.”

18:25 “I used to do door sales and the mission you literally are just walking around trying to talk to people about Jesus for two years straight and you just get denied every single day and you’re just hoping to have like a small sliver of success for what you actually do. And so that definitely helped. My mission more so taught me about the effects of mass migration because I would see so many people fleeing countries like Venezuela and then I came back to the US and I saw what was happening at the border and I was able to learn Spanish.”

19:05 “But I think just like my upbringing in general being the youngest brother and then also my morals from being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do any of that. So I feel like I have an advantage compared to a lot of people as far as my mind’s always, I’m not getting skewed with addictions or trying to go and do something else.” “Nick, are you still very religious?” “Yeah, I am.”

19:35 “Sacks, what’s your take on this? And the question I asked Freeberg, which you didn’t get to, maybe you could take, which is this hasn’t seemed to make the national press, but it has been on the local and obviously it’s on X. Maybe you could give your handicapping of the media sphere and Nick’s role in it as you see it in 2025.”

20:00 “Well, I think it’s an indictment of the press. They haven’t covered this and they still haven’t covered Nick’s video, which is now, like you said, a viral video with hundreds of millions of views and everyone can see what’s happening. You basically have this huge multi-billion dollar fraud taking place. Yes, there were stories going back a decade like you said Jason, but they were isolated stories where they could be portrayed that way.”

20:30 “And I think what Nick has done is show that the fraud is massive and in plain sight and no one bothered, no one cared enough to expose it. And you know, Nick, you did this by just going around to all these supposed daycare centers which are receiving vouchers from the government anywhere from one and a half to $4 million per daycare center per year based on fictional enrollments of children. And these centers aren’t even operating and they’re collecting millions from the government. All told, I guess it adds up to 8 to 10 billion.”

21:10 “So this is taxpayer money that’s being stolen from Minnesota that’s being stolen by this Somali community basically. And I think the story’s gone viral because it includes so many aspects of dysfunction. I mean, you’ve got the issue of illegal immigrants. Some of the people in the Somali community got here illegally. Some of them didn’t. You then have these progressive judges who foolishly voided convictions of some of the fraudsters who were doing this. I mean it’s just a classic example of suicidal empathy or something like that.”

21:50 “So you have that aspect of the story and then you’ve got the political corruption. Again these are not isolated incidents. This is a case where I think we have to see this as a system at work not just an example of a few isolated fraudsters. There’s some round-tripping here where some of the funds that are going into the pockets of the Somali community through this fraud end up back in the hands of politicians.”

22:25 “And the really extreme example of this is that Tim Waltz even changed the flag of Minnesota to resemble the Somali flag. I mean, he lowered the old flag and raised this new flag that resembles the Somali flag, which shows the political clout of this community, which is why I think a lot of politicians turned a blind eye to what was going on.”

22:55 “So, I just think you’ve got all the ingredients here of this story. You’ve got this suicidal immigration policy that we’ve had combined with massive government fraud with dereliction of duty and incompetence combined with political corruption. And that’s why the story is going viral and has gotten hundreds of millions of views. So kudos to you, Nick.”

23:25 “And of course, the way that they are defending themselves. Well, first of all, the press is trying to ignore the story as much as possible. But to the extent that they have to confront it, what they do is just accuse us of being white supremacy, that anyone who notices that this fraud is being perpetrated by this Somali community, that somehow that must be racial animus, that’s the only reason people care about it or something like that. And so they’ve accused Nick.”

24:00 “And that actually is the last element here, which is again this tired, worn out trope of accusing anyone who threatens this corrupt government machine of being somehow racist. Anyway, let me stop there. Nick, let me get your reaction to all of that.”

24:20 “Yeah. No, I love everything you said because it’s so true, especially like for instance, they found a man here with $7 million he had committed in fraud and then the judge overturned it, right? And then Tim Waltz is calling people like me white supremacy. He says we’re acting on white supremacy. No, Tim, it’s millions and billions of dollars in fraud of hardworking Minnesota people that’s being sent who knows where.”

24:55 “And so it’s not like, and then today I’m just looking at the media and people are, it was the craziest thing. I get on there and people are starting to say all these crazy allegations about me. I’m like, whoa, where are you guys? People have even come out and said I’m like a pedo. It’s like what? Like I literally just went and did the job that everyone’s been wanting to see done for years, right? And I just brought limelight to everything, tried to make it as just a simple issue about fraud happening.”

25:30 “Let’s just be clear. You just went to these daycares and I looked up the CCAP that you mentioned. It’s the Minnesota Child Care Assistance Program is what CCAP stands for. And it’s a state administered program, but it’s funded largely by federal dollars to subsidize childcare for low-income families. So, it’s not just Minnesotans who are paying for this. It’s all of us through our federal tax dollars.”

26:05 “And I’m seeing a lot of follow-on commentators in other states now saying, ‘Hey, you know what? In Ohio or in the state of Washington, we’re looking at the government roles and we’re seeing that there’s over 500 Somali owned daycare centers.’ And by the way, that’s just like one type of fraud or one type of very suspicious behavior, but you can start to see that people are starting to pull the thread here and they’re seeing like where this fraud goes.”

26:35 “And it’s starting to raise questions about lots of other government programs as well. For example, in California, we have $24 billion going to quote unquote homeless programs. And yet, the number of homeless people keeps rising. And you know, everyone knows it’s called the homeless industrial complex. They can’t pass an audit. The state refuses to even permit an audit. So, we know there’s massive fraud going on in that program.”

27:10 “There’s massive fraud going on in entitlements across the country. And I think part of the reason why Nick’s video has gone viral here is people can kind of feel that the whole country is really being eaten alive by this fraud and corruption. And it is a huge part of why we have such a huge deficit, why we have so much government debt. And it feels like finally someone’s blowing a lid on it.”

27:45 “And Nick, it feels like you’re achieving what DOGE set out to do. And I think there’s no one feeling more vindicated right now than Elon Musk because literally some of the things that he was saying back in February, you have now proven true that there’s huge amounts of entitlement fraud. Some of that money that is stolen then goes to politicians who then either support the expansion of that system or turn a blind eye to what’s going on.”

28:20 “And some of this is even connected, I think, to voter fraud. So, you’re talking about here stolen money maybe leading to stolen elections. I mean, it really feels like you’ve kicked this rock over and we’re starting to see a bunch of nasty things underneath it. And what I think is really cool is that you’re inspiring copycats. Now, some people have called this decentralized DOGE where now, hopefully we get a thousand or a million Nick Shirley’s all over the country who start to show up and try to shine a spotlight on what’s going on with all these government programs.”

29:00 “Yeah, I think it’s essential that people realize what’s actually happening and realize that, like you said, like we are getting eaten from the inside. Like, why is our money going to these places? We always talk about Tim Waltz was ranting about healthcare the other week. I’m like, well, maybe you shouldn’t be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to healthcare companies that have nothing to show when you go to their business.”

29:35 “And all the other stuff that goes along with what you were saying. Like, yes, this like I think Elon’s, why it sparked Elon’s interest is because it’s physically showing people with their eyes, not just a contract. And it sparked such conversation across the internet because it’s something people can physically see and people are actually feeling inside of their communities.”

30:00 “Nick, do you think that the fraudsters are going to get a little bit better at covering their tracks now that you’ve exposed them? Because I feel like one of the things that was really amazing is you would just show up at these daycares that, you know, you can see from the government roles are receiving millions of dollars. They call themselves a learning center, but they misspell the word learning. So, it’s a ‘learing’ center and it’s these cinder block buildings like there’s no reception. There’s no one there.”

30:35 “I mean, it’s almost like they’ve made it too obvious. Then there were cases where you would have people that got busted a decade ago. The locations didn’t even change. They just renamed those fraudulent businesses and they were literally operating from the same locations a decade later. I mean, it’s almost like there was just no attention paid whatsoever to where this money was going. And I’m just, I guess the only thing I’m kind of worried about now is that with you blowing the lid off this thing is whether the fraudsters are just going to get better at covering their tracks.”

31:15 “Yeah. Well, I think that they’re going to have to look into where they’re sending all this money, right? Because if they wanted to really confront this fraud, they could have just cut off the money and said, ‘All right, one sec. Let’s take a month. Let’s figure this out.’ But no, they just kept giving more and more and more and they even started expanding it. For instance, how does a place just have an increase in autism? Like how does that happen?”

31:50 “Yeah, it made me wonder whether a lot of our statistics about issues like that like autism, like to what extent are they manufactured because we’re creating this huge incentive for people to create cases of autism at these like you know fraudulent healthcare centers. And it does make me wonder like well can we trust any of the numbers?”

32:20 “Just to be specific in the areas that you guys are talking about where they think there was fraud, Medicaid claims for autism in Minnesota spiked like 130x in 5 years.” “What the heck? 130x? Not to 1.3. Oh my god.” “From 2018 to 2023 it went from 3 million to $400 million.” “It’s probably the water. It’s probably the water or vaccines. It could be anything. Who knows what it could be? It could be fraud.”

33:00 “Jason, I have a question for you which is twofold. One, what do you think of what Nick did if you’ve watched the video? Two, why are your former brethren trying to bury this story?”

33:15 “So, I think Nick is doing the most fundamental act of journalism for which he should be lauded and is correctly being lauded, which is just go knock on a door, right? And ask the most simple question in the most unbiased way.” “Are there kids here? And can I send my kid here?” “You know, I looked into Nick. I looked into your videos.”

33:45 “Most basic could you get?” “Yeah. Incredible. And they failed the test. They failed the most basic test, the most basic simple test. And you know I looked into all of Nick’s videos because I saw anytime you do something like this, investigative journalism, people will correctly and you alluded to this Chamath in the beginning, start to vet the vetter, right? And I was like, okay, tell me everything about Nick Shirley. Let’s look at all his Twitter feed. Let’s look at his YouTube videos. Like who is this person? Why are they doing what they’re doing?”

34:25 “And I watched Nick as you ask questions at a Bernie rally and some other events when you’re doing your man on the street stuff which is also very brave because you can get your ass kicked. I don’t know if you have security or not yet, but you’re going to need it. Do you have security?” “Yeah, now I have to.”

34:50 “Yeah, of course. So, this is brave stuff, but this is the core task of journalism is to get this primary information and let the viewer decide without bias. And we can criticize 60 Minutes and the New York Times and there’s plenty to go around, but if you look at the history of it, I think Nick, you’ve got incredible potential to sort of take the baton that you saw from that local newscaster on Fox 9 and keep building on that.”

35:25 “And to your point, David, I think Freeberg you made about crowdfunding and crowdsourcing this journalism, it’s going to be very powerful in the future. If you look at how long it takes though to do this, these things take decades. So I think you got to stay on the story and if you look at the Catholic Church spotlight, the Frontline documentary, you look at 60 Minutes and what they did with Big Tobacco, these things do take a long time. So you should keep your hooks into them and keep working it.”

36:00 “The other thing I thought that’s really interesting here is this could be the opportunity right now is everybody in the United States who is a taxpayer does not want to see fraud. They don’t want to see waste. They don’t want to see abuse. So although Nick, I think your leanings are right…” “Are you sure?” “I am pretty sure that 90% of Americans don’t want to see their tax dollars wasted.”

36:35 “What if there’s a group of people that would be okay with it even if they were told it was fraudulent, but it allows their side to keep winning?” “Yeah, I, that’s like a conspiracy there. I don’t think…” “No, it’s not a, I’m just saying it’s a boundary condition. I just wonder if you actually put it there that you would get 95% that says this is wrong.” “Yeah, I think you’ll get 95% that will say it’s wrong. But we’ll see.”

37:10 “And what I think could happen here is that this could be the issue that pulls Americans together that we could have consensus on, which is we don’t want to waste our tax dollars. Putting aside the fact, Nick, that you’re conservative, it doesn’t matter. You’re religious. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the truth. And the truth here is there’s massive waste, fraud, and abuse.”

37:45 “And Elon saw it. Elon told us, he confirmed it. And he got attacked for it. Elon was 100% right. Everybody who attacked him, they may not have liked his tactics and how fast he was going and locking doors and turning off credit cards, his techniques, they may not have liked, but we as Americans can all get behind not allowing any more fraud. And we should not be increasing taxes into a system that is ripe with fraud. That I think everybody will agree on.”

38:25 “And when all that fraud happens, it keeps us from actually sending the money to things that we might actually as a country that might pull us together even more, which is like I don’t know, maybe we could have universal healthcare like the other 80 most developed countries in the world if we rooted out this fraud because there’s just far too much waste.”

38:55 “And so I think you did a great job, Nick. And I think this is where we could see massive opportunity for investment in new publications and new news sources that take folks like Nick, pair them with two or three other folks and now you got a team which it seems like you’re building and then you could have a permanent funding source.”

39:25 “So if you could get… You only have GoFundMe Nick right now.” “No, I don’t have GoFundMe. I just accept donations via Venmo or if you want to send…” “Yeah. You should start a subscription service, you know, like Substack or any of the other ones, Beehive, and you should literally use this momentum to get to 10 to 100 to a million dollars a month in donations that reoccur. That’s the key is the reoccurring.”

40:00 “You have young people reaching out to you that want to do this work with you now?” “Yes. I think people are interested like people are like, ‘How do we start or how do we do it?’ And it’s a good question. I think most people like I didn’t, I didn’t go ask somebody how to do it. I just went and did it.” “Mhm. And so a lot of people are so scared to take those steps when in reality you just have to go do things if you want to make stuff happen.”

40:35 “There was an image that I saw on X and it had a ship running into the iceberg. Nick, maybe you can find it. And the ship’s name was the USS Taxpayer. And the top of the iceberg that was visible was Minnesota, but the bottom of the iceberg was California, which, that’s great, which is the fourth largest economy in the world is just the state of California.”

41:10 “I don’t know if you can just show the tweet from Kevin Kiley, which I retweeted with a couple of things on. Here it is. What he says is a third of college applicants were fake. 17 billion was spent on high-speed rail with no track. 24 billion in homelessness funds disappeared. 32 billion was lost to unemployment fraud. Medicaid and SNAP are rife with improper payments. It’s probably a hundred billion dollars a year that’s being just completely pilfered out of California.”

41:50 “So, I don’t know if Nick Shirley you have the time to come out west, but if you do, you’re just going to find an entire treasure trove of opportunities to look at.” “Oh, there’s massive fraud in California. I mean, the homelessness has just increased as they receive more money. And like you talked about the light rail and everything like that. Yeah. The fraud is like crazy in California and they have the highest taxes.” “Yeah. They want more.”

42:25 “Nick, has anybody approached you about this thing? I tweeted it about it. I had never heard about it, but these guys educated me on it called Qui Tam, which is this framework where you can actually sue on behalf of the state and on behalf of taxpayers. Has anybody approached you about thinking about using all of the information that you’ve garnered to try to launch some of these lawsuits?” “Yeah, I actually had somebody reach out to me the other day about it. So, I’m going to actually hop on a phone call with that guy.”

43:00 “Yeah. Also, as I understand it, some of these whistleblower laws reward the whistleblower with something like 20 to 30%…” “Up to 50% in some cases.” “Yeah. That are, I don’t know if it’s like fines or it’s amounts that are recaptured.” “Recaptured. Yeah.” “But I don’t know, Nick, you could become a billionaire here just with all the billions you’ve exposed.”

43:35 “I got to sit down and figure it out. I know that’s not why you’re in it, but you’d be the most well-loved billionaire in America if you did.”

43:50 “Absolutely. Well, the way to do it is, you know, since you’re drafting off of these other news reports, is to set up your own tip line. So, Nick, what’s your website or do you have a website where people can donate? And do you have a tip line? Because you wouldn’t get the whistleblower awards for the stuff Fox 9’s been doing for a decade, but for the next one, you could. So, what is your website where people can donate, Nick?”

44:20 “Yeah, everything just on social media. So they can message me on any platform. I should probably get a website going.” “Nick, what’s your social media handle where people can DM you and donate?” “Yeah, it’s just Nick Shirley. And if you go on X, I do have my tip section open. So if you would like to donate there, that gives them all the whether it be Venmo, Cash App, Crypto, you can all do it right there.”

44:55 “So X.com/nickshirley, you can go right there and you can tip if you want to support this kind of research. Well done, Nick.” “Thank you.”

45:10 “Are you spending all your time in the US or are you still thinking about some international stuff?” “Yeah, I have international trips planned for this month as well that I had planned before this because it’s funny that like everyone’s talking about this fraud stuff, but I have a business I have to run with my YouTube videos. I’ve been posting every week consistently for the past 104 weeks or so at this point. And so I have to keep moving on and keep producing content for my followers.”

45:50 “So yeah, I do have other videos and I have other places I’m going to go film as well. Look into those whistleblower laws. I think…” “Yeah, make some money. Make some money, man.” “No shame in the profit. You probably get a ton of investors.”

46:15 “Yeah. Yeah. I need to look into all that stuff. So, it’s been cool. Like the crypto, I’ve had like some crypto communities that have even funded money. I’m like just down on my laptop at night and people are sending me money. I’m like, what’s going on?” “It’s awesome.” “Well done.”

46:40 “What’s the sweatshirt you’re wearing? Just show us the sweatshirt. The quality of… ‘Learing’ center. Is that for sale now? Is that the merch?” “Yeah. I’m going to go do a video outside of it right now. And…” “You put on your YouTube channel for merch?” “Yeah, I’ll put on my YouTube and I’ll just put like on X. I’ll probably like a one time drop.” “Oh my god, dude.”

47:10 “You saw the guy who I guess runs that place or owns it. He had a video on X today saying that. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is a real daycare center. Nick just happened to come by in the morning and that’s when all the kids are at school. So, he just came at the wrong time.”

47:35 “What was super funny about that too is the Department of Children was doing a live feed at that same time and she said that the daycare had closed one week ago and it closed after I posted my initial video. So, while he was saying that it’s open, the lady who runs the whole thing or runs something in the government said they closed it last week.”

48:05 “Sorry, Nick. Just one before we lose you, do you have evidence or have you collected evidence that people within the agencies are part of the fraud syndicate and that they’re participating in the fraud?”

48:25 “It’s hard to say that you have the paper trail of it because you don’t, it’s hard to get me the access to that. But I think if you just look at like Ilhan Omar’s net worth, if it’s true that went from negative to 30 million since she’s been in Congress…” “Yeah. Let’s, yeah, let’s make sure we put a couple allegedly.” “No, it’s all over… Yeah, you’re right. It’s all over social media, but…” “Yeah, which means it could be wrong. It could be wrong.”

49:00 “I haven’t seen a fact check. I mean, I’ve not seen it.” “Always put an allegedly there. Just…” “Yeah. Also, I think Congress people can report a range. I think the range is 6 to 30. So, they use the upper, but let’s just throw in a couple of allegedly.” “Still, she went from negative to being a multi-millionaire in…” “I’m not debating that. I think the trend is quite curious.”

49:35 “Nick. I’m not talking about the federal congressperson. I’m talking about people within these agencies that are signing off on the check, signing off on these centers. In your investigation and the conversations you have, do you have reason to believe that the individuals within the agencies, within the government agencies are complicit and partnering and participating in the economic fraud?”

50:05 “Yeah, 100%. Because a lot of these daycares, there’s six, seven violations and they’re still continuing to give funding to these daycares. And they have the same name, the same person has opened up. I was in one of their fraud committee meetings. The same person had been opening up daycares and healthcare companies and it was all big. They had all mapped out and somebody from inside the government in Minnesota still continuing to write these checks. So…”

50:40 “They can’t be dumb, right? They can’t be that dumb, I guess, is the point.” “Well, I mean, it’s possible that they’re totally incompetent or they’re turning a blind eye or they’re getting payments. Probably one of the first two, but who knows, right?”

51:00 “Well, the thing with the money they’re receiving is that CCAP money, it’s tax exempt. And so, they literally get the money and they get it in cash somehow. They don’t pay the women that are working there. Like, there’s videos of them just handing the ladies cash. In Muslims, they’re able to have four wives and so they’re able to collect the welfare on top of that. That’s why 81% of the population, small population side of Minnesota is on welfare because they’re actually not paying the people. They’re just collecting the welfare from it.”

51:45 “And then if you go into any of the grocery stores here, they’re not grocery stores. They have like six different shops inside of them. And they all have money transferring sites inside there where they’re just siphoning money out to other countries and back home. And a lot of time you can, there’s actually a Fox did a thing on it in 2017.”

52:15 “And I actually had somebody who’s going to be in my next video talking about this. He used to work at TSA. And the Somalians would literally bring in millions of dollars in cash through TSA and they’d fly from there to Atlanta and then to Dubai and because there’s no taxes in Dubai, they then send that money back to Somalia. And so the rumors of them funding al-Shabaab, they’re real because they’ve been able to funnel all this money and once they go through the TSA with a luggage full of cash and they make it to Dubai, they’re able to send it to wherever they’d like.”

52:55 “That’s a terrorist group?” “Yeah, the terrorist group.”

53:05 “Nick, let me ask you another question. In the last two days since your video went viral, we’ve seen the mayor of Minneapolis and the governor come out and effectively say, ‘Hey, we need to protect this community.’ Why do you think the leadership is not up in arms on the obvious fraud that you’ve demonstrated so clearly? Why are the government officials within Minnesota not throwing their hands up saying, ‘We have to make this stop right away.’ Why are they taking a defensive posturing? Are they like incompetent or do you think there’s complicit behavior here?”

53:50 “It’s because that’s such a large group of votes that they can receive. And David said it as well, there’s some weird voter fraud that’s also taking place here where you just literally need a license. Like even in one of their committee meetings, they said that. But essentially this happens in the UK too is that when they bring in specifically Muslims to a lot of these areas and then comes time to vote, the leader of the mosque or the leader of this apartment complex will say, ‘All right, everyone, now it’s time to go vote and let’s go vote for this person.’”

54:35 “And because of Islam and everything, their religion, they should be more conservative if they’re actually voting off what they care for because of their values, but they’re always voting democratically. They’re always voting for the Democrats. If people are going to give more money, and so they’re not really voting for what they actually believe in. They’re voting for who’s going to keep funding them and who’s going to keep writing the checks.”

55:10 “And so that’s why you’ll see them going to eat at a Somalian restaurant and you can tell the guys are ready to barf when he’s trying to put the food into his mouth and then the lady putting the hijab on inside of one of their grocery stores. It’s just all pandering to get the most votes.”

55:35 “Nick, you mentioned this terrorist allegation and the funding of terrorism from the social programs. Is that something you’ve firsthand investigated or something you read online or something you talked to an insider about? Can you unpack that first because that’s a pretty explosive one and I know Bessent has mentioned it but you can unpack your firsthand knowledge of it.”

56:05 “Well there’s the reports from 2017 and then it’s also come out, still coming out and people are talking about that. I think even the government, the US government has said that as well. And also I’ve talked to people as well inside of these grocery shops where they have 10 different stores and I asked them what do they do and they have these shops where they wire off the money to Africa.”

56:40 “Right. But specifically the funding of terrorism, you don’t have firsthand knowledge of that just to be clear.” “Well, I don’t think Somalia, I don’t think it’s like very ran very well. So…” “I mean there’s a lot of corruption there. I mean when your main import and exports pirates and piracy I don’t think that’s probably the best thing.”

57:10 “Okay, got it. Just want to confirm because it’s like an explosive allegation. Want to make sure you’re not saying you know this…” “Bessent said it on national TV today.” “Yeah. No, no, I know. That’s why I’m, the way Nick phrased it. I wanted to make sure if there was firsthand knowledge he had or if he was just referencing the Bessent stuff.”

57:45 “Yeah, it’s really tough to say firsthand because it’s always like how does somebody just go get the papers? And so that’s why you rely on the government for instance, Bessent comes out and talks about it and so it’s our responsibility to keep investigating and looking into it and then also trusting the people that we trust.”

58:15 “Is that going to be your international trip? Are you going to go try to track that down on the international, if even $1, if even $1 went abroad to a terror network?”

58:30 “This is an entirely whole new kettle of fish because now you’re not just talking about domestic fraud. Now you’re talking about international terrorism. And now you’re going to bring in every single agency of the United States of America who will have an opinion.” “Yeah.” “That is bad news bears for these guys. If this is true…”

59:00 “I’ll tell you where you double clicked on it. This could be the next story.” “Watch out. Yeah. And I’ll tell you where I have the most concern as a citizen. I’d be most concerned about these members of the government that are complicit or turning a blind eye to allow this capital to flow to individuals who then turn around and use that capital to make donations to those government representatives campaigns.”

59:35 “If that paper trail is found that the government representatives are causing money to flow basically back into their own pockets or their own campaign coffers, that to me is the most offensive thing as a citizen that not only is there fraud, but…” “We already know that.” “I’ve had mayors in California tell me about that who’ve given me firsthand accounts of them knowing the family members of people inside of the government opening up nonprofits and then that’s how they get a lot of campaign money.”

1:00:15 “Yeah. Look, there’s a very important word here that we haven’t used. We’ve talked about incompetence, greed, theft. There’s a very important word, patronage. This is a patronage system. An account called Amuse wrote a really good blog post about this. Let me just read you this part.”

1:00:40 “Basically, this fraud is not incidental misconduct. It is the patronage system operating exactly as designed. Large welfare states generate predictable cash flows. Fragmented bureaucracies create blind spots. Language barriers, slow audits, cultural difference paralyzes enforcement. When one operation is shut down, another opens under a new name, a new board, and the same people.”

1:01:15 “Money moves through layered nonprofits, shell entities, and informal remittance networks. Accountability evaporates. And then, crucially, the system does not require that all patrons be Somali. It requires only that patrons be paid. Non-Somali politicians learn quickly. They adopt the language, symbolism, and rituals of the community. They attend the right events. They avoid uncomfortable questions.”

1:01:50 “In return, they receive votes, campaign muscle and money, and insulation from accusations of racism or Islamophobia. Investigations stall. Prosecutors hesitate. Regulators retreat. The system expands. And play this video. This is of Tim Waltz. Just play that video.”

1:02:20 “Whoa. Wait a minute. This is Tim Waltz, the governor of the state, replacing their old flag with a new flag that’s designed to resemble the flag of Somalia.”

1:02:35 “So the allegation, Sacks, just to be clear, is they are giving this money knowing it buys votes and knowing that…” “The Somalian community is incredibly well-organized in Minnesota. There was an interview with the attorney general where he was saying, this is another X video that you can find, I think his name is Keith Ellison. Anyway, he was saying that the Somali community was incredibly potent politically and was a big reason why he got elected.”

1:03:10 “And like I said, it’s very well organized and they’re voting to get their votes by giving them this money to steal.” “It’s not even a question. It’s a fact that that’s why they’re only after and so they’re allowing the fraud to happen because of the votes.”

1:03:35 “Wait, that’s just again, you’re saying that’s a fact that they are…” “Please don’t act shocked. Come on.” “No, no, no. It’s an allegation. I would, I would tell you as a journalist in training Nick to put…” “You think that’s a coincidence allegedly in the front of these things until you actually know it’s…” “Where did that new flag come from?”

1:04:05 “I’m not saying it’s not pandering to them, but to say it’s quid pro quo. Just…” “That’s the same thing. Yeah. Instead of taking Sacks’s advice here, my best advice, put the word allegedly until you know it’s a fact. Don’t say it’s a fact. Unless you know it’s a fact.” “Allegedly. Okay.” “Yeah. Just so you don’t get sued and you know…”

1:04:35 “I mean is speaking the truth criminal because it is a fact.” “Okay. Great. You say it’s a fact.” “How much more proof do you need, Jason?” “No. It’s…” “You won’t believe it until Tim Waltz is caught on video accepting an envelope from, you know, one of these small fraudsters.”

1:05:00 “Not my point. My point is this is political patronage and look, a lot of it is incompetence and they probably didn’t think they’re going to get caught. But on top of that, it’s turning a blind eye to an obvious problem because it’s going to alienate a critical demographic who supports and has supported you in all of your elections. It’s that simple.”

1:05:30 “What’s the Polymarket say whether Waltz is going to get prosecuted, go to jail?” “Let’s find out from our friends at Polymarket. Tim Waltz charged by… and there’s a lightly traded $60,000, 9% chance…” “29% before 2027.” “And here’s your other Polymarket: will anyone be charged over daycare fraud in Minnesota by the end of January, the end of June, the end of December? 56, 91, 94. So people are betting somebody is going to be charged over this.”

1:06:10 “And if Tim Waltz specifically knows about this and did it to buy votes and that can be proven, he should go to jail. And if he knows and anyone over there knows that this money has been routed to a terrorist organization, that would be treasonous and that would be an even higher level. So we need to investigate this massively. So if Bessent is listening, friend of the pod, yeah, double click, double click, double click.”

1:06:50 “It’s already on Scott’s agenda. That’s why he talked on TV talking about it, dude. He’s been all over it.” “You can’t hide now. This is Pandora’s…”

1:07:05 “As part of that investigation, someone needs to investigate why these three liberal judges have repeatedly refused to hold Somali fraudsters accountable even when the evidence is overwhelming and a jury has convicted them.” “Unbelievable.” “These three judges set aside convictions.”

1:07:35 “Well done, Nick Shirley. And next time you have a great opportunity, please come on the pod again and let us know.” “Thank you. I appreciate you guys. Appreciate all the support on X and everything like that, means a lot.” “And believe me, there’s a ton more in California.”

1:08:00 “Okay, let me just go around the horn here. Lightning round Sacks. A year from now, what will happen in relation to what we’ve seen in Minnesota?”

1:08:15 “Well, I hope that there will be a serious investigation. I hope that there will be indictments. I hope there will be deportations, hopefully massive amounts of deportations. And I hope there’ll be impeachments of some of these officials who let the fraud happen.”

1:08:40 “So the country is being eaten alive it feels like by fraud. Government funds are being stolen. Votes are being stolen. I believe elections are being stolen. And it all comes from the fact that the party of government doesn’t really care where the money goes. It’s all just patronage to them. Whether it’s to Somali daycares or whether it’s to this high-speed rail line that doesn’t have one piece of track. I mean, how much has California wasted on that?”

1:09:15 “Or 24 billion to the homelessness only to see the homeless population increase. Look, these politicians don’t care how the money is spent at all. All they care about is rewarding their supporters. That’s the whole game. And then those supporters round trip a portion of the ill-gotten gains they’ve gotten from the government back to those politicians. That’s the whole game.”

1:09:50 “And then when the whole thing blows up because it’s just so corrupt and inefficient and so absurd, what do they do? They try to find productive people to scapegoat. And they say that billionaires are your problems. They’ll blame billionaires for that or they’ll blame the tech community. Look, the startup community or the tech community is one of the I’d say last extremely well functioning parts of American society, but they don’t control it yet.”

1:10:25 “And so that’s what the politicians will do is they will try to find scapegoats to expand their control and expand the size and scope of the corrupt system that they’re running.”

1:10:40 “Freeberg, what do you think a year from now, where will we be? And what do you think this says about America at the end of the empire? And yeah, which you’ve been focused on.”

1:10:55 “Yeah, probably two things. So this is like everyone pocketing the silverware as the Titanic is sinking because the spiraling spending, the lack of audits, the lack of accountability effectively enables an environment like this because we’ve basically increased government spending so much to basically try and grow the economy, prop up the debt, keep the debt service payments flowing, etc.”

1:11:30 “So as a result, anytime you have a bubble, and in this case, we have a bubble in government spending, you have frothy, fraud behavior. There’s my guess tip of the iceberg. Elon’s estimate was 20% of federal spending falls under this kind of fraud camp, could be more. And then when you add in state and local spending and you start to do the accounting on all of this, we’re probably talking about a sizable percentage of overall GDP that is effectively theft through government agencies or government checks being written.”

1:12:15 “And I think that’s going to be the great uncovering of 2026 is we’re going to see on the order of trillions of dollars of…” “Trillions?” “Trillions of dollars of this sort of behavior happening across the economy.”

1:12:35 “And I also think the other side, nothing will happen. And I think nothing will happen because the cost is going to be so significant. It’s almost like staring into the abyss. It’s going to make people feel sick to try and address it.”

1:12:55 “Actually, let me ask you a question. How do you differentiate between legal theft and illegal theft? Meaning, I think what the Somali daycares were doing was outright fraud and is illegal. But when Stacy Abrams creates an NGO in the final days of the Biden administration and that gets stuffed with $2 billion dollars, I mean technically I guess that’s legal, but it’s clearly a different kind of theft and fraud.”

1:13:30 “Would you throw up in your mouth when you heard the news? That’s the test.” “That’s the little test.” “Yeah. And I call that the common sense vomit in the mouth test. If you don’t pass the common sense vomit in the mouth test, it doesn’t matter whether it’s legal or illegal. It’s f***ed up and you’ll realize that pretty quickly.”

1:14:00 “Chamath, your thoughts on what we just discussed and maybe a year from now, will any of this change?”

1:14:15 “It is a crucible moment for American society. If nothing happens and we deem this kind of theft acceptable, it is the beginning of the end of the American Empire. It’s just a level of lack of care for this country. I think so. I will be waiting and observing how important it is to root this out. That’s number one.”

1:14:50 “The second, which is more tactical political calculus, this is an enormous opportunity for the Republican party. If they take this and run with this, is there waste, fraud, and abuse in every state? Absolutely. I don’t think this is endemically a Democratic problem, but the scale of it is so gargantuan in these Democratic states that if the Republicans don’t take advantage of it, I think it is a huge political miscalculation.”

1:15:30 “So there is this tactical opportunity which I think if you want to have a chance in the midterms and if you generally want to have a chance to level set the country you must take this and run with it.” “Yeah.” “And separately if as Freeberg says it does die on the vine, it is the beginning of the end of the American empire unfortunately.”

1:16:00 “Yeah. I was thinking the same thing as you. These Democrats have nothing to hang their hat on. They have no platform. They’re lost. They’re adrift. It’s going to be impossible for Gavin to do this because there’s been so much corruption in California. But if he did, theoretically, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Pritzker, if they came out and said Elon was right, DOGE is the right idea.”

1:16:35 “We should take what Elon did and we should take every agency, audit them, and we should prosecute anybody and fire anybody who’s incompetent, prosecute anybody who’s a criminal, and we should cut these programs, you know, 10% a year for two or three years and tighten them up and make them perfect for the American people so we can lower taxes and we can provide better services. And that’s my platform for 2026 and 2028 for president. That is going to be the easiest path to victory and rebooting the failed dopey Democratic party.”

1:17:15 “Yeah, I think you’re right, J Cal. If the message from both parties is enough is enough. And let me just end on an optimistic note and they say enough is enough. We’ve seen it. It’s staggering. We are going to fix it. That is the party’s message. That is the country’s message. That is the government’s message. Whether they’re holding hands or yelling across the aisle saying, ‘We’re going to fix it.’ ‘No, we’re going to fix it.’ It’s an opportunity.”

1:17:55 “And the reality is if the fraud, waste, and abuse is of the scale that it seems it might be based on what we’re just seeing with the tip of the iceberg here, then there is a very significant opportunity for us to significantly reduce government spending and get out of the debt spiral at a federal, state, and local level. If it is this easy to just stop this sort of thing and you could actually save trillions of dollars of wasteful spending, we could be in a very good position with a growing economy.”

1:18:35 “Here’s why I think it will actually happen. I’ll build on something that Freeberg and I talked about over the holidays last week. We were talking about all of this fraud in California and he said, ‘Chamath, mark my words, wait until the bond market sniffs out how fake and propped up the California economy and balance sheet and pension system is.’ And he said, ‘You’re going to see these bonds run because those folks don’t care about anything other than the ones and zeros of their own financial survival.’”

1:19:15 “I completely agree with that. So, if you take that to the limit, the optimistic part of this is that now that this is being exposed, you are going to see risk get repriced. And if risk gets massively repriced and muni bonds get destroyed and a bunch of state bonds get destroyed and a bunch of these issues get broken, these folks will have no choice except to run and hide and cover their ass.”

1:19:55 “And by the way, that falls on the feet of a lot of people outside of the United States who when they see this issue will have a lot less tolerance even if Americans may not run to solve it. So the good news is that there is an overwhelming amount of debt in the United States. There is an even larger amount of debt that’s owned by outsiders and those folks fortunately I think will have zero tolerance for this. They will want their debts paid back.”

1:20:35 “This is so key because muni bonds have been the tax-free stable. I mean I’ve…” “Tax advantage but not for much longer. If you know that this is happening…” “Yeah if you break munis…” “You can’t underwrite this. I mean what happens to bridges and schools and all these… In order to build infrastructure you need these muni bonds to work.”

1:21:05 “And it all starts with three words: Elon was right. That’s why I said at the beginning, the first Democrats to say Elon was right, they are going to win the prize. If you don’t say that, you don’t win the prize.” “I don’t think they’re going to say that.” “Those are wonderful sentiments, J Cal, but Democrats can’t do that. Look, Democrats denouncing government waste is like Don Corleone denouncing the mafia. Okay.”

1:21:45 “It’s a myth. It’s an urban legend.” “No, that is what they are. The Democrat party is the party of government waste and spending tax. It’s the party of government, okay? And they just want the government to be as large as possible. And if a big chunk of that goes to fraudsters, so be it. You know what? Those fraudsters are donors, too. And that’s the issue here is this is all just political patronage.”

1:22:25 “So yeah, you know, it would be a smart strategy for some Democrat to say the words that you’re saying. And in fact, Ro Khanna just did. He said, ‘I support having an investigation to root out government inefficiency.’” “Perfectly to our next story. Thank you for the master…” “I don’t believe them. I don’t believe them because they are the party of government.”

1:22:55 “And the Republican party when it functions well is the party of the people, right? It’s a party of everyone else.” “No. When it functions well, it’s the party that attacks the party that comes from the rich. And Trump marshals that populist energy.” “So, it’s got to come from the Republicans. They may not deliver.” “I’m not saying the Republicans are perfect, but the Republicans, let me just explain, to marshal that populist energy.” “Okay. Go ahead.”

1:23:30 “The TikTok of this is you have all this fraud. Let’s say in California or Minnesota, you’re going to bury it. Okay. Per Freeberg. Nobody wants to do anything. They want to just sweep it under the rug and keep it going. Okay, the fraud needs to keep going. The deficits keep growing because again, it’s fraudulent, right? You’re not accomplishing your goals. You keep raising taxes and eventually people start leaving.”

1:24:05 “First, it’s the people that can leave, then it’s the people that must leave, and then you have whoever is left over. Now your tax rolls actually start to shrink at some point and your deficits start to become bigger and bigger again because you’ve decided to not root out the fraud. The bond market will look at that and they will throw up in their mouths first. So they will pass the throw up in your mouth test that Freeberg talked about.”

1:24:40 “And then they are going to shove it down the throat of these state balance sheets. That is the technical term that I want you to understand - down the throat. And what that means is that the 401ks and the pension systems that all rely on these muni bonds and all these tax advantages to actually generate yield will start to turn and it will be the fault of these politicians who let that happen.”

1:25:15 “And what I am warning all of the governors and all the politicians that listen to this pod is you need to get in front of this issue because even if you think the voting population will not force you to do something, the financial markets will. And now that they’ve seen this, they will not stop. They will reprice and reprice and reprice this risk until they get you to capitulate.”

1:25:50 “California has half a trillion dollars of bonds outstanding and the state of California is looking at an 18 billion dollar deficit. They’re going to continue to issue bonds over the next year. That number is going to climb to 30 billion. So, the bond market is crucial for California to continue to operate. This is the world’s fourth largest economy, the state of California, and it is already in a bit of a fiscal bind.”

1:26:25 “Not to mention what we’ve talked about in the past, which is the looming pension obligations. The state of California is going to have to borrow somewhere on the order of another, this is going to sound crazy, half a trillion dollars plus in order to pay out their current pension obligations. How the hell is that going to happen?”

1:26:55 “The US government will give it to them. That’s it. They’re going to go to the Fed. Obviously, they’re going to try to get bailed out, which is what the states always do. Just go for the bail out.”

1:27:15 “My point is the pressure is on. And I think Chamath is right that this market is going to start to basically put pen to paper on the reality of how things are operating. It’s not just going to be…”

1:27:35 “And by the way, we’re about to light the spark, which is the billionaire tax act. Once the BTA, if it gets on the ballot and gets passed, it lights the spark on the death spiral of these states.” “Right. Yes.”

1:27:55 “Yeah. I think you’re all right. I think you’re all right. And I think Jay’s right about you. Look, California, Illinois, New York, these states are all in a death spiral. They’re all in the process of collapsing. And they will try to get bailed out by the feds. That’s their only potential savior because they’re not allowed to declare bankruptcy.”

1:28:25 “By the way, that would be a good thing if states could declare bankruptcy so you could unwind some of these crazy obligations they’ve taken on. But you can’t do that. So, they will go to the feds. And I think they’re all just trying to hold on until they can get Democrats elected back in Washington. So 2028 will become a very very important election because this is going to determine whether these states have to finally make ends meet or whether they will basically just try and federalize their problems.”

1:29:05 “No, the bill always comes due. That’s the truth. The bill always comes due.”

1:29:15 “I’ve gone through that scenario analysis with a bunch of macro folks and a couple of external central bank folks. That’s not going to happen. And the reason that’s not going to happen is then you’ll see 20 to 30% of the bond buyers just leave the US bond market. And so you will have auctions that start to fail.”

1:29:45 “This is what I’m saying. There is no way out for these states. If the states think that they can fail and they will federalize it, that’s not going to happen. Because once whoever is the then sitting secretary of the Treasury starts to call and says we’re going to run this auction, they are not going to like what they see.”

1:30:15 “And the reason is because of what Nick Shirley has exposed. Because everybody will go back to this and say, ‘Hold on a second. If you could have cut 20 to 30% of all of your budgets over the last 10 years, that’s 25 or 30 trillion dollars you could have used to pay down your debts and you chose not to and now you want to come to us.’ So I just think that it’s an untenable situation. The dollar will basically have decayed in that entire process another 90%.”

1:30:55 “So, whoever is sitting in the seat of government at the federal level will not be able to do anything at that time. That could be ‘28, it could be ‘32, it could be ‘36. My point is, this is just a wakeup call for America. We don’t have a choice. As much as you thought you could hide it, you can’t hide it anymore. So, you’re just going to have to clean it up.”

1:31:30 “Do you think that Gavin Newsom will cut $1 of state spending? I don’t think so.” “No, no, no. What I’m not saying he will cut a single dollar of it proactively. He will try to keep the gravy train going, growing. What I’m saying is whoever is the then secretary of the treasury, if somebody goes bankrupt at the state level and they ask to federalize the debt, what he or she will do is sensitize the United States balance sheet to absorb that and then have to go and see who’s willing to buy the debt of the United States of America to backstop that. What I’m saying, David, is that’s when it fails.” “That’s your prediction. Yes. And it makes sense. Yeah.”

1:32:15 “I think that these scenarios can be run now. And I think that that’s why it probably makes sense for the Federal Reserve and all these folks to basically write the white paper now that says we’re not in a position to do it. So the states get the memo.”

1:32:40 “This is all going to require somebody to get elected who has the platform of austerity and fiscal responsibility. And…” “You don’t need austerity. These programs can work. Stop pilfering and stop stealing.” “Number one, it’s…” “Be competent.” “Yeah. But it’s going to require a message to the American people, Chamath, that I am not going to allow not only fraud, which people agree on, but we’re going to need to have some level of austerity as a country. And nobody has gotten elected on that.”

1:33:20 “You don’t need austerity.” “You need fiscal responsibility. I do think that is different than austerity. You don’t need to cut these programs. These programs don’t work. They don’t work because everybody’s stealing all the money. Why don’t you first spend the money for what you told us you were going to spend it on when you asked us to give you the money and forced us to give you the money, then measure it, then tell us it’s not working and before you ask for more.”

1:33:56 “I mean, I think this is the core of this issue is going to be can somebody get elected on the platform of fiscal responsibility and nobody has been able to. I will say this, we did have, I think, a bit of impact on this podcast when we kept harping on, you know, lowering the deficit. Even though that hasn’t happened, it’s still top of mind in the country.”

1:34:30 “And I think putting above that, my number one issue going into these elections is going to be who is DOGE positive and will run DOGE at all levels of government. If you’re not willing to say, I attack fraud first and then second, balancing the budget/reducing the deficit, then why are you even running for office now? You have to do those first two things. If you don’t do those first two things, everything’s existential from that point on, which leads to our next story.”

1:35:05 “Well, I hope you can admit that closing the border was a big win in this regard.” “100%. Like that was long overdue and I was wrong about how many people were coming in because it made no logical sense to watch it go like this and my hand is going straight across at a million a year or so and then pop up to three or four and there was no data to support it other than people sharing random clips which I don’t trust.”

1:35:40 “The border problem has exacerbated this massively because there are some, there are states giving entitlements to people who are here illegally. That’s insane. And if we want to maintain a low unemployment rate while jobs are displaced, the best way to do that is to shut the border and not let more people in because they’re going to take jobs, obviously. So, that actually could be the mitigating factor in all of this.”

1:36:15 “And it’s probably the, I would say that’s the topic that got Trump elected. The number one reason Trump got elected is because Biden was senile. And the second is because Kamala was an idiot and couldn’t even debate. So you take those two things together, you know, the third issue was obviously immigration.”

1:36:45 “Okay, but we have to get on to this next story because I don’t want to run out of time for it, which is California wants to do an act called BTA. This act stands for Besties to Austin. This is the Besties to Austin, and it’s marked. Two of four besties, I believe.”

1:37:10 “Well, no, no, four of four. The other two are actively looking for houses. We just haven’t…” “They’re circling. They’re in India.” “We haven’t found something we like. I don’t want to say where I’m living, but…”

1:37:30 “Okay. Besties to Austin, Let’s go. Ride them, boys. There’s the four of us on horses. Let’s go. Let’s get some Terry Blacks. Oh, man. Sax and I at Terry Blacks eating beef ribs with our shotguns and our pistols. It’s going to be a good time. Let’s go.”

1:38:00 “Anyway, we brought this up back in October. A lot of people taking victory laps. But we got on this first. This tax for billionaires is going to target residents with over a billion in net worth. The history of this is really interesting. Freeberg, why don’t you walk the all-in audience through how this came to be?”

1:38:25 “So, California has a direct democratic ballot process. So anyone can file for something to go on the ballot and it allows them to get around the state senate and the assembly and basically allow the citizens to vote directly on an issue. When they make a filing, it costs $2,000. Anyone can file for a ballot measure and then you have to go collect signatures and you have to collect roughly 900,000 signatures. Once you’ve collected those signatures, it makes it on the next ballot.”

1:39:00 “The state attorney general looks at it to make sure that it’s legally compliant and so on. They write their summary of it and then it makes it on the ballot. People vote for it and if it passes, it passes. So in this particular case, the billionaire tax act as it’s titled, which is likely going to get retitled when it’s finally filed for people to review, is a 5% tax on the assets of anyone that’s got a net worth over a billion dollars.”

1:39:35 “It was proposed by a guy named Dave Regan who runs SEIU which is one of the unions in order to make up for the healthcare shortfall that his members are going to be experiencing. So, this was not a broad coalition that filed this. This is not filed by the state. This is not filed by anyone in the Assembly or the Senate. This is one individual at one union that’s put it forward and is now trying to collect signatures to get it put on the ballot.”

1:40:10 “To be clear, I just want to read it back to you. It’s a union leader who has a shortfall in health care for some number of members. I don’t know how many members are in that union. And they just came up with the idea, people hate billionaires, we’ll seize their money, 5% of it, to get health care for our members of this very specific union.”

1:40:40 “And the truth is it’s actually been set up as a negotiating technique. So, it’s primarily, it may be. Yeah. I mean, look, there’s momentum behind it at this point, but it’s fundamentally a point that creates leverage that allows this individual to go out and negotiate with other parties to try and find a way for this money to show up so that he can reduce the healthcare costs for his members, which is what his objective is.”

1:41:15 “And this is the way the direct democratic process works in California. Now, it’s not the first time a wealth tax has been proposed in California. And I want to be really clear on this. I think this is very important for everyone to understand. Forget the term billionaire. Forget the term wealth. What we are talking about, and this is now being proposed in multiple places in the United States and there’s also federal bills being proposed, several federal bills that have been considered.”

1:41:50 “We are talking about for the first time a tax on individual people’s private property, not on your income. So the way taxes work today is when you earn income either via labor, so you collect a paycheck, or via the sale of an asset. So you sell a house and make a profit or you sell a stock or bond and make a profit. You are earning income and you pay a tax on that income and you only pay taxes when you realize income, when you sell something or do work and get a paycheck. So only when you get paid cash.”

1:42:30 “So for the first time ever we are talking about placing a tax on people’s private property that hasn’t turned into cash. For example, you own some real estate, you own an apartment building.”

1:42:45 “Well, I think it’s worse than that. I think it’s worse than that because a lot of people were calling this an unrealized gains tax, but it’s not an unrealized gains tax. You could have realized, let’s say you had just had a big outcome and you sold your stock and you made a billion dollars. You were fully paid up on all of your taxes.”

1:43:10 “Let me just say, not even a billion dollars, right? Forget about a billion. Let’s say that this asset tax, because in some cases it’s being proposed on anyone over 50 million or anyone over a million dollars…” “In the country? Wait a second. This story just got really important to me.”

1:43:40 “All right, everybody. This has been another amazing episode of the All-In podcast. We’ll see you next week for our prediction show. Sorry it got delayed. We just had too much on this document. Love you besties. We open sourced it to the fans and they’ve just gone crazy with it. Love you. Queen of Besties are gone.”