Could Tim Walz go down in Somali welfare fraud scandal?
MAGA creators are manifesting the Minnesota governor's downfall — and the Somali population's deportation.
You’re here because you’re watching politics get body slammed by digital culture and content creators. I’m here because I’m the only one who can guide you through it.
Here’s what you would walk away believing about Somalis in Minnesota if you only got information from right-wing creators:
Every Somali resident of the state is involved in the nation’s largest welfare scheme
The billions of dollars stolen in these schemes are directly funding the al-Shabaab terror group
MN Gov. Tim Walz is “in on” or “overseeing” or “sponsoring” or “responsible for” or “complicit in” the widespread fraud
All Somalis are pirates who marry their siblings
Let’s back up: I let out a deeply existential sigh when I saw the subject line “The Minnesota Somali Autism Fraud Scandal” hit my inbox from Jeffery Mead on Nov. 22. What’s that phrase all the kids say these days? None of these words are in the Bible? That’s how I felt reading that. Just peak 2025 semantic fuckery.
Unlike a lot of the left-leaning content creators out there, I was resisting this story but not because I didn’t want it to be true. But the fact is, this is a complicated one to cover — it takes root in some level of truth that (at the very least) we should be able to recognize, but that is quickly obstructed by overgrown leaves of exaggeration. And that’s before the “just making shit up” flowers even begin to bloom.
Most creators have made their name bucking the linguistic conventions traditional journalists are shackled to in order to avoid getting sued. It’s in that liminal space between what’s plausible and what’s definite that political content creators have set up shop and made a fortune.
It’s why the New York Times’ piece stops just beyond the uncovering of fraud under the watch of Gov. Tim Walz and short of the claim at the core of Christopher F. Rufo and Ryan Thorpe’s viral City Journal piece “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer.”
Oddly enough, right-wing commentators used the NYT’s coverage as evidence of the scandal’s legitimacy. The White House used the City Journal’s coverage as justification for revoking the Temporary Protected Status of Somalis. Here’s how it’s all going down.
THE FACTS
Here’s a brief overview of what we know for sure in this saga:
There are a number of massive welfare fraud cases that have come out of Minnesota in recent years. The biggest was linked to a totally bullshit group called Feeding Our Future. Another involves fake treatment centers for children with autism.
78 of the 86 people charged in the schemes are of Somali descent. NYT reports the “vast majority” are American citizens.
Somalis in America send a lot of remittance money back to Somalia — as do many immigrants from other nations.
The Treasury Dept. just opened an investigation into Gov. Walz’s potential ties or knowledge. The House Oversight Committee is investigating Walz’s “failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars.”
HOPS — “Tampon Tim & The Somali Pirates”
As far as political creators go, 24-year-old new mom Brett Cooper is an apex YouTuber. I’m always here for a whiteboard video and hers is no exception. She draws out the different rackets at the base of this uproar, making an attempt to link them all to the governor’s office, while giving herself some judicious padding — heavy-handedly peppering in the word “allegedly” 17 times in under 17 minutes.
“How she did this is that she allegedly had her sham organization work with Feeding Our Future. She said, ‘Hey, I have an organization [...] I’ll feed autistic kids. I’ll feed hungry kids during the pandemic. This will be great.’ [...] She fed no kids. She allegedly was supposedly feeding 200,000 children. She did no such thing. Allegedly. Allegedly. I have to keep saying allegedly because this is still an ongoing case.”
Ultimately, she betrays her attempted discipline saying Walz “can’t claim he doesn’t know” because a Twitter account had been trying to bring the scandal to his attention for over a year. Not sure the governor actively checks his mentions — this isn’t Gavin Newsom we’re talking about here!
SKIPS — “Trump GOES DARK IN RACIST RANT About Minnesota’s Somali Community!!!”
The content creators on the left have largely ignored the dozens of charges handed out in these public assistance fraud cases, including hosts I reference frequently like Adam Mockler, Kyle Kulinski, Brian Tyler Cohen, Jen Welch + Pumps, etc.
Ben Meiselas references Trump’s derogatory comments about Somalis for 90 seconds at the end of a video. David Pakman designates the group as Trump’s latest scapegoat. Loren Piretra mounts a defense of Tim Walz in response to an attack over visa fraud claimed by Kristi Noem. YT streamer Vaush called the news “boring and fake.” And the majority of accounts on the left that have addressed this story focus on racism.
Kudos to Ryan Grim and Emily Jashinsky who are Making Points at Breaking Points (sorrrrry). The duo — who are not ideologically aligned — strike the balance that consistently evades the liberal grasp:
Fraud is bad, the perpetrators must face consequences, and any culture of welfare abuse should be eradicated.
“If you don’t look like you’re willing to root out fraud, then the right can easily come in and be like look this is all welfare fraud … let’s just get rid of the welfare.”
Minnesota Somalis, as a whole, should not suffer collective punishment for the actions of a few.
JUMPS — Here are conclusions conservative creators are drawing for an audience of millions.
Black Conservative Perspective — 245k views: Walz is overseeing “one of the biggest fraud schemes we’ve ever seen,” Dems are being funded by the fraud & getting kickbacks for putting taxpayer dollars in
“No doubt in my mind that’s what’s happening in Minnesota.”
Actual Justice Warrior — 182k views: Discovering “Somalis absolutely have no chill whatsoever,” fraud is their way of life which they learn from Ilhan Omar
“[We] just happen to be evil white racists for noticing they’re stealing all your money.”
Cash Jordan — 603k views: Imagine the scandals that would have happened if Tim Walz was VP and we had an open border
“Would Kamala Harris have stopped this?”
The Blaze — 200k views: The Islamification of the entire country is coming from Somalia, the streets in MN “basically look like Tehran,” their native tongue “is very ugly by the way”
“Ilhan Omar is bitching about being oppressed” from her seat in Congress.
Officer Tatum — 118k views: Tim Walz is 100% responsible for the schemes
“Immigrants that don’t assimilate … you get a bunch of bull shenanigans going on.”
Brandon Lehman — 400k views: Tim Walz changed the state flag to look like Somalia’s,1 they’re all marrying their siblings
“I want to see arrests. I want to see trials. I want to see convictions. I demand it.”
END WITH NICE, NOT NASTY
LOOSE ENDS:
📝 Word I learned today: otrovert
📰 Something you should read today: Right-wing reporting on Somali money going to al-Shabaab is not new, still misses the mark — Kayseh Magan
“Those of us who have actually followed the Minnesota fraud cases closely know that time and time again, prosecutors have stated the fraudsters were motivated by greed, not ideology.”
🥹 Something to make you smile today: I love the entire Skarsgard family. But I really love Stellan Skarsgard. Cultured Magazine (one of the few high quality publications created in the post-magazine era) allowed the Swedish patriarch to select someone to have a conversation with for an article. He chose Bill Clinton’s Sec. of Labor, someone most of you likely know and many of you probably love. The article’s headline sells it perfectly: Stellan Skarsgård and Robert Reich Tell Us How to Escape the Political Doom Loop. Enjoy.
Ok so this is actually kind of a funny spinoff saga — the first flag redesign the state committee accepted looked so much like the Somali flag that they had to rescind the selection and try again.
Thanks for your work, you're one of the top writers on here, willing to talk about the dirt on both sides of the political spectrum while maintaining clarity and professional tone so I feel like I'm reading a proper newspaper.