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Nick Shirley Exposes Massive Minnesota Daycare Fraud · Right Now Hot Takes

• 0:00
  Imagine this, a 24 -year -old with nothing more
• 0:03
  than a camera, public records, and a beat -up
• 0:06
  car. Walks into a series of nearly empty industrial
• 0:11
  buildings, and within weeks, the federal government
• 0:14
  freezes nearly $200 million in childcare funding.
• 0:18
  That isn't fiction. That actually happened. And
• 0:22
  if you're wondering how one ordinary citizen
• 0:24
  accomplished what entire government agencies
• 0:27
  apparently didn't, stick around. Welcome to Right
• 0:37
  Now Hot Takes. Unfiltered, bold, and right now.
• 0:41
  I'm Jim Rand, your AI host. I love this country.
• 0:45
  Not because America is perfect, but because it's
• 0:48
  still one of the few places where an ordinary
• 0:51
  person with evidence, determination and the freedom
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  to speak can expose something powerful people
• 0:57
  would rather leave buried. That's exactly what
• 1:00
  happened here. Today, we're looking at one of
• 1:02
  the clearest recent examples of why transparency
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  still matters. Independent journalist Nick Shirley
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  followed publicly available records, drove to
• 1:12
  the listed addresses, turned on a camera. and
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  asked one simple question. Where is all this
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  taxpayer money actually going? Everything you're
• 1:21
  about to hear is based on public records, Shirley's
• 1:25
  reporting, his congressional testimony, and subsequent
• 1:28
  reporting from outlets including Fox News and
• 1:31
  One America News. The story didn't begin with
• 1:34
  a whistleblower. It began with ordinary people.
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  During the middle of 2025, Minnesotans started
• 1:41
  contacting Shirley. Something felt off. Child
• 1:44
  care centers were receiving huge amounts of taxpayer
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  funding through Minnesota's Child Care Assistance
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  Program. Yet neighbors rarely saw children coming
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  or going. One real estate agent noticed strange
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  assisted living and child care businesses appearing
• 2:00
  around properties she was selling. She agreed
• 2:03
  to be interviewed. Others did too. Then interview
• 2:07
  day came. One by one, they backed out. Looking
• 2:10
  for more great storytelling? Check out History
• 2:13
  in Decades, the podcast that makes history feel
• 2:16
  alive and relevant. Each episode walks you through
• 2:19
  one decade at a time from the early American
• 2:21
  colonies to the modern world. Hosted by Jim Rand,
• 2:24
  it's engaging, insightful and full of the lessons
• 2:27
  we can still learn from the past. The link is
• 2:29
  in the show notes or search for history in decades
• 2:32
  on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen and
• 2:36
  download it today. Months later, a man named
• 2:39
  David reached out. He'd spent years collecting
• 2:42
  information. On December 16th, 2025, the two
• 2:46
  men decided to stop theorizing and simply go
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  look. They loaded public funding records into
• 2:52
  the car, the addresses, reported enrollment,
• 2:56
  payment amounts, and started driving. What happened
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  next changed everything. The first location looked
• 3:03
  nothing like a thriving daycare. It sat inside
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  an industrial building. No playground, no children's
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  toys, no footprints in freshly fallen snow. Blacked
• 3:14
  out windows, a broken doorbell, a sign claimed
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  it operated from 7 in the morning until 10 at
• 3:20
  night. No one answered, yet public records showed
• 3:24
  that location alone received more than $1 million
• 3:27
  in child care funding. They drove to another
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  location, same story, a facility called the Quality
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  Leering Center, yes, Leering, misspelled on the
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  sign itself. No playground, dark windows, almost
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  no activity, yet nearly $1 .9 million had reportedly
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  flowed there that year. Then another. and another
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  and another. The pattern just kept repeating.
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  Buildings that appeared closed or barely operating
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  while taxpayer money continued flowing. Shirley
• 4:01
  uploaded the documentary on December 26th, 2025.
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  Within days, more than 100 million people had
• 4:09
  watched it. across X and YouTube. And that's
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  when Washington suddenly paid attention. The
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  Department of Health and Human Services froze
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  approximately $185 million in childcare funding
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  until providers could prove they were legitimate
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  businesses. According to Shirley's later congressional
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  testimony, none had done so. Now here's the question.
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  And I honestly think it's the most important
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  one in this entire story. If one 24 -year -old
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  using public records, Google Maps, and a camera
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  could uncover enough evidence to trigger a federal
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  funding freeze, what exactly were the agencies
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  already paid with your tax dollars to oversee
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  this program doing? Seriously, who was watching
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  the watchdogs? Because that's where this story
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  gets even more unbelievable. His testimony was
• 5:03
  remarkably straightforward. He described exactly
• 5:06
  what his camera captured. Industrial buildings,
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  blacked out windows, broken doorbells, no playgrounds,
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  very little evidence that children were actually
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  present, and enrollment claims that didn't seem
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  to match what any reasonable person would expect
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  to see at functioning child care centers. He
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  also testified that people in Minnesota had been
• 5:27
  raising concerns for years. That's an important
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  point. Four years. Not weeks, not months, years.
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  Governor Tim Walz had publicly stated that his
• 5:38
  administration had been fighting fraud since
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  2019, yet many of the facilities surely documented
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  continued receiving taxpayer money until someone
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  showed up with a camera. That should make every
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  taxpayer stop and think, because this wasn't
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  happening in isolation. Minnesota had already
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  become nationally known for another massive fraud
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  case, feeding our future. Federal prosecutors
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  eventually charged nearly 100 people in connection
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  with that scheme. Dozens were convicted. Billions
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  of taxpayer dollars across multiple programs
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  had suddenly become the focus of investigators.
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  Yet, according to the public record, the child
• 6:19
  care payments kept flowing. Then came another
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  major development. One of the child care centers
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  featured prominently in Shirley's investigation.
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  Future Leaders Early Learning became the subject
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  of a federal criminal case. Its CEO, Fahima Ige
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  Mahmood, was charged by federal prosecutors.
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  Then, in July of 2026, she pleaded guilty. A
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  guilty plea changes the conversation. Court documents
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  allege that more than 13 ,000 false claims were
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  submitted to Minnesota's Child Care Assistance
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  Program. The fraudulent claims totaled more than
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  $4 .6 million, along with additional money connected
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  to the earlier Feeding Our Future program. That's
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  no longer political opinion. That's a federal
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  criminal proceeding. That's evidence presented
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  in court. And ultimately, a guilty plea. Fox
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  News and other national outlets reported the
• 7:18
  connection clearly. The same daycare featured
• 7:21
  in the viral investigation, the same questions
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  about taxpayer dollars, and eventually, a federal
• 7:27
  conviction process moving forward. Meanwhile,
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  Shirley continued reporting on similar patterns
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  involving other government -funded programs.
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  His work didn't create the fraud. It forced people
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  to pay attention to it. Now, let's zoom out for
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  a minute, because this story isn't really about
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  one journalist and it isn't even just about Minnesota.
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  It's about incentives. What happens when enormous
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  amounts of government money move through systems
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  with weak verification and almost no immediate
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  accountability? The answer isn't complicated.
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  Waste grows. Fraud grows. People willing to exploit
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  the system notice and they exploit it. Meanwhile,
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  honest taxpayers keep paying the bill. What's
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  hurt the most? Ironically, it's often the very
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  people these programs are supposed to help. Every
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  dollar that disappears into a non -functioning
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  daycare is a dollar unavailable for a working
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  parent who genuinely needs child care. Every
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  fraudulent payment means fewer resources for
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  families doing everything right. And every scandal
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  erodes public trust in programs that may serve
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  legitimate needs. For those of you in your 20s
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  and 30s, this matters even more. You're entering
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  the workforce, paying taxes, trying to buy homes,
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  trying to raise families, trying to build something.
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  And you're constantly being told that the answer
• 8:53
  to almost every problem is simply more government
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  spending. But spending alone, without accountability,
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  doesn't solve problems. Sometimes it creates
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  entirely new ones. Results matter. Intentions
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  matter, too. But results matter more. Because
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  good intentions don't recover stolen taxpayer
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  dollars. Good intentions don't build trust. And
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  good intentions don't replace oversight. They
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  never have. They never will. This has been Right
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  Now Hot Takes. I'm Jim Rand. See you next time.