Minnesota welfare fraud hits $1 billion under Walz as media coverage lags
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Many local stories that could be damaging to Democratic politicians don’t become national TV stories for obvious reason. That’s doubly clear in the case of massive welfare fraud by Somalis in Minnesota under Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 running mate.
The focus began with conservatives on Nov. 19 with a memorable sentence in Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe’s City Journal article: “The biggest funder [al Qaeda-linked] al-Shabaab is a Minnesota taxpayer.” Fraudulent welfare payments were sent to Somalia and ended up in a dangerous place.
The New York Times received the news late on November 30. The online headline read: “How Fraud Affected Minnesota’s Social Services System Under Tim Walz’s Watch.” The newspaper’s front page was bland: “Social Services Corruption Hitting Nice, Minnesota.” A better term would be “preying on the Minnesota Woke.”
On “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker began with the obvious method of broadcast network promotion of a story, taking exception to something President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. He tagged Walz with the R-word, or as Welker put it, “an slur that is widely considered derogatory towards people with intellectual disabilities.” Walz then vacated two minutes accusing Trump of having “malicious intentions.”
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Six Somalis were arrested during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. (DHS/Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
In his second question, Welker concluded that there was billion-dollar fraud, pointing to his reading of the New York Times, which he noted was “more than Minnesota spends each year to run the Department of Corrections, so I want to give you a chance to respond to that. Do you take responsibility for not stopping this fraud in your state?”
Walz escaped: “Sure, I take responsibility for putting people in jail.” This is fake news. Walz didn’t put anyone in jail. Federal agents and the U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota investigated, exposed and prosecuted the fraudsters. Later, Welker’s questions took a turn for the worse when he asked Walz to explain how Trump suffered a major cognitive decline.
On December 1, the New York Post reported that nearly 500 state employees tweeted: “Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We reported the fraud to Tim Walz early, hoping for a partnership to stop the fraud, but no, we got the exact opposite response.” Broadcast networks covered it.
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On Dec. 2, “NBC Nightly News” broke the silence with one sentence from a White House recap by reporter Gabe Gutierrez: “Federal prosecutors have charged dozens of people in Minnesota’s Somali community for allegedly stealing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars used for social service programs.”
ABC, CBS, and PBS shamelessly aired Trump’s angry response that night, without any context of mass fraud: “If we keep bringing trash into our country, we’re going to go down the wrong path. Ilhan Omar is trash. She’s trash. Her friends are trash. These aren’t working people…. They complain and do nothing but bitch.”
While the same decontextualization of Trump’s “presidential tirade” continued on Wednesday morning shows on ABC and NBC, “CBS Mornings” included a minor reference to reporter Nancy Cordes saying she had “been talking about Somalis since the story about a fraud ring in Minnesota, which has the nation’s highest concentration of Somali Americans, broke last week.”
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On Wednesday night, White House correspondent Mary Bruce finally produced a piece on the subject: “The New York Times reported that 59 people were convicted for schemes involving more than $1 billion of taxpayer money that should have gone to children and other social services. President Trump is capitalizing on the story as he expands his crackdown on immigrants.”
Trump “caught” the scandal, ABC sniffed it out. Bruce then allowed Democrats to respond. “But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is defending the Somali community.” “He’s wrong and we want them here,” Frey said. To wait. Is he wrong about the billion dollar scam?
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On “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker began with the obvious method of broadcast network promotion of a story, taking exception to something President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.
One reason Trump has called Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar “trash” is because of her connections to hustlers in the Somali community. The New York Post reported Thursday that Omar and her staff were defending the fake charity called “Feeding Our Future.” Guhaad Hashi Said, who worked on Omar’s 2018 and 2020 campaigns as an “enforcer” The man who oversaw Somali voter mobilization pleaded guilty in August to operating a fake food website called Advance Youth Athletic Development; where he falsely claimed to serve 5,000 meals a day and pocketed $3.2 million from the meal program.
The worst on-air interview on the subject this week was with Omar on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” Co-host Michel Martin spoon-fed Omar: “I wondered what was going through your mind when you said things like they didn’t contribute anything and they should go back to where they came from.” Omar responded: “His disgusting rhetoric really came as no surprise to me. He trafficked in racism, xenophobia, bigotry and Islamophobia throughout his time in office.”
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In the fourth question Martin finally revealed that fraud had occurred and then asked “do you have any reaction to this information?” he asked. Omar said she is happy that accountability exists. Martin followed up with another remark: “Are you worried about an entire community being scapegoated for the actions of this group of people?”
Never let leftist broadcast media people get on their soapbox and say they want to “hold the government accountable.” Such scandals underscore that every scandal somehow turns into a Trump scandal. He said something rude about a scam organized by Somalia. Omar is not described as someone who went on a “tirade” when she called Trump a racist, bigot and Islamophobic. They agree with it, so it’s just true speech.
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