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CNN Makes Several Attempts To Paint YouTuber Nick Shirley As A Bigot
Last Friday YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video alleging mass fraud at children's daycare centers in Minnesota which includes some in the Somali community. The video went viral and has resulted in a federal investigation, led by DHS and ICE. This comes on the heels of what is believed to be $9 billion of social services fraud over many years in the same community of Minnesota. Many in the liberal media have had a hard time reporting on that story properly, and the same seems to be happening with the latest scandal.
Speaking on Fox News's Big Weekend Show, Shirley predicted that other journalists might not want to handle the story out of fear of being labeled "Islamophobic" or "racist." One way to remedy that is to attack the messenger and it looks like that's what Telemundo attempted to do by labeling Shirley a "far-right YouTuber".
And during several shows on Tuesday, CNN was even worse. Phil Mattingly, guest-hosting on CNN's Inside Politics started the story this way:
MATTINGLY: Right now, Republican lawmakers are asking Minnesota's Democratic Governor, Tim Walz, to resign after renewed focus on a state fraud investigation. A viral YouTube video by a creator who shared anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim videos in the past put a major national spotlight on the investigation. The video claims Somali run child care centers in Minnesota are committing widespread fraud and provides limited evidence to support the allegations.
This kind of phrasing suggests that immigrants and Muslims should never be negatively covered, no matter what the actual facts are. This betrays wokeness, the kind that made all of this fraud possible in the first place.
Mattingly gave no further information on the alleged racist videos. He then addressed Law Enforcement Correspondent Whitney Wild in Minnesota "And, Whitney, what are you hearing from officials there?" And she then added to the smear.
"Well, there's one agency saying basically today that they are concerned about some of the tactics that the video shows, but at the same time, they take all allegations of fraud seriously."
Which agency had concern? What was their concern? We will never know. She did admit, "This has been a problem in Minnesota for many, many years. You can look it up yourself. There are stories about, you know, alleged fraud at daycares stretching as far back as 2015. There were a round of indictments back then. Fraud continues to simply plague the Minneapolis area and Minnesota at large."
Later on CNN News Central, host Brianna Keilar asked correspondent Hadas Gold to tell the audience who Nick Shirley is. And she did.
HADAS GOLD: Nick Shirley he's in his early 20s. He started posting on YouTube as a teenager, actually, with kind of the shock videos as a 16-year-old. One of his first videos was about him flying to New York without parental consent. For the next couple of years, there was a lot of these sort of just kind of pranking fun content videos.. In 2021, he quit to go as part of a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Then, in 2023, he returned. And that's when you see his current style of content. It's much more political... He went to the border a lot to talk to who he says were illegal immigrants. He's been to Rio, Brazil. He's been into the CECOT Prison (El Salvador) And as a result, he became sort of well known in the MAGA universe. And in fact, in October, he was invited to the White House to speak alongside several other independent content creators, independent journalists, to speak with President Donald Trump.
She had her chance to tell the audience all about Shirley, and there was not one mention of any racist videos, period. But that didn't stop Jim Sciutto while he was guest-hosting The Arena.
SCIUTTO: All of this surge of law enforcement resources coming after this viral video created by MAGA YouTuber Nick Shirley.. Shirley visits businesses connected to Minneapolis's Somali immigrant community, businesses that he alleges are abusing or stealing taxpayer dollars. The video, however, contains little evidence to back up those claims, and Shirley has previously created and shared anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim videos. That context is important.
Simply irresponsible and outrageous! Sciutto then hands off to Wild in Minnesota, who once again cites no examples of these alleged racist videos. Sciutto ends the segment with, "And we should note that there are some 100,000 residents of Somali descent in Minnesota. No one is alleging, there is no evidence, that a large number of that community is involved in fraud."
In other words, CNN loves tossing the phrase "no evidence" to try and undercut stories they don't like. Some of the worst reporting I've seen in a long time. Thank you CNN.