The White House is announcing a new $25 million fraud tip program, to give Americans a cash reward for reporting suspected fraud that leads to a successful conviction or “significant federal enforcement action.”
Its first recipient: right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley, whose viral December 2025 video resurfaced long-standing state and federal investigations into fraud at Somali-owned child care centers in Minnesota. The Trump administration promoted Shirley’s video, which in part jump-started its focus on fraud and led to punitive measures against the state.
The Trump administration is giving Shirley a $10,000 check as part of its new Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program.
Many of the administration’s claims about fraud-related savings are misleading and unsubstantiated, as The Washington Sun has previously reported.
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The state has indeed been dealing with a welfare fraud scandal centered on a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future, which exploited a child nutrition program during the pandemic. Aimee Bock, the woman at the center of that $250 million scheme, was sentenced to nearly 42 years in prison earlier this year. Investigations into the nonprofit predate Shirley’s video.
Minnesota state inspectors visited the child care centers featured in Shirley’s video after it went viral and found that they were operating normally. Fahima Mahamud, who led Future Leaders Early Learning Center, a day care featured in Shirley’s video, pleaded guilty to fraud charges related to the Feeding Our Futures scheme in July.
The administration’s new $25 million fraud tip program, administered by the Justice Department, will offer up to $30,000 to individuals who submit a tip to fraud.gov that leads to a successful conviction or “significant federal enforcement action.” It’s not immediately clear where that funding is coming from.
“Every day, President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud is zeroing in on the rampant abuse of taxpayer dollars and giving Americans the accountability they deserve,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “This administration has zero tolerance for individuals who steal from Americans.”
Minnesota has been a central focus of the administration’s campaign.
Late last year, the Minnesota Star Tribune tallied over $200 million in fraud documented by investigators in the state’s Education Department meal program and various Medicaid services.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz dropped out of the state’s gubernatorial race amid increased scrutiny at the start of this year.
Much of the administration’s rhetoric has focused on the Somali background of some of the fraudsters. Trump has repeatedly made racist comments about Minnesota’s Somali population. In a post on Truth Social earlier this month, he said the state “is being taken over by Somali Immigrants” and “the people of Minnesota must fight back.”
The Trump administration has taken a number of actions in response to Shirley’s video, including freezing child care payments to Minnesota and four other Democratic-run states and sending federal law enforcement to Minnesota to target immigrants. Earlier this year, federal law enforcement shot and killed two U.S. citizens protesting that crackdown.
The administration linked the surge of federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year to the fraud scandal. Some federal prosecutors who’d been leading the sweeping pandemic fraud investigation in the state resigned after being asked to investigate the widow of Renée Good, one of the people shot and killed there.
State officials have accused the administration of politicizing fraud. The state is currently bracing for the Trump administration to officially withdraw up to $259 million in Medicaid payments that it froze earlier this year in the name of rooting out fraud.
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