All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - Nick Shirley: Exposing Government Fraud, Suing California & Taking on the Media

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

(0:00) Nick Shirley debuts his new video: "Inside California's High Speed Rail to Nowhere" (11:42) Nick joins The Besties to discuss California's "Stop Nick Shirley Act" and recent fraud arrests (17:0...3) How he got into investigative journalism and finding fraud (23:32) Selective journalism and why Nick is a major threat to mainstream outlets (27:34) What's next for Nick: Investigating welfare fraud, building his platform Thanks to our partners for making this possible! IREN is a vertically integrated AI Cloud platform, delivering data centers, compute and software for AI training and inference. https://iren.com/ Oracle connects the data, applications, and infrastructure that turn AI into business outcomes—with the flexibility, choice, and control to optimize as AI evolves. http://oracle.com/ai EY helps tech innovators scale from startup to exit to megacap. You build the future. We'll handle the rest. http://www.ey.com Meta believes the future is for everyone. We're focused on giving every person the tools to reach their full potential and making sure the benefits of technology are distributed to all. http://www.meta.com Keel Infrastructure owns the power, land, and connectivity that HPC and AI run on - backed by secured energy assets and established grid interconnections across North America. https://keelinfra.com/ Airwallex - Agentic Global Business Accounts. Open local accounts in 70+ countries to accept payments, earn yield, pay globally, and manage spend. http://airwallex.com PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more information, visit https://www.paypal.com Google for Startups connects founders with the right people, products, and best practices to help startups build faster and go further. https://startup.google.com/ Explore ideas, industries, and technologies worth understanding with Chamath every week on Learn with Me: https://research.socialcapital.com/allin Follow Nick Shirley: https://x.com/nickshirleyy https://www.youtube.com/@NickShirley Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@allin Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:05 Hey Besties, if you were given $15 billion, what could you build? The next PayPal, perhaps the next SpaceX, the next Google, or would you build a high-speed rail? This is the California high-speed rail that goes to absolutely nowhere. And when I mean absolutely nowhere, I mean literally nowhere. This is all California has to show for $15 billion in 18. years of work. In 2008, they said they were going to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. To this date, they have connected literally nothing. And now to finish this project, their estimate is it's going to cost $100 to $200 billion. And funny enough, in 2008, China
Starting point is 00:00:51 also created their own high speed rail, and they've connected the whole entire country of China, over 30,000 miles here in California. They haven't connected a single town. We're going to be breaking down this entire thing from start to finish to show you guys what is actually happening with the California high speed rail. Let's get into it. Now let's go talk to somebody who knows a lot about the California high speed rail. What's the truth about the high speed rail here inside of California? Well, we call it California high speed rail, but all we have is concrete and rebar and about $15 billion spent. It currently is right now the most expensive infrastructure project happening in the world today. The original estimates for California high speed rail was
Starting point is 00:01:31 $33 billion. It then jumped to $100,000. $226 billion and now the newest estimate is $236 billion. This project is on track for one thing and that is to be the third most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the world. Number one is the interstate project of the 1950s. Number two is the International Space Station and now it is California High Speed Rail. The difference between those three projects is you can drive on I-5 or you can go on I-80 and drive across the entire country. you can go to outer space. We will never ride California high speed rail. So it goes from there all the way to right here. This is where it ends.
Starting point is 00:02:16 It is probably the most expensive piece of concrete known to man and often referred to here in the Central Valley as a modern-day stonehenge. How come they continue to say that they're going to continue to build the high-speed rail when there's actually proof that it is quite literally impossible? Governor Newsom, in a video himself from 20, 16, I believe. Actually admitted to all of us in a private video that he doesn't believe that
Starting point is 00:02:42 this project will ever be done in our lifetime. He said that. Okay, the facts seem overwhelming that this project is not going to materialize in our lifetime. And now this is the result of over $15 billion. Who's taken the $15 billion? And where is the $15 billion gone if this is all that they have to show for? One third of the entire cost of California High speed rail has gone to this part called change order delays. Because they didn't know where the infrastructure was and or how to build this actual train, contractors that got awarded a parcel to work on are owed $170,000 a day, $5 million a month for every single day they can't work. We just settled here in California very recently in February. The largest settlement in a delay
Starting point is 00:03:35 settlement for over half a billion dollars because a contractor couldn't work on the actual project they were owed a half a billion dollars what are some of the biggest examples of waste fraud and just complete incompetence by the government when you see this high-speed rail California was supposed to buy the actual trains and the trains that would be considered high-speed rail the state didn't buy the trains my opinion because they know that there will never be a train on these tracks. So California has not even bought the trains yet.
Starting point is 00:04:10 No. If we would just buy one-way tickets at current ridership between San Francisco and LA, which is the goal of California High Speed Rail, we could subsidize free tickets one way for the next 150 years. Now, with the new estimate that California High Speed Rail is going to be $236 billion, we could subsidize one-way tickets between San Francisco and LA for the next 300 years. So, to me, it would make more sense for all of us to just buy the flights from San Francisco to L.A.
Starting point is 00:04:49 than it would be to build a train or whatever this is, and spend more money doing that. I mean, it doesn't make any sense mathematically. Now we're on top of the high-speed rail, and there's not any rail that has been placed. It's actually just a bunch of cement. High-speed rail to nowhere. That's what they should call it actually. And despite the California high-speed rail appearing to be impossible to finish, California has allocated $1 billion a year to finish the project, while they actually need anywhere from $100 to $200 billion to finish it.
Starting point is 00:05:19 And the high-speed rail even becomes more interesting, and you realize how impossible it is, the further along the alignment you go. And later we'll be confronting the center who's over the Oversight Committee for the Transportation inside of California. We then saw some train tracks where the hub of the high- high-speed rail is supposed to be. Hello. Hey. How are you guys doing? Is this the high-speed row though? No, so you can't be audio. Not the high-speed row. Where's that going to be the hub for the high-speed rail? You don't know where the hub is going to be for the high-speed rail? No.
Starting point is 00:05:50 All right. And despite these guys saying this is not the hub for the high-speed rail, which it really is, we then went down the alignment and this is what we found. So this location right here was actually bought in 2006 for developers to develop this land. And then they set forth the the plan to actually go through with the high speed rail in 2008. In order for the high speed rail to actually happen, they're going to have to go through and buy each and every single one of these houses that is currently being built. Keep in mind right now, they're building the high speed rail while these people are building houses on the alignment. Let's go talk to a city manager right now.
Starting point is 00:06:21 And how is it possible right now that here in California, you have a government who is spending billions upon billions of dollars for this high speed rail. Meanwhile, a construction site is right here where they're building houses on where that high speed rail is supposed to go. We don't really know. Typically, government buys all of the alignment up front. That way you don't have cost of buying it once it's developed. Like this will bring it up 10 or 11 times what bare land value would be. So we don't really know. They, we, communication is pretty sparse. So we're left mostly in the dark. Do you see that this high speed rail has just been some sort of fantasy for the people inside Sacramento in the politicians of California? Look, it's, you've got a project that duplicates Amtrak's current service route. I will tell you. tell you from a ground perspective, we don't understand why they're sticking two rail lines next to each other that are going to serve the same areas. And how many more cases of this do you think are inside of this alignment for the high speed rail? I don't think this is atypical. I think this has happened quite a bit up and down the valley.
Starting point is 00:07:20 California actually abandoned the route from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Now they're focusing from Merced to Bakersfield. And so the high speed rail will actually not even be servicing people from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The high speed rail bridge ends over there. It continues over here onto this road, but as you'll see, it then has to go through a bunch of farmland just like this. Now they have the road right here for the high speed rail, but in other locations do they have it? We're going to speak with a farmer right now. Now we're in the middle of an orchard right now. How will the farmers be affected from the high speed rail?
Starting point is 00:07:52 Ranges that have been contiguous for hundreds of years will now be split. And that requires you now having to travel to both sides, right? Your infrastructure has to be pulled from one side to the other, whether be irrigation, power supplies, and even just in operationally, it's just going to make everything real inconvenient. When California brought about the plan for the high-speed rail, did you guys vote on it or did you guys have any say-so with it? Or do you even think it's going to happen? You know, all the voters had a chance to vote, and it passed. But it was a very vague on the ballot. No one knew where it was going to go. To me, they're putting in all the wrong
Starting point is 00:08:24 spots. It was to serve two different populations in the north, the state, and the south. And where What the other side to put it is it's going to impact an area that didn't need the high speed rail to begin with. They're allocating millions and billions of dollars to this each and every single year, and now they're saying they're going to need almost $100 billion more, if not $200 billion. What could farmers of California do if they had $100 billion invested into them? Oh man, it could revolutionize the state. I mean, agriculture has been the backbone of this state since its founding.
Starting point is 00:08:57 And we're not investing in water infrastructure. We're not investing in energy infrastructure. And it's just, it's sad because we're worried about a train that's going to serve a small sector of the population. And what really needs to be done is something that's going to be good for all of us in the state. So pretty soon we could see a high-speed rail come right through here where all these almonds are at and people are going to be suffering because of it. Yes, and there'll probably be no one on the train. Now we came here to Sacramento to go speak with the people of the California High-Speed Rail Authority Office.
Starting point is 00:09:27 It is 409 right now. and we just went inside and nobody's here. How we do? Really? They close at 5 p.m., however, they are not here, but we are going to go speak with a senator who just approved and passed a bill
Starting point is 00:09:42 that's going to give $1 billion for the next 20 years to the California High-Speed rail authority. We're going to go talk to him and see why he approved that. Senator Cortezzi, how are you doing? Good, my name's Nick Shirley. We're doing a little investigation on the high-speed rail. We just want to ask, what made you want to secure $1 billion for the next 20 years for the high-speed rail.
Starting point is 00:10:02 I believe it's a good long-term commitment that we need to make. And do you think that it's actually ever going to happen here inside the state of California? It is happening. Have you been there? Yeah, I actually have. Well, then you know it's happening. And there's actually not a single piece of rail or track that's been laid. They're getting ready to do that right now. And do you think in 20 years the high-speed rail will be done?
Starting point is 00:10:22 This promise is going to be done in 2020. It might be. Might not. And Gavin Newsom even said in a private video, like, it's not even possible, essentially. I have a lot of transportation projects I've worked on for 20 years that are just finally getting started and they're all worth it. And do you believe, as the chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, do you believe the high-speed rail authority has been sufficiently accountable for the increase and delays that have taken place with the high-speed rail? Well, we're trying to hold them accountable. And what can you give to people to make them believe that the high-speed rail is actually going to be built and finished in our lifetime, or in your lifetime?
Starting point is 00:10:55 It's not my commitment. My commitment is it's the greatest economic development project in the country and people should be embracing that all the way to the federal government. There's no other economic development project that even comes close to that in this country and it's a shame that you know certain people in the country aren't taking that seriously. So that's how we get things done is when the federal government, the state government work together, build dams, build bridges, build highways, build high-speed rail. that's what needs to happen. And you do believe that we'll see the finish of the high-speed rail in our lifetime. There's 21 construction projects going on right now with thousands of workers, so you'll see it.
Starting point is 00:11:35 Good done. Besties, don't be like the high-speed rail. Please welcome. Mick Shirley. Fuck yeah, fuck yeah. That's up, bro. Sacks, this is your guy. Get in there. Wow.
Starting point is 00:12:03 Maybe a good place to start, actually, is that California was so afraid of what you're doing, exposing their fraud, that they actually passed a law to stop you from doing your investigations and your videos where you actually show up at these places that are stealing taxpayer money. Could you just, I mean, I'm still, like, shocked that they could get away with that. I know you're fighting it in court, and I fully expect it will be unconstitutional in, like, 20 years, whenever it makes its way through the court system. but could you just explain that?
Starting point is 00:12:36 Yeah, so I exposed California for all the fraud that they've enabled here inside the state, and they use what's called Immigration Support Service Providers, and it quite literally means anybody who provides services to illegal immigrants or immigrants, and that includes nonprofits and health care facilities. So actually today, this just happened literally today, I filmed all these daycares in San Diego,
Starting point is 00:12:57 and when I exposed it, Newsom came after me, but today they found 12 individuals who were all immigrants, and they charged them of $10 million of fraud. That happened today. California did. California. That DOJ did.
Starting point is 00:13:13 So underneath this new bill, this new law that they created, if these immigration support service providers were to give me a piece of paper saying, hey, you can't upload that video, I can't upload that video. And they only created that after I exposed the fraud. Whoa, wait, right. Okay, first of all, was it immigration support services?
Starting point is 00:13:31 Like, what is that? Yeah, it means legal services, health care facilities, quite literally anything where your tax dollars go to provide the services for illegal immigrants or immigrants here inside of the state of California. So the state of California is funding these businesses, basically, to provide services to illegals. Yeah, it can be Medi-Cal, it can even be NGOs, non-profits that receive grants from the government.
Starting point is 00:13:55 For instance, the people who sponsored this bill is called Churla. They've received $80 million, and they do the advocacy work for illegal immigrants here inside the United States. Wait, they got 80 million. dollars, sorry, million or billion, $80 million. A nonprofit. Nonprofit.
Starting point is 00:14:11 And then it sounds like the law is written that any service to immigrants, you can't go do this work because they're trying to protect the community. So wait, but how do they stop you? So let's say you go to one of these NGOs or businesses that's received this funding, you record it, and now they're saying you can't upload it? Yeah, so if they simply were enrolled in this service, Then they give me a piece of paper saying, hey, you can't upload that video, a demand letter. I can't upload the video.
Starting point is 00:14:41 And if I do, I'll get a $4,000 fine, and then I'll have to go to court, and I'll have to pay for their legal fees if they win. So $4,000 is just the minimum. If they have 10 employees in there who all are part of their service. But, Nick, sorry, doesn't that violate your constitutional rights? Yeah, First Amendment rights. And so do you sue the state of California? Yeah, I'm suing the state of California right now. To undo that bill.
Starting point is 00:15:01 Yes. Obstensibly, by the way, Sacks, this was all under the pretext of our favorite term, safety, because what Nick Shirley was doing in knocking on a door and saying, is this business open or closed, was making people feel unsafe. And if you use that word, unsafe, well, then everybody has to rally around it. And they literally called this the Nick Shirley law. So I think this is the most amazing badge for you, and it's an award. The fact that they're creating laws to try to stop you from doing basic journalism means you're kicking fucking ass, Nick.
Starting point is 00:15:36 Thank you. Don't stop. These First Amendment cases, though, have been incredibly well litigated. So do they just pass this knowing that it will probably get overturned at the federal level, and then it's up to you to raise the money, find the con law people, and then take the case? Is that what it is? Or do they actually legitimately think there's legal standing? Like, what does your team tell you about that law that's trying to stop you?
Starting point is 00:16:03 Yeah, well, I don't think they thought Nick Shirley would hear about this bill because they called it AB 2624. And unless an assemblyman dubbed it to stop Nick Shirley Act, I probably wouldn't have heard about it. So, California, they pretty much passed all these laws. Like, it's called Call Me For You Call Me Foronia for a reason. Like, to forget a bill passed in California with the legislators, there's 40 senators, 30 of them are Democrats, 10 of them are Republicans, needs 21 votes to pass.
Starting point is 00:16:31 So it's quite literally nearly almost impossible for a Republican to pass anything here inside the state of California. And who is the impetus? Gavin Newsom signed this. Yeah. And who is the impetus of this bill? Like, is there a way that people are teasing out
Starting point is 00:16:42 the funding cycle and the people that were behind this thing, or no? Well, Churla, they're the co-sponsor of it who received $80 million. The person who created this bill is the wife of the Attorney General. Her name is Mia Banta. So, meanwhile, the Attorney General, supposed to prosecute the fraud, while his wife's creating laws to make it harder for fraud to be
Starting point is 00:17:00 prosecuted and to go after and be exposed. How did you start, let's take a step back, Nick, for the folks that don't necessarily know the origin story, how did you stumble into this? Yeah, when I was 15 years old, I started making YouTube videos, vlogs and pranks. As I got older, I got more interested to see what was actually happening in the world. But at that time, around 2020, you couldn't make videos with the word Trump in the title, or if you talked about politics or talked about COVID, you might be demonetized, so you couldn't make any money. and so then I ended up taking a two-year break went on a mission trip for our church
Starting point is 00:17:29 and went to Santiago Chile. I started learning about all these people that were fleeing Venezuela. They were going to Chile, and they were telling me about how people are going to the United States. So then when I got back to the United States, my mom was also keeping up to date with that.
Starting point is 00:17:42 And then when I got to the back home, I went to the southern border, and I started interviewing people in Spanish saying, like, how did you guys come over here? Like, what's going on? And I thought it was like super sad that all these people were coming over fleeing the country, and then I get this lady's WhatsApp.
Starting point is 00:17:55 who was from Ecuador, she said she had no money at the border, and the next day she texted me saying she was in New York City. And I was like, that's super strange. And so for the past two and a half years, I've been making a video every single week about something that's happening here inside the United States. And like I went from 20,000 subscribers, nobody knowing me to now having, I created one of the most viewed videos ever in Internet history exposing the fraudsters in Minnesota. And I only knew about that fraud because I had been making a video every single, I was,
Starting point is 00:18:25 single week from across the world. What happens? Like whistleblowers reach out to you and say, hey, Nick, go over here, go over there? Yes. So, like, I rely heavily upon the people in these states to let me know what's going on. Like, I'm pretty much, like, I said, made a joke. I'm like a congressman for the entire United States who actually listens to the people. But I don't work for anybody. Right.
Starting point is 00:18:46 What I really appreciate about what you're doing is man on the street is a really challenging art form, a journalistic format. It's incredibly brave for you to go out there, put yourself at risk. And you have, just to be clear, so people can appreciate this, you have no formal journalistic training, you have learned everything on your own, and you have funded it, and I think it's important that we're clear about this because people who make allegations, oh, you're a plant, somebody's funding you. You're funded by the people through your ex.com account. You make tens of thousands of dollars a month, I think, maybe hundreds of thousands a year, just to sustain yourself. Yeah, for me to, like, my whole goal was to make $300 a day in
Starting point is 00:19:28 20, 23. I thought I could, like, do everything with $300 a day. I was like, I'm going to be balling. That's $100,000 a year. And then I started making more and more money. I post this Minnesota fraud video. My mom literally films it. That's my favorite thing. He'll be like, Nick's a Fed. I'm like, would a Fed have his mom filming his YouTube videos when he's 24 years old? It's not a Fed thing to do. Yeah, not a Fed thing to do. I think they could find somebody better if they that was the case. But I was just 100% working for myself to show people what was actually happening, and I've created a lot of change. The audience reaction is a little polarized, right? There are obviously people like us where like, you know, stealing is wrong. Then there's obviously
Starting point is 00:20:10 fraudsters who can be angry at you. Very angry. But then there are passive viewers that actually really dislike what you're doing. Yeah, I don't understand. How do you unpack that? Why is that reaction happening. Ultimately, I know what I'm, ultimately I know what I'm doing is right. And for you to be defending a fraudster who opens up a layering center, I'm like, you might need to rethink something. I can tell you what this is. People say you're racing. I can tell you what's happening here Chmoth, having been a journalist and come up with these people. Oh, here we go. No, no, it's actually super important. Like how long told Jason lectured's neck? It's not a lecture, it's an insight. And you're lucky to hear it. So sit back. What you represent to them.
Starting point is 00:20:50 is a threat because they came up and they wanted to do what you're doing. They were idealistic, these journalists, and they wanted to be brave enough to uncover these things. And they've become captured and politicized. And they have picked aside. You haven't.
Starting point is 00:21:07 That's why they criticize you. And the criticism they have of you is, oh, he wasn't fact checking here, wasn't thorough enough here. Yeah, okay, fine. On the margins, you're learning on the job. And I've had conversations with you privately about little nuances of things that you need to tighten up.
Starting point is 00:21:24 None of that is important. What's important is that you find fraud. You find actual real fraud, and you put the people on camera, and you fucking shame them, and then they get arrested. And you're forcing the AGs in this country to face it. And it's just you.
Starting point is 00:21:43 It's just you and your pure desire and energy to do it, and that's what journalists hate about you, because they could do it too. And they should be a shame that they don't. This was the job of 60 minutes and front line, and they forgot how to do their job. And you're picking up the mantle of what front line in 60 minutes used to be.
Starting point is 00:22:00 I agree. Give me some. Fuck yeah. That guy. Are the AGs taking up the cases? Well, I mean, I'll go expose it, and if they want to do something about it, I put all the information in the videos. And so that's one thing I have seen
Starting point is 00:22:13 is there actually has been changed. Like, they just found the 12 people today. The Lears in Minnesota, most of them fled the country, I believe, but they got the headlier. Oh, is that right? So give us the CODA actually about the daycares in Minnesota.
Starting point is 00:22:25 Yes, the daycares in Minnesota. That was the craziest thing because I was just sitting in my room. I just post that video. I had no idea it was going to be the biggest video ever. It got four billion views in seven days, which was incredible.
Starting point is 00:22:38 Pretty insane. So I post that video, and then there starts to be like riots and protests. People start dying to cover for the leers. The politicians were like incentivizing people to go out and riot because they knew like the ice was there, but they could distract everyone by getting people out to the street to cover up for the fraud. Well, it didn't really work because Tim Walts dropped out of re-election.
Starting point is 00:22:59 But in Minnesota, the head person of the leering centers who had received $4 million, she tried to go to London on a one-way ticket, and then she got caught for daycare fraud. And so she was the head, like the head honcho of the leers. She got caught. She got busted. Then the biggest autism bust of all time took place there as well. So, like, I've been very productive. So, wait, so does she get prosecuted?
Starting point is 00:23:23 Yes, and she pled guilty. She pled guilty? Yeah. Oh, wow. And what's the sentence? I don't know yet. Okay. Maybe it hasn't happened yet, or?
Starting point is 00:23:31 Yeah. Did you see Bill Gurley's presentation? I watched a bit of it. It's kind of hard to hear backstage. Yeah, so, I mean, there's a point he was making, which is that journalists seem to have become selective in the stories that they're chasing and the investigations that they're doing, and there seems to be a reason that's this kind of politicized point.
Starting point is 00:23:50 What's your view? Have you met with journalists and talked with them? If any of them reached out? And do you have a sense on what goes on? What motivates them to say things, do things one way or not the other way? No one from the mainstream has reached out to me to say like, hey, how are you doing this?
Starting point is 00:24:04 Instead, they like investigate me and they'll write hit pieces on me. I'm like, okay, good for you. Investigating the investigator, yeah. Yeah. That shows you exactly how threatened they are by you. And I think where you are going to be just having known you for one year and watching the improvements in the crispness,
Starting point is 00:24:22 you are going to be so dangerous when you have a modest amount of resources. And I think what we really need to do is commit to making sure you have more funding. And so right after we get on here, I'm going to subscribe and I'm going to put in, you know, whatever, couple thousand dollars a month to support you. And I think everybody here should. You're doing great work. You need to have some researchers on the team. You need to have some backup.
Starting point is 00:24:44 And you need to have security because what you're doing is truly a threat. to criminals and the mob. Nick, you're the son that Jason has always wanted. No, no, no. I'll take it. What was that, Chimuth? What was it? You were the son that Jason has always wanted. No, no, I mean, I have three great daughters, but I'm just, you're what I got into
Starting point is 00:25:01 journalism, what you're doing is why I got into it, which was the role of journalism, and I think Bill Gurley pointed it out so well in his talk, which was there are still great investigative journalists out there, just not enough of them. And I think it's fantastic that there's a new generation doing this and that you're doing independently. So there have been a few others that have emerged since you came out, Minnesota piece, with such a big maybe inspiration, but it was also a beacon to a lot of people, like, oh, we can go do this?
Starting point is 00:25:26 Like you did. Are you seeing more of this? Do you think that they're being successful, and what do you think is changing? Yeah, I think a lot of people are taking it up, and they're seeing, like, with X, like, if it wasn't for Elon and X, like, none of this would have been possible. For instance, I post that video about the fraud on YouTube. It does well. It gets a few million views.
Starting point is 00:25:46 On X, it got 140 million views. and the most important people in the world see it, and they're able to see, like, oh, we're not doing our job, let's go do what needs to be done. Like the government, I caught them kind of backhanded on that, so they had to go step in. But I do think a lot of individuals, like I do hope I am motivating a lot of kids,
Starting point is 00:26:02 especially my generation, to be less of a complainer and be more of a doer. So, and I think journalism, people think of it as just like showing what's going on. Well, you can actually have a massive change inside of the country and the areas that you live in. That's something that I've seen with my journalist. I'm like, I'm not just playing like the defense. Like, I'm actually going out, showing people what's going on,
Starting point is 00:26:27 and I'm not just leaving the story after it's done. Like, I'm continuing to follow through because if it's real corruption, like, it needs to be taken down. Right. And what other people don't realize, because you became, I think, pretty famous from the Minnesota video, but you had other stuff before where it wasn't about chasing down corruption. Like, you went into the favelas in Brazil, right?
Starting point is 00:26:45 Which was incredibly scary. Yes. And you've done a lot of this stuff. Are you still doing those sorts of things, or is everything now about government corruption? I would love to continue to do those videos, and I will do more. These past eight months, every morning I'm waking up to something new about fraud and corruption, so I've kind of just been spearheading that, but I would like to get more into that stuff.
Starting point is 00:27:03 Like I almost got kidnapped in the Brazilian favelas. I met up with the head of Commando Vermeuro inside this favela in Rio de Janeiro, and literally, like, there's only a few things that could have happened with me and him in this broken down shack on the top of the favela. got also nearly taken hostage in Cuba. A two-star communist general came down to try and figure out why I was in Cuba and why I was leaving early.
Starting point is 00:27:29 So, like, that stuff's still super important. The fraud stuff's just kind of taken over my life recently, though. What are the other big pockets of fraud that you are scratching at that you think exists, the big honeypots that you're going to go chase down and uncover? Welfare fraud here inside the United States is just absolutely... Welfare fraud.
Starting point is 00:27:46 Insane, like, all of it. Can you explain that? For instance, like food stamps. There's a strip club in Portland, Oregon where you can use your snap card. Like the government, especially underneath Biden, they literally let open the floodgates to fraud. I mean, Tim Waltz was celebrating
Starting point is 00:28:06 and using daycares in his debates against JD Vance. Right. So all these social benefit programs have literally been looted, whether it be SNAP, whether it be daycares, whether it be adult daycares, like literally you name that. hospices, like all these things that have received government money are just full of fraud.
Starting point is 00:28:25 And so now you're just trying to pull the threat and uncover as much of it as possible. Yeah, and it's hard now because, like, I have to have security. Like, people literally want to kill me. And so I have to be super strategic. And like, what's going to stop a fraudster from me knocking on his door? And then him realizing that his time's up and him just shooting me so the video doesn't get posted. Like, that's like stuff I think about when I go to bed. Like, how do I go out and make these videos a bit differently? Well, are there different ways that you can get the information you need to tell you. this story without actually having to confront the person in real time? Yeah, people want to see the person get confronted.
Starting point is 00:28:55 So, I mean, but this is what's so interesting because what you're talking about is, like, at the end of the day, you're still fighting the attention mechanism that you live under. You know, like, your incentive is to tell the truth, and then, but there's a last point where your incentive is I must do something that will get views as well. Yeah, like, that's how all this stuff happened. Well, you know, I'm going to... That's part of it. minutes, as an example, does undercover reporting and it always has. And they would, if a subject
Starting point is 00:29:24 would not come on 60 minutes, they would go to their home and wait for them outside their office and home to confront them and ask those questions. They would tell them they're going to do it. So I think you're well within your right to do that. I think as you professionalize your operation, and it's incredibly brave what you're doing, I think you have to ask for a bit more support from the audience. And right now you can do a $5 subscription, but you should also ask people to be charter supporters, you know, at a $500 level, $1,000 level, like substack might allow you to do. And I think you should be very aggressive in asking for more support. Because the government, we heard from Vice President J.D. Vance, 10, 20% of our tax dollars
Starting point is 00:30:04 are being wasted. If we support you to do this work, get a researcher, get an extra video editor, you just need about three or four people around you to support you, and this is really going to take off. If you have those three or four people, we're all going to save more money. And we need to, as a country, to get behind you and say, people who are stealing from the government, that is, they should carry double the sentence because you're stealing from the actual society. Right? And I don't care what country, it doesn't matter what state it is, immigrant or American, and they've been here, you're stealing from the actual country that is giving you, you know, the protection of living
Starting point is 00:30:42 in these United States. It is really sinister to steal from the country. It really is. And just, I'm really upset that you are faced with security issues and a lack of support. And this criticism on the tiki-tacky things do not stop doing what you're doing. Thank you very much. And like, if we can stop fraud, we can literally save the country. Like, that's something people to understand.
Starting point is 00:31:05 What's crazy is it's not just fraud. I think the California High Speed Rail Project, anyone can look at that objectively and say, that is the most insane thing on earth. Why are we doing this $240 billion to go from Fresno to Modesto at three times? the price of an airplane ticket. None of it makes sense. Literally, it's like none of it makes sense. And the guy got paid half a billion dollars for non-work. It's a billionaire in Italy who got paid that money. I traced down... Wait, how much did you get paid? Half a billion. So the... Did you watch the video?
Starting point is 00:31:33 Yeah. So after I saw that video, so Nick sent me that video, and then I traced down who got paid that half billion. And the ultimate owner is a billionaire in Italy. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's insane. The whole story, when you kind of dig into this, so this isn't fraud, it's legal. It's a legal system. It's organized leakage. It's a legal system, and I think it falls under that idea of waste or some sort of corruption, but I think it is as relative, the fraud stuff anyone can get behind.
Starting point is 00:31:59 But this is the stuff where I think there's unethical and illogical. There's complacency, there's corruption, there's unaccountability, and these are the things that just trickled into this massive waterfall that we're drowning in right now. And I think it's really important what you're doing. and I think on behalf of a lot of people, I really appreciate the mission you're on. You're an incredible person. We thank you for the work.
Starting point is 00:32:19 Thank you guys so much. Thanks for being supportive. Bro, I appreciate it. Fuck yeah. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it. Thank you, bro. Appreciate it.

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