America's Talking - Scrutiny over Minnesota childcare fraud continues

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

The Center Square staff discuss federal scrutiny of Minnesota childcare fraud and increasing unrest in Minnesota. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America's Talking. I'm Sarah Roderick Fitch, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. For about 10 days now, or over 10 days now, fraud and riots have taken center stage in Minnesota surrounding sort of the Somali population. Join me this morning to discuss what's going on there is Morgan Sweeney, National Reporter, also in the D.C. area. Welcome, Morgan. How are you? good how are you sarah good so there's been a lot of hearings there's been a lot of stuff going on what can you tell me about what is going on with the fraud stuff um i know there was an independent journalist who sort of uh sort of uncovered this this alleged fraud i should say uh what do you know what has been going on on the hill and what is going on as far as the investigation stuff goes um so they've had one of at least two scheduled hearings hearings that are specifically meant to look into the fraud of Minnesota. And that first hearing, it covered, I mean, I think we've all heard now the figure.

There's been an estimated probably more than $9 billion in social services fraud in Minnesota. And that is during years that Democratic Governor Tim Walts has been governor. And so the first hearing really just talked about, they had some Minnesota lawmakers there testifying, and they talked about how they have spoken with whistleblowers from the state's Department of Human Services, but also some other state agencies. Sorry. and how those whistleblowers have told them just the pressure that they've faced and kind of different tactics that have been used to essentially silence them. So that was a lot of what was talked about in that first hearing. They've also already had another hearing that was about fraud prevention kind of in general. and they talked about a pandemic response accountability committee that was formed in 2020

that has been used to recover a lot of lost pandemic funds and how they kind of want to expand some of those programs across the federal government and they talked about using AI a lot in those. And then also Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made an announcement about different initiatives that the Treasury is now doing to try to recover some of what has been taken in Minnesota, but also just put in place consequences for the people that have done these things. And then also the White House announced the creation of a new division in the Department of Justice. I'm sorry, I don't know what's going on, but with an assistant attorney general with nationwide authority over fraud investigations and procedures. So there's a lot of things that are kind of going on at once. a lot of initiatives that have been started to kind of respond and figure out how to

better prevent this kind of thing going forward in the future. And so, I mean, this is kind of blown up into a big thing where it's sort of caused, right, the governor walls to say, hey, he's not going to be running again. I mean, so it's, and it's also, what isn't this sort of the catalyst behind sort of the surge? and ICE agents in the Minneapolis, St. Paul area, kind of the fraud behind it. And I mean, I think they just sort of put sort of spotlighted attention on it. So now, I mean, to look at it, it's, you know, it's amazing to think who went from, you know,

this sort of this issue with fraud. And now there's protests and some of them turn violent into riots. were, I guess, some FBI vehicles, according to the administration yesterday here at the White House Secretary of Homeland Security, Christine Nome said the vehicles that were broken into really this week were FBI vehicles. I guess a, I'm hearing different reports that it was like a weapons locker was taken from the vehicle. And then also White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt showed images of cars being set on fire, federal vehicles and everything like that. And of course, obviously, it's escalated from the shooting that involved with Renee Good,

with the ICE agent, and then there was another one. So, I mean, it's sort of just sort of snowballed into this whole other issue. And it really, right, it started from fraud, right? It's just, that's kind of what spotlighted it, correct? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, my understanding is they rammed up ISIS presence there because a lot of the fraud that's been uncovered so far and the people that have been charged and most that have been convicted to my understanding. I mean, I think last I knew it was like 90 some had been charged in these various fraud cases and 80 some.

and 80 some of those were Somalis. So unfortunately, a lot of it at this point anyway, is tied to that community, Somali refugee resettlement community in Minnesota. And it's quite a large community. And so, yeah, I believe that's why they sent more ICE agents there. Okay. Yeah. And last week, Vice President J.D. Vance was on hand to make that announcement from the White House about the Assistant Attorney General position.

The president said that his person has been selected, but we don't definitely know who it is yet. However, he did talk about a little bit about, you know, obviously the riots and everything. I had an opportunity to ask the vice president if he thought that they were paid agitators. obviously that's still under investigation. You know, it seems to be, again, it seems to be really sort of expanding, just, you know, starting from the fraud issue, and it's kind of going on and turning to other things. And now the president is threatening to invoke the Interaction Act there

and possibly send in, you know, the military, similar to what he did in Los Angeles last year following the rights. Again, ICE, you know, that was related to the ICE stuff. that was started there. So it seems that this is the continuing on. This is going to continue on. And hopefully, you know, there'll be some lowering of tentators,

but we'll see. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us. To learn more about this and other stories, please look at thecentersquare.com.