Lisa Demuth Lies Immigration Racist Minnesota

Lisa Demuth Took Credit for the Viral Daycare Video. The YouTuber Said He Had No Idea Who She Was.

Minnesota's House Speaker bragged that her caucus worked with Nick Shirley on his viral daycare fraud video. Shirley said it was completely false. State inspectors found children at nearly every center in the video — and thousands of federal agents showed up anyway.

MAGA Report Cards · Aug 04, 2026

Lisa Demuth Took Credit for the Viral Daycare Video. The YouTuber Said He Had No Idea Who She Was.

The day after Christmas 2025, a right-wing YouTuber named Nick Shirley posted a video of himself knocking on the doors of Somali-run daycare centers in Minneapolis. He said the centers were empty. He said they were stealing your tax dollars. The video exploded.

Three days later, Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth — who is running for governor — got on a virtual press conference and claimed a piece of it for herself.

"Our caucus has been working to expose fraud for years, including working with Nick Shirley and agency whistleblowers to get the information out to the public and to hold the Walz administration accountable."

That's what she told reporters, according to The Hill. Fox 9 reported the same quote.

There was one problem. Nick Shirley says it never happened.

"I have no idea who this lady is"

On January 1, 2026, Shirley posted a flat, public denial:

"This is completely false. I have no idea who this lady is, she is lying to make herself look good for her campaign. Shame on her!"

It got 1.4 million views.

Nine hours later, Demuth posted again — and her story had changed. Now Shirley "deserves all the credit." Now it was only that "some of the information used in Nick's video was compiled by our staff," which she described as "public information we have shared and will continue to share with anyone."

That is not what "working with Nick Shirley" means. She said she was a partner in the video. When the guy who made it called her a liar in public, she quietly downgraded herself to a filing cabinet.

This is the part that matters, and it's simple: the Speaker of the Minnesota House stood in front of reporters and took credit for something the other person says never took place. She only corrected the record after she got caught, and she never explained the gap.

What state inspectors actually found

The reason Demuth wanted credit is that the video was, briefly, a sensation. The reason she should have wanted distance is that it didn't hold up.

After the video went out, investigators from Minnesota's Office of Inspector General went to nine of the ten centers Shirley filmed. The 19th reported what they found: normal operations and children at all but one — and that one simply hadn't opened for the day yet. They skipped the tenth center in the video because it had been closed for years and hadn't received a dollar in that time.

Some of those centers did have licensing violations on file, for things like cleanliness and staff supervision. None of the violations were for fraud.

The rest of the video fell apart the same way. A disinformation researcher walked through it piece by piece: one center was closed when Shirley showed up, two others weren't operating at all, and one had security footage of children being dropped off on the very day Shirley stood outside telling viewers the place was empty. One daycare told reporters it wouldn't let him in because he arrived with a handful of masked men and staff thought they were ICE agents.

Most daycares lock their doors and cover their windows. That's a safety rule, not a confession.

Real fraud in Minnesota's child care program is a real thing — the state found several million dollars' worth in a 2019 investigation and has been tightening oversight ever since. But that's the story Demuth's caucus could have told with actual records. Instead they helped feed a camera crew.

Who Republicans actually handed the information to

Demuth's revised version — "some of the information used in Nick's video was compiled by our staff" — deserves a closer look at where that information went.

The main source in Shirley's video is a man identified only as "David." He is David Hoch, a Minnesota lobbyist and former right-wing candidate for state attorney general. The Intercept identified him and dug up what he had been posting on now-deleted social media accounts:

"EVERY Somali in MN is engaged in fraud. ALL of them."

And, in November: "Even the Blacks have had enough of the demon Muslims."

Hoch didn't dig up the state funding data on those specific centers himself. The 19th reported that he got it from Republican staffers in Minnesota.

So the chain runs: House Republican staff → a lobbyist who says every Somali in the state is a criminal → a YouTube video → the White House. Demuth's own floor leader, Harry Niska, confirmed the first link out loud. "Much of the information that one of the gentlemen in that video was providing was due to information he got from the House Republican staff," he told reporters. "We have been ready and willing to provide information to anyone who wants to pursue this."

Anyone. Including that guy.

Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the country. After the video, Somali-run daycares reported people showing up in person demanding to see children, and threatening phone calls. At least one center was broken into.

What came next

Vice President JD Vance reposted the video and said Shirley had done more useful journalism than the 2024 Pulitzer winners. The Trump administration then froze federal child care money to Minnesota and four other Democratic-run states, plus $7.3 billion in cash assistance for low-income families, until a federal judge ordered it released. Minnesota was told to hand over Social Security numbers for all 23,000 children in the program.

Then the agents came. Thousands of federal officers surged into and around Minneapolis. On January 7, one of them shot and killed Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, in her car. By January 24, agents had killed Alex Pretti, another U.S. citizen.

And the fraud cases Republicans said this was all about? Minnesota House DFL leader Zack Stephenson told NPR that some of the federal prosecutors working them — including the lead prosecutor — resigned in the wake of the ICE surge. "This has crippled our fraud response, and Minnesotans should be outraged by that, and it was all done in the name of supposedly addressing fraud."

Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy put the blame where the invitation came from: "I also think the pretext was caused by the action of the Republicans to invite Nick Shirley, a YouTuber, into town."

She still says it was worth it

Six weeks after Renee Good was killed, Demuth told NPR that fraud and immigration are simply not connected, and that she has no regrets:

"So if it took a YouTuber, an independent YouTuber, to get the word out and get Minnesotans to know what was actually going on, and then the national attention — that is good for Minnesota, because it was our tax dollars that were stolen."

Except state inspectors found children at the centers. The violations weren't fraud violations. And two Minnesotans are dead.

This is the same pattern that runs through Demuth's record. When an ICE officer killed Renee Good, she went on Newsmax and said we "have to respect the work that law enforcement is doing, whether it is city, state, or federal agents." When Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act against Minnesota, she would not say whether she supported it, offering only "we need peace in Minnesota here."

Her campaign platform promises an inspector general to "root out fraud in all parts of government" — in St. Paul. Not a word about the federal cuts and federal agents landing on Minnesotans.

Demuth wanted the credit when the video was going viral. She dropped the claim within 24 hours of being called out. She has never dropped the story it was used to tell.

We deserve better.