Nick Shirley

Early activities

Shirley started his YouTube career as an amateur vlogger and prankster at age 16. Most of his pranks involved his high-school friends, while others included publicity stunts such as disrupting celebrity weddings.^[10][7][4] He also offered to sell some of his own recorded footage, including of the January 6 attack, to media companies such as CNN and HuffPost.^[10] In late 2021, Shirley said he would cease his YouTube activities in order to participate in a religious mission in Chile for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He returned to the platform two years later and began producing political content exclusively.^[4][11]

Political videos

Shirley's YouTube channel has over 1.1 million subscribers and more than 200 million total views.^[12] He is best known for street interviews and direct questions.^[13] Some media outlets have described Shirley as right-wing.^[14] According to Semafor, Shirley is part of Trump's "new media", a right-wing creator class whose posts have become influential within the second Trump administration, whereas conservative institutional media was more influential during Trump's first term.^[10]

Shirley has described himself as an independent journalist.^[5][13][15] He has received "pushback from some traditional members of the media" for claiming to be a journalist.^[16] Statements by Republican lawmakers saying they had "worked with" Shirley on his Minnesota video raised questions about whether he acted independently.^[17] Republican legislators had provided information that appeared in the video; one Republican floor leader said they were "ready and willing to provide information ... including some of the information that ended up in that video".^[18]

Shirley made multiple videos in support of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in the months preceding the 2024 U.S. presidential election.^[19] He paid a number of Hispanic men $20 each to hold pro-Joe Biden and pro-immigration signs in front of the White House as part of a publicity stunt to support Trump. When asked by Reuters whether he had exploited participants in the video, he said he "wanted to give the migrants an opportunity to voice their opinions".^[20] Also in 2024, Shirley released footage from inside the Salvadorian maximum-security prison CECOT, which he praised.^[16][21] In September 2025, Shirley recorded an interview with British political activist Tommy Robinson^[22] in which he repeated a false claim that "40,000 British Muslims" on terror watchlists lived in the United Kingdom. Although MI5 maintains a list of 40,000 terror suspects, it does not capture information about their religious affiliation.^[21] Shirley has falsely implied that Ukraine had used U.S.-backed funds to buy luxury cars and a Ferris wheel.^[6] He has also amplified Trump's false claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.^[23]

In October 2025, Shirley participated in a White House roundtable discussion with Trump and other right-wing figures, such as Andy Ngo and Jack Posobiec, on topics including antifa.^[22][24][21] Shirley claimed in the title of one of his videos that Portland had "fallen" and antifa had "taken control".^[22] ICE arrested several people selling watches on Canal Street in Lower Manhattan after he made a video in which he called them "illegal scammers".^[21][23] The Intercept called Shirley's video titles "sensationalized" and wrote that he has platformed "individuals who spread xenophobic and Islamophobic beliefs."^[21] CNN has called some of his videos anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim.^[25] In an interview with Fox News, Shirley defended his videos, saying, "fraud is fraud—it doesn't matter if it's a Black person, white person, Asian person, Mexican ... and we work too hard simply just to be paying taxes and enabling fraud to be happening."^[21] In response to media coverage of his Minnesota fraud video, Shirley wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "I am not an enemy of the people, they are", referring to the mainstream media.^[25]

In February 2026, Shirley shared a post by YouTuber Tyler Oliveira promoting an antisemitic video titled "New Jersey's Jewish Invasion", writing, "EXPOSE IT ALL". After some Republicans criticized his support of Oliveira's video, he called out what he described as the "double standards and hypocrisy of half of the 'republican influencer' space" due to their reluctance to support allegations of fraud carried out by Jews but not other ethnic groups.^[26][27] Shirley's support of Oliveira's documentary was published a day after he attended Trump's 2026 State of the Union Address, to which he was invited by Minnesota representative Pete Stauber.^[28][26] In June 2026, Politico reported that references to Polymarket (a prediction market) had begun to appear in Shirley's content "after Shirley started to receive money from Polymarket's chief marketing officer, Matthew Modabber".^[29][30]

Allegations of daycare and healthcare fraud in Minnesota

On December 26, 2025, Shirley published a video, filmed on December 16,^[31] in which he alleged widespread fraud at Somali-run childcare centers and healthcare companies in Minnesota.^[32][21] The video showed him visiting facilities that appeared empty or inactive, interviewing bystanders who said they had not seen children at the locations, and citing public payment records.^[5][6] News organizations and state investigators found no evidence substantiating Shirley's claims that members of the Somali community were operating fake childcare centers.^[a] As of December 2025, investigations by state officials had not found evidence of fraud at the sites Shirley visited.^[33] On January 30, 2026, state officials said they had "no public information to share" about ongoing fraud investigations into over 100 childcare centers.^[34] On February 19, three daycare centers featured in the video sued the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families, alleging that the agency withheld funds and conducted investigations without evidence.^[35] Somali-owned businesses reported a surge in harassment and threats after the video came out.^[36] The Trump administration cited Shirley's video as justification for increasing ICE enforcement activity in Minnesota under an initiative known as Operation Metro Surge.^[37]

After the video's release, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation increased their presence in the state and federal funding for the childcare centers was frozen.^[38] In April, federal agents raided 20 childcare centers in the Twin City Metro area, including those covered in the video. The move was promoted by state officials who said they were working with federal agencies.^[39] On May 20, 2026, federal prosecutors charged the owner of the Future Leaders Early Learning center with one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States through Minnesota's Child Care Assistance Program. The business was one of the centers shown in Shirley's video.^[40][41] In July 2026, one daycare owner featured in the video, Fahima Mahamud, pleaded guilty^[42] to $4.6 million in daycare fraud and $850,000 in the Feeding Our Future scam.^[40] Prosecutors did not accuse Mahamud of inflating attendance figures. She admitted to failing to collect required family co-payments while collecting reimbursement through the childcare-assistance program.^[43]