How Legacy Media Covered and Missed Minnesota’s Massive Fraud Scandal

What this episode is about

The Minnesota fraud scandal is potentially linked to $9 billion in taxpayer money and has led to significant political repercussions, including Governor Tim Walz withdrawing from his reelection campaign. Despite the scandal's enormity, legacy media has been criticized for downplaying its severity and redirecting blame towards independent journalists covering the story, highlighting issues of bias in media reporting.

Key takeaways

• Minnesota's scandal: $9 billion drained, forcing Governors to prioritize integrity over ambition.
• Legacy media prefers whispers over shouts, downplaying fraud while independent voices rise to prominence.
• ABC's total coverage? A staggering 35 seconds—nearly as long as a sneeze during a news break!
• CBS leads with 14 minutes—proof that in the battle for truth, every second counts.
• Bias by omission? NBC's 'investigation' boasts of no findings, mirroring their past cover-up sagas.

Who speaks in this episode?

• John Bickley (Host) · 4 min speaking
• Bill Dagghastino (Guest) · 6 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: fraud scandal, Minnesota, Bill Dagghastino, Media Research Center
2. 3:00 – 6:00: fraud scandal, Nick Shirley, CBS, Somali community
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Nick Shirley, social services fraud, Media Research Center, Somali community
4. 9:00 – 10:39: Minnesota, fraud scandal, Bill Dagghastino, Media Research Center

Notable quotes from "How Legacy Media Covered and Missed Minnesota’s Massive Fraud Scandal"

• The widening fraud scandal in Minnesota is now alleged to involve as much as $9 billion dollar in taxpayer money and it's begun to spark significant political fallout.

  about fraud scandal · at 0:00

• While loading up on vitamins or whatever is in my cabinet at the time. But now, our sponsor, Zachdoc, is here to help. Zachdoc is a free app and website that helps you find and…

  about Zachdoc · at 1:06

• NBC primarily ignored the story up until Nick Shirley started reporting on it. and since then they've they've sort of shifted from the bias by omission track to kind of playing defense for it. So instead.

  about Nick Shirley · at 3:25

• Really remarkable considering that the allegations here are that $9 billion in fraud has been carried out in the state.

  about social services fraud · at 6:31

• They've they've taken a lot more of the fight to him and they're essentially running, I would say, interference for the Somalians that he's accusing in that video. We also saw that with CNN. Can you speak to their coverage of this?

  about Somali community · at 7:31

• That was Bill Dagghastino, senior research analyst at the Media Research Center, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

  about Bill Dagghastino · at 10:27

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Bill Dagghastino — Person · Main guest (analyst) · 3 mentions · first at 1:58
  Provides MRC analysis quantifying broadcast coverage (ABC/NBC/CBS) and interprets framing choices and alleged bias in reporting on the Minnesota fraud scandal.
• Nick Shirley — Person · Referenced independent journalist / catalyst · 4 mentions · first at 3:29
  His viral reporting is portrayed as forcing NBC and others to cover the scandal; he becomes the target of pushback and confrontation in legacy media coverage.

Companies & orgs

• Media Research Center — Company · Referenced organization (source of analysis) · 4 mentions · first at 0:40
  Provides the analytical framework and data used to compare broadcast network coverage and argue patterns of media bias.
  The people exposing it, including independent journalists. In this episode, we speak to an analyst at the Media Research Center about the role bias has played in the legacy…
• CBS — Company · Referenced media outlet (coverage benchmark) · 2 mentions · first at 4:09
  Discussed as the broadcast network that devoted the most sustained airtime to the Minnesota fraud scandal, contrasted with ABC/NBC. Also discussed in terms of internal editorial/anchor influence on framing.
  Back during the whole Me Too craze investigated itself and also found no evidence of wrongdoing. Yeah. So CBS really was where the line share of the coverage was and they…

Concepts & topics

• fraud scandal — Concept · Core topic · 6 mentions · first at 0:03
  Central subject of the episode: an alleged multi-billion-dollar fraud involving social services in Minnesota and how legacy media covered or downplayed it.
• social services fraud — Concept · Core topic (specific form of fraud) · 2 mentions · first at 2:07
  Describes the alleged mechanism of the scandal—fraud involving social services funds—used to anchor discussion of coverage and political responsibility.
• Somali community — Concept · Referenced community (media framing focus) · 3 mentions · first at 3:03
  Discussed as the subject of certain media framing (ICE ‘sewing fear’; ‘Trump terrorizing’), and as the group NBC/CNN are said to be defending against accusations in Shirley’s reporting.
• Me Too — Concept · Referenced comparison point · 1 mention · first at 3:57
  Used as an analogy to criticize NBC’s reliance on self-investigation and claims of finding no wrongdoing.
  Which is it's an entertaining kind of standard of proof for a network that back during the whole Me Too craze investigated itself and also found no evidence of wrongdoing.…

Places & events

• Minnesota — Place · Primary setting/location of the scandal · 6 mentions · first at 0:03
  The alleged social services fraud scandal is centered in Minnesota and is described as driving political fallout, including the governor dropping his reelection bid.
  The widening fraud scandal in Minnesota is now alleged to involve as much as $9 billion dollar in taxpayer money and it's begun to spark significant political fallout.
• 2025 — Event · Time marker (year referenced) · 1 mention · first at 7:46
  Referenced to emphasize the timing/recency of CNN’s report (New Year’s Eve) and to characterize it as a standout media moment.
  Yes. I think the most incredible report of all of 2025 managed to come out on New Year's Eve somehow. that was CNN sent a reporter to confront Nick Shirley in person.

Sponsors

• Zachdoc — Company · Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at 1:10
  Advertised as the episode sponsor, promoted as a tool to find and book in-network doctors.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:03 The widening fraud scandal in Minnesota is now alleged to involve as much as $9 billion dollar in taxpayer money and it's begun to spark significant political fallout.

0:12 That includes the announcement this week from Minnesota Governor Tim Walls that he's dropped out of his race for reelection. Every minute that I spend defending my own political interest would be a minute I can't spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who pray on our generosity and the cynics who want to pray on our differences.

0:31 Despite the magnitude of the scandal, the legacy media has attempted to downplay it and shift the blame to the people exposing it, including independent journalists. In this episode, we speak to an analyst at the Media Research Center about the role bias has played in the legacy media's coverage of the sprawling scandal. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia How. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Raise your hand if you've been putting off a dental cleaning, an annual checkup, or honestly any kind of doctor's appointment. Yeah, my hands up, too. When something feels off, I usually doom scroll my symptoms or self diagnose using the worldwide web while loading up on vitamins or whatever is in my cabinet at the time.

1:10 But now, our sponsor, Zachdoc, is here to help. Zachdoc is a free app and website that helps you find and book highquality in-et network doctors so you can find someone you love. Whether you're looking for dermatology, dentistry, primary care, eye care, or one of the other 200 plus specialties offered on ZDOC, you can easily search by specialty or symptom to build the care team that's right for you.

1:31 View thousands of verified patient reviews to get a real sense of who your doctor is. Then check their real-time availability and book instantly. No phone tag, no waiting around. Stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zdoc.com/wire to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's zooccdoc.com/wire.doc.com/wire. Thank for sponsoring this message. Joining us now to discuss how the media has covered the widespread fraud scandal in Minnesota is MRC senior research analyst Bill Dagghastino. Bill, thanks so much for joining us.

2:05 Yeah, thanks for having me. So, we have this major scandal in Minnesota dealing with massive social services fraud. Legacy Media appears to have largely avoided the story, at least initially. Then there's some blameshifting that's been going on since the response has become sort of overwhelming and they have to cover this. your team has crunched the numbers. Can you break down the coverage highlights of CBS, NBC, and ABC?

2:29 Yeah, we um when we when we look at the broadcast networks, we almost almost always focus mostly on the uh the evening newscast because those are the most the most watched uh television shows or news shows at least in the country. And remarkably, ABC, which often actually tops tops the list of those three, uh has been almost entirely absent from this story. Uh so they there was one mention of it on December 3rd, uh right around when the story was breaking that they buried in the middle of a report about how ICE is sewing fear in the uh in the Somali community.

3:05 Right? So that was a that was a 25-second mention. Since then, they've included one more mention of it. Not even uh really discussing any of the details at all. Just 10-second mentions. So, their total coverage uh for the last, I'd say, yeah, last last week plus all of December is um is 35 seconds.

3:24 It's just incredible. NBC primarily um ignored the story up until um up until Nick Shirley started reporting on it. Uh, and since then they've they've sort of shifted from uh the bias by omission track to kind of playing defense for it. So instead they're they're trying to go on the offense against Shirley's investigation. Um, we we've seen a decent amount of them touting Minnesota officials saying, "Oh, well, you know, we've investigated and we haven't found anything." Um, which is it's an entertaining kind of standard of proof for a network that back during the uh the whole Me Too craze investigated itself and also found no evidence of wrongdoing. Yeah. So CBS really was where the line share of the coverage was and they they actually have been pretty reliable about this. They've they've been on the story basically since it started. Um they were the only network that did multiple fulllength

4:15 reports on it before Nick Shirley's investigation came out. Um so full length would be about 90 seconds or more for a broadcast network. And they're they're up to about uh 13 to 14 minutes now as of uh as of last last night.

4:29 Well, it's certainly substantially more. Is that in fact good? It's hard to really contextualize um broadcast network time as opposed to say like CNN or MSNBC where you've got like a 24-hour news cycle, but 13 minutes is actually that's that's quite a decent chunk, right? Because if you if you think about the evening newscast, they're a 30 minute block. Um but really only about 18 minutes of that is news and you got like 12 11 minutes of commercials. Um, so over over a month and then an additional week, I would I would give decent amount of credit for almost getting up to 15 minutes there.

5:03 Does this seem like a shift from CBS before Barry Weiss came on board as editor-inchief?

5:08 Uh, yes and no. Um, I mean, it's it's definitely it's definitely evidence of of some of her influence. Um, but there has been a little bit of the of the remaining holdover from from the previous uh I guess administration you could call it uh at CBS because a lot of the time before Tony Dopal came in and and was the uh was the anchor. A lot of the time the introduction to some of the reports on on this fraud scandal were completely different from the actual report itself. So when you had for example um co-host John Dickerson introducing it, he would introduce it in a same in the same way that say NBC or ABC might have which which is to say it's it's all about Trump is terrorizing the Somali community with fraud. He said these awful comments about Somalians anyway here's our reporter and then the report begins with the actual fraud scandal as opposed to Trump's comments about Somalians. Um, so there's there's

6:03 sort of an imbalance of seriousness between the um the former co-hosts and the actual reporting that's being done. And I would definitely attribute um some of the investigative work that's being done to Barry Weiss's influence because as far as I know, they are the only network of the three that actually has somebody on the ground there digging into this. Um, even even the full-length stuff that NBC has run on this has basically just been uh reheated reheated news from other sources.

6:31 Really remarkable considering that the allegations here are that $9 billion in fraud has been carried out in the state. You would think these networks would be very interested in this. So, I wanted to talk about the role of Nick Shirley. You mentioned him. NBC waited to cover this story until Shirley's expose went viral effectively. How common is it to see this kind of delayed response from these networks?

6:54 That's incredibly common. It's it's basically it's a turning point where they go from we think we can keep the cover on a lid on this story to okay, now our hand is being forced. We have to get out in front of it. And that's that's very much the kind of thinking I think that went on at NBC based on the way that they've covered it since his report came out. because after his video came out, basically all of their coverage has been centered around the allegations that he makes and some of the conclusions that he jumps to.

7:20 Initially, they were fairly I wouldn't say credulous, but kind of just regurgitating everything that he found. Um, since then, anytime they've covered it since when he first put his video up, they've they've taken a lot more of the fight to him and they're essentially running, I would say, interference for the Somalians that he's accusing in that video. We also saw that with CNN. Can you speak to their coverage of this? They seem like they've been particularly hostile towards Shirley.

7:46 Yes. I mean, I I think the most incredible report of of all of 2025 uh managed to come out on New Year's Eve somehow. Um that was CNN sent a reporter to confront Nick Shirley in person. uh not confront any of the daycarees in person, but confront him, grill him on how he knows what he knows, why he's making these allegations in the first place. Basically getting to well, what's what's your problem? Why even dig into this? Why are you bothering? And of course, the obvious answer is because people like the CNN reporter are not looking into it. Um but then they then they cut to the reporter actually calling some of these daycarees. Um six of the seven that she called did not pick up. the one that does, they have an exchange that goes, I mean, I'm paraphrasing here, but something along the lines of, "Hi, this is CNN. Are you doing fraud?" Uh, no, we're not. Okay, thank you. Right. So, uh, very, very

8:39 solid investigative work from CNN as always. Really hard-hitting. We've come to expect no less from them. Uh, stepping back a little bit here, this entire episode, the coverage of the scandal, how does it fit into MRC's broader findings about media bias, particularly in the Trump era? It's it's difficult to um to talk about this as freely as I would like to without making some kind of allegation that I can't back up, but I I very much see this personally as a fraud for Democrats based on the fact that it is a Democratic administration running this. And there is evidence that is coming out now that at least looks like there is there is some degree of willful blindness, right? Basically deliberately turning the other cheek uh on on the part of the Waltz administration in Minnesota. Um, and so in that context, I would argue that this is basically part and parcel of how we tend to see the broadcast networks cover

9:31 this kind of thing. Um, it's it's starts out as basically this is something that Trump is upset about. This is something that conservatives are upset about, so we'll mention it a little bit, but always frame it in that context. Um, and then when we're forced to go further, right, start actually attacking the um the accusations themselves or the the scandal itself. Uh CVS, I would I would say though, obviously, is is not a part of that um that general trend in this case. And hopefully that's that's evidence that CVS is actually improving a decent amount. Although, I'm going to hold my judgment on that until we've we've given both Barry Weiss and uh Tony Dopal a little bit more time to cook.

10:11 Meanwhile, we have walls pulling out of the race. We'll see how the media continues to cover even the political races in Minnesota if the fraud scandal inevitably comes up or if they figure out ways to bury that from their coverage. Uh, Bill, thank you so much for joining us.

10:25 Yeah, thanks so much for having me. That was Bill Dagghastino, senior research analyst at the Media Research Center, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "How Legacy Media Covered and Missed Minnesota’s Massive Fraud Scandal"?

John Bickley (Host), Bill Dagghastino (Guest).

What is "How Legacy Media Covered and Missed Minnesota’s Massive Fraud Scandal" about?

The Minnesota fraud scandal is potentially linked to $9 billion in taxpayer money and has led to significant political repercussions, including Governor Tim Walz withdrawing from his reelection campaign. Despite the scandal's enormity, legacy media has been criticized for downplaying its severity and redirecting blame towards independent journalists covering the story, highlighting issues of…

What is mentioned in this Morning Wire episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including fraud scandal, Minnesota, Bill Dagghastino, Nick Shirley, social services fraud, Media Research Center. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "How Legacy Media Covered and Missed Minnesota’s Massive Fraud Scandal"?

The episode runs 11 min; the transcript is about 2,024 words in 22 timestamped sections.

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