Propped Up by the Legacy Press, Tim Walz Is Undone by Social Media

Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks. This week, we look at the political downfall of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, which comes in spite of years of favorable media coverage, and we cover more media misses.

Tim Walz’s Political Career Hits a Wall

The political fallout from the still-unfolding Somali fraud scandal in Minnesota has proven too much for Tim Walz, who announced Monday that he is ending his bid for a third term as governor.

The Democratic governor’s decision comes one month after federal prosecutors announced that the cost of the welfare fraud perpetrated against state-run Medicaid services alone could exceed $9 billion, half of the $18 billon spent on the program since 2018. While widespread welfare fraud within the Somali community has long been apparent, the scandal exploded into the national conversation after independent journalist Nick Shirley posted a video to X documenting his visits to daycare locations in the state that appear inactive despite receiving millions in government funding.

“As I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all,” Walz said in a statement on Monday. “Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences. So I’ve decided to step out of the race and let others worry about the election while I focus on the work.”

It’s fitting that Walz was ultimately taken down by a scandal that kicked off thanks to the work of a journalistic entrepreneur using social media, rather than by a legacy outlet. Mainstream outlets have, for the most part, treated Walz with kid gloves since he first entered the national scene in 2024 as the running mate for Kamala Harris’s unsuccessful White House bid.

The media has fought to paint Walz as a competent leader and gentle — yet manly — average Joe with a “folksy demeanor.”

In 2024, Ezra Klein wrote in the New York Times, asking, “Is Tim Walz the Midwestern Dad Democrats Need?” Another Times opinion article by journalist Sarah Smarsh declared “Tim Walz Is an Absolute Balm for My Country Heart,” and said, “the Minnesota governor fills a decades-long geographic messaging gap for the party.”

The Guardian said Walz “comes across as what he is: a straight-talking teacher, America’s youth football coach.” At the same time, the Associated Press declared, “It would be hard to find a more vivid representative of the American heartland than Walz.”

Anytime Walz came under scrutiny for adopting a radical position on cultural issues that put the lie to his moderate midwestern image, commentators would contort themselves to defend his policy choices as common sense and compassionate. When Walz was criticized for having signed a bill that provides free menstrual products in Minnesota school boys’ bathrooms, Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse came to his defense claiming, “I'll point out that in high school, any boy who casually was like ‘Oh you got ur period? I stashed a pad from the bathroom in my backpack in case one of my friends needed it’ -- that boy would be king stud. That boy would be drowning in prom invites.”

Unsurprisingly, much of the legacy media is taking a “nothing to see here” approach to covering the Minnesota fraud.

As we noted last month, the New York Times recently dedicated more than 1,500 words to President Trump’s “Anti-Somali attacks” — but somehow failed to mention the staggering fraud operation allegedly being run by members of Minnesota’s Somali community, which precipitated the attacks from Trump.

While Trump has undoubtedly made inappropriate comments about the Somali community, the evidence is clear that the fraud was overwhelmingly perpetrated by Somali immigrants. The Justice Department has charged 98 individuals in connection with various Minnesota fraud schemes, including 85 individuals of Somali descent.

But that also didn’t stop New York Times writer Mara Gay from more recently claiming the Somali community was being “scapegoated” by the Department of Justice.

"The politicization of the DOJ and the FBI is undeniable. So whether they are reliable narrators is the big question. This is what happens when you weaponize and politicize federal agencies that are not meant to be politicized. I think the American people are right to ask the question: Can we trust you? And that’s a sad thing to say as an American."

"But of course, the other factor here is that because it looks like the Somali population in Minnesota—the Somali immigrant population—may have been involved in some way, those people are being scapegoated," Gay said. "That community is being scapegoated in a way that certainly serves the far right, and that’s also something to keep an eye on. And that’s inappropriate, absolutely."

While it’s undeniably true that not every individual of Somali descent in Minnesota is guilty of welfare fraud, the practice does seem to be particularly widespread among Somalis, who are responsible for a level of fraud that far exceeds their population numbers in the state.

And despite Shirley’s reporting indicating there could be yet another avenue for fraud in Minnesota, Walz and his administration — and the media — have disputed the reporting.

Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families Commissioner Tikki Brown argued that past inspections did not uncover any evidence of fraud.

"We are aware of a video that’s being circulated that has gained local and national attention about childcare centers in Minnesota," Brown said late last month. "While we have questions about some of the methods that were used in the video, we do take the concerns that the video raises about fraud very seriously."

It’s not entirely clear how many — if any — of the daycare centers Shirley visited are actually defrauding the state.

Jonah Kaplan, a reporter for a Minneapolis affiliate of CBS News, visited the same daycare centers himself and said he discovered no evidence of fraud, though he didn’t explain, either, why there was no evidence of activity at the centers when Shirley visited.

"We visited those sites too, as did state inspectors many times over the last six months, and we found the facts on the ground tell a different story," Kaplan said. "Those daycares, many of them were written up for safety violations, things like maybe busted equipment or staff training issues, but that's not the same as being fraudulent, so it's important to put all of this into context."

And neither were the daycare centers eager to clear their names by speaking to a sympathetic reporter like Kaplan, who acknowledged that he "visited and called several of the day care centers on Monday but received no responses."

And while Shirley’s reporting is stirring up controversy, he is not actually the first reporter to suggest fraudulent activity is occurring at Minnesota daycare centers, though his report is undoubtedly the most viral. Back in January 2025, local ABC affiliate KSTP-TV visited two Minnesota daycare centers to investigate the facilities that were receiving government funding despite having multiple safety and health violations. "I went to the daycare's location several times, and only once did I see people there," reporter Jay Kolls said of the Quality Learning Center, which received nearly $8 million in taxpayer funds since 2019. "But I did not see any children."

Meanwhile, Shirley, who dared to call attention to the potential daycare fraud, has now found himself and his family on the receiving end of death threats and harassment, with some critics allegedly warning he would be “Kirked,” in reference to conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was publicly assassinated last year.

Headline Fail of the Week

The Washington Post apparently took issue with Trump administration officials who dared to keep Christ in Christmas. “Trump aides’ official religious messages for Christmas draw objections,” the outlet reported last week.

"Top officials in President Donald Trump's administration posted messages from their government accounts hailing Christmas in explicitly sectarian terms, such as a day to celebrate the birth of 'our Savior Jesus Christ,'" the article read.

The piece panned several Trump administration officials for describing Christmas as a Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, including Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon.

"The messages sharply diverged from the more secular, Santa Claus-and-reindeer style of Christmas messages that have been the norm for government agencies for years," the article explained. "The posts provided the latest example of the administration's efforts to promote the cultural views and language of Trump's evangelical Christian base."

The White House was quick to dismiss the Post’s “reporting.”

"While the Washington Post would prefer we stick to ‘Happy Holidays,’ we’re saying Merry Christmas again. And Christmas is a Christian holiday for millions of Christians celebrating the birth of their Savior, whether the Washington Post likes it or not," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.

Media Misses
-Politico reporter Josh Gerstein came under fire after he confusingly suggested in a post on X that “At some point, the amateur effort to knock on doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand-your-ground laws.” The post earned a Community Note that explained, “Stand-your-ground laws remove the duty to retreat from a threat when a person is in a place they have a legal right to be. Knocking on the door of a supposedly public business does not constitute a threat, so stand-your-ground could not be invoked as a defense.” Minnesota is also not a stand-your-ground state, though it does follow the Castle Doctrine at home, meaning a person is not required to retreat from an intruder in their house. However, outside the home, state law generally requires individuals to retreat if it is safe to do so before using force.

-Here at NR, Becket Adams called out New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker for doing Democrats’ work for them, including in a recent post on X in which Baker writes, “Trump administration sanctions five foreigners it considers at odds with American values: Russians? Chinese? Iranians? No, Europeans who fight disinformation and online abuse but stand accused by Trump officials of censorship.”

Adams clarifies:

Putting aside for a moment that the Trump administration currently has travel and banking restrictions on Russians, Chinese students and CCP members, and Iranians, let’s focus for a minute on how Baker chose to portray the Europeans at the center of these travel restrictions. From Baker’s framing, we see an image of selfless servants whose greatest desire is to protect the public square for the good of humanity. But if one actually reads up on these Eurogoons … one quickly learns that their disdain for First Amendment–style freedom of speech is virtually unrivaled in the West, and would be compatible with the draconian practices of modern China.