The Minnesota fraud schemes.
Tangle
Isaac Saul
4.7 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Federal prosecutors have charged dozens of people with defrauding Minnesota social programs since 2020, and recent reporting has highlighted the links between the fraud schemes and the Somali-American community. In November, a report authored by Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo and published in City Journal — a periodical funded by the conservative think tank The Manhattan Institute — highlighted the fraud’s concentration among the state’s Somali community and claimed the funds were partially directed to the Somali-based terrorist group Al-Shabaab. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the agency would be opening an investigation into Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) oversight of the programs beset by alleged fraud; the House Oversight Committee opened its own probe into the programs on Tuesday.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | from executive producer isaac saul this is tangle good morning good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. |
| 0:31.6 | I'm your host today, senior editor Will Kback, and we're going to be covering a topic today that if you've been on social |
| 0:38.6 | media for the past few weeks, if you've been following the headlines in most major news outlets, |
| 0:43.8 | you've probably read a bit about, but maybe haven't fully dived into. And that is these reports |
| 0:48.5 | of massive fraud schemes that have been uncovered in Minnesota, specifically perpetrated by members of the Somali |
| 0:55.7 | American community in Minnesota. Now, I am a Minnesota native. I actually just got back from |
| 1:01.3 | being home for Thanksgiving, and this was something that a lot of people at home were talking about. |
| 1:06.7 | It has angered a lot of people in the community. It has raised some uncomfortable questions. |
| 1:11.6 | The exact response from politicians and lawmakers in the state is still being scrutinized. |
| 1:16.7 | And now it's also come to the national level with President Trump and Vice President J.D. |
| 1:21.0 | Vance weighing in on it yesterday during a cabinet meeting. |
| 1:24.6 | Lots of other debate and discussion happening. |
| 1:27.2 | Touched on a few different issues. |
| 1:28.4 | So we're going to get into all of that and break it down in the typical Tangle style. |
| 1:32.5 | Before we do, though, very excited to share that the full video of our recent live event in Irvine, |
| 1:38.8 | California is now live on our YouTube page. So just as a quick refresher for those of you who don't know, |
| 1:45.4 | at the end of October, we hosted a live event that kind of brought the Tangle newsletter to the |
| 1:50.6 | stage, and the stage was at the Irvine-Barkley Theater. Now, the evening provided us with |
| 1:55.7 | another awesome opportunity to meet and mingle with the Tangle community. Some of you who were there may be listening |
| 2:01.8 | right now and shout out again for coming out and supporting and it was really awesome to meet all of you. |
| 2:06.9 | But of course, the main event was a roundtable discussion that was moderated by our own executive |
| 2:12.2 | editor, Isaac Saul, and featured a panel made up of Axios's Alexe Thompson, the Young Turks' Anna Kasparian, |
... |
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