The Viral Lie About Somali Americans— Qasim Rashid Breaks It Down

The Find Out Podcast

Find Out Media & Studio71

News, News Commentary, Government, Politics

4.9 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re joined by civil rights attorney and writer Qasim Rashid to break down a viral right-wing video that falsely attacks Somali Americans in Minnesota. Qasim walks us through how the video was constructed, why its claims about “fraud” and “crime” completely fall apart under scrutiny, and how racist disinformation is deliberately engineered to spread outrage and fear. We dig into the mechanics of viral propaganda, the political incentives behind targeting immigrant communities, and why these lies persist even after being debunked. What we cover in this episode: How a viral right-wing video targeting Somali Americans was created and distributed Why the claims about fraud and criminality collapse when examined with real data The role of racism and xenophobia in modern political disinformation How influencers monetize outrage and fear for clicks, donations, and clout Why immigrant communities are frequent targets in election cycles The media ecosystem that allows false narratives to spread unchecked What responsible journalism and fact-checking should look like in moments like this How audiences can better spot and resist manipulative viral content 👕 **Merch** made in the USA & union-made: https://findoutpodcast.com 📬 Subscribe to bonus content: https://findoutpodcast.substack.com 📱 Follow us everywhere: @FindOutPodcast 📣 Share this episode & tag us #FindOutPodcast 📥 Send us feedback and tips: hello@findoutpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Find out podcast and welcome to this week in between Christmas and
0:21.6	New Year's that I don't think really has a name. I was just referring to it as the,
0:26.4	the Netherworld or I don't know. It's where time sort of stands still. So a lot of people
0:32.7	are actually taking this week off, but we decided we would do a little counter programming
0:36.2	and see if, you know, if people are listening this week. So we're doing this episode done on Thursday,
0:41.2	but we're really, really fortunate to have with us, Kassim Rashid, who is a civil rights attorney
0:47.7	and a sub-stacker of more prominence than the Find out podcast, which it's called Let's Address this, which everybody should go check out. So, Kassim, welcome, welcome to the show. That's how I have me, Tim. Appreciate you bringing me on. And yeah, this is like, it's like purgatory. We're not quite sure where we are. It's kind of floating in space. I know. I'm full like cheese and I don't know what day it is. My kids are like, do we have school today? I'm like, kiddo, I don't know what dimension we're in.
1:14.0	I know. I'm full of cheese and I don't know what day it is. My kids are like, do we have school today?
1:12.2	I'm like, kiddo, I don't know what dimension we're in.
1:14.1	I know.
1:14.9	I don't know.
1:15.3	The answer is I wish, but no.
1:18.3	But anyway, but it's important to have you on because there is this bubbling story coming out of Minnesota that I think the right wing is getting all up in a tizzy tizzy about and the left is doing what we normally do other than you, which is kind of like
1:33.3	hope it goes away. But I don't think this one is going to. And that's why we wanted to have you
1:38.4	on because you wrote this piece today called debunking the Nick Shirley video attacking
1:42.7	Somalis in Minnesota.
1:44.7	So for people who have been paying attention, there is this growing, I guess we can call it
1:49.8	scandal with child care in Minnesota, which seems like a real thing.
1:55.3	But of course, the right is doing what they always do, which is signal out minorities in their
2:00.6	role in this thing and try to make it all
2:02.2	about them. So, because could you give us a little bit of an overview of what this story is all about?
2:07.0	And then we can dive into how the right is doing what they normally do, which is to turn this all
	...

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