Victor Davis Hanson: COVID-19-Era Grants Show How Identity Politics Can Shield Corruption

The Daily Signal

Government, Daily News, News, Politics

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

There’s a big discussion taking place in this country about immigration, and “one of the themes has been whether a person came legally or illegally,” and what their attitude toward the country they came to is. A U.S. federal attorney recently uncovered fraud occurring in Minnesota where fraudsters in the Somali community there stole billions of dollars from American taxpayers over a period of years, and the state government did nothing to stop it. “ There were a variety of state and local laws that were violated, but there were no prosecutions. Gov. Walz cannot explain why the feds had to step in and why he never even investigated this until the media and the Trump administration drew his attention to it. [Minnesota Attorney General] Keith Ellison allegedly has talked about expecting campaign contributions from the Somali community in some kind of quid pro quo fashion,” argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words:” 00:00 COVID-19 Fraud in Minnesota's Somali Community 01:01 Immigration and Gratitude Debate 04:07 Ilhan Omar's Controversial Actions 06:38 Financial Discrepancies and Allegations 07:48 Concluding Thoughts on Immigration and Gratitude 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠ Also on Spotify: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9753340027 👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications: https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1 👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com 👉The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: ⁠https://secured.dailysignal.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Come in, shoes off.
0:02.0	What's the Wi-Fi? Most stream the new series I'm binging. Please can we listen to something that isn't Christmas music? Can you, um... You can't have such a T-Froster ticket quickly? Everyone! We're gonna video call Auntie Audrey now. Mom, Joe's talking to telly again. Can we share a video with a dog in his outfit? Hosting this Christmas? You need the UK's best broadband technology. E.E. does more.
0:24.0	Full fibre is the UK's best broadband technology.
0:22.5	E.E does more.
0:24.1	Full Fiber is the UK's most reliable broadband technology.
0:26.1	Offcomes broadband terminology research March 223.
0:28.3	Verify at e.cate.cate e.c.
0:29.4	In Minnesota, during the COVID years, the Somali community got a billion dollars or a multi-billion
0:37.2	dollar grants. We don't really know the depth of
0:39.5	this scandal supposedly to supply food and meals and even in some cases health services to people
0:47.2	who were impacted negatively by COVID. And apparently under the nose of Governor Tim Walts, under the nose of the Attorney General
0:56.8	Keith Ellison, under the nose of the point person for the Somali community, Representative
1:02.6	Ilyan Omar and the Minnesota Congresswoman, this fraud went on and on and on.
1:08.6	But what's interesting is nobody who was a political representative in the Somali community
1:14.2	ever bothered to see what they were actually doing.
1:26.6	Hello, this is Victor Davis Hansen for The Daily Signal.
1:31.2	We're having a big discussion in this country about immigration, both legal and illegal.
1:36.6	And one of the themes has been, whether a person came legally or illegally, what was their attitude about the country they came to and did they
1:46.7	show appreciation or gratitude? And that could be defined as obeying our laws or professing a love
1:53.6	for this country, aside for showing gratitude by becoming legal. And this came up in a variety of context.
2:03.1	We had a great number of licenses here in California,
2:07.4	17,000 that were issued to people who were illegally
	...

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