Nick Shirley: Exposing Government Fraud, Suing California & Taking on the Media

(0:00) Nick Shirley debuts his new video: "Inside California's High Speed Rail to Nowhere" (11:42) Nick joins The Besties to discuss California's "Stop Nick Shirley Act" and recent fraud arrests (17:03) How he got into investigative journalism and finding fraud (23:32) Selective journalism and why Nick is a major threat to mainstream outlets (27:34) What's next for Nick: Investigating welfare fraud, building his platform Thanks to our partners for making this possible! IREN is a vertically integrated AI Cloud platform, delivering data centers, compute and software for AI training and inference. https://iren.com/ Oracle connects the data, applications, and infrastructure that turn AI into business outcomes—with the flexibility, choice, and control to optimize as AI evolves. http://oracle.com/ai EY helps tech innovators scale from startup to exit to megacap. You build the future. We'll handle the rest. http://www.ey.com Meta believes the future is for everyone. We're focused on giving every person the tools to reach their full potential and making sure the benefits of technology are distributed to all. http://www.meta.com Keel Infrastructure owns the power, land, and connectivity that HPC and AI run on - backed by secured energy assets and established grid interconnections across North America. https://keelinfra.com/ Airwallex - Agentic Global Business Accounts. Open local accounts in 70+ countries to accept payments, earn yield, pay globally, and manage spend. http://airwallex.com PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more information, visit https://www.paypal.com Google for Startups connects founders with the right people, products, and best practices to help startups build faster and go further. https://startup.google.com/ Explore ideas, industries, and technologies worth understanding with Chamath every week on Learn with Me: https://research.socialcapital.com/allin Follow Nick Shirley: https://x.com/nickshirleyy https://www.youtube.com/@NickShirley Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@allin Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Hey besties. If you were given 15 billion dollars, what could you build? The next PayPal? Perhaps the next SpaceX? The next Google? Or would you build a high-speed rail?

• 0:19Speaker 01

  This is the California High-Speed Rail that goes to absolutely nowhere. And when I mean absolutely nowhere, I mean literally nowhere.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  This is all California had to show for 15 billion dollars and 18 years of work. In 2008, they said they were going to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. To this day, they have connected literally nothing. And now to finish this project, their estimate is going to cost 100 to 200 billion dollars. And funny enough, in 2008, China also created their own high-speed rail, and they've connected the whole entire country of China, over 30,000 miles. Here in California, they haven't connected a single town. We're going to be breaking down this entire thing from start to finish to show you guys what is actually happening with the California High-Speed Rail. Let's get into it. Now, let's go talk to somebody who knows a lot about the California High-Speed Rail. What's the truth about the High-Speed Rail here inside of California?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Uh, well, we call it California High-Speed Rail, but all we have is concrete and rebar and about 15 billion dollars spent. It currently is, right now, the most expensive infrastructure project happening in the world today. The original estimates for California High-Speed Rail was 33 billion dollars. It then jumped to 126 billion dollars, and now the newest estimate is 236 billion dollars. This project is on track for one thing, and that is to be the third most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the world. Number one is the interstate project of the 1950s. Number two is the International Space Station, and now it is California High-Speed Rail.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  The difference between those three projects is you can drive on I-5, or you can go on I-80 and drive across the entire country. You can go to outer space. We will never ride California High-Speed Rail.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  So it goes from there all the way to right here. This is where it ends.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  It is probably the most expensive piece of concrete known to man and often referred to here in the Central Valley as a modern-day Stonehenge.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  How come they continue to say that they're going to continue to build the High-Speed Rail when there's actually proof that it is quite literally impossible?

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Governor Newsom, in a video himself from 2016, I believe, actually admitted to all of us in a private video that he doesn't believe that this project will ever be done in our lifetime. He said that.

• 2:46Speaker 03

  Okay, the facts seem overwhelming that this project is not going to materialize in our lifetime.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  And now, this is a result of over 15 billion dollars. Who's taken the 15 billion dollars? And where's the 15 billion dollars gone if this is all that they have to show for?

• 3:01Speaker 02

  One-third of the entire cost of California High-Speed Rail has gone to this part called change order delays. Uh, because they didn't know where the infrastructure was and/or how to build this actual train, contractors that got awarded a parcel to work on are owed 170,000 dollars a day, 5 million dollars a month for every single day. They can't work. We just settled here in California, very recently in February, uh, the largest settlement in a delay settlement for over half a billion dollars. Because a contractor couldn't work on the actual project, they were owed a half a billion dollars.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  What are some of the biggest examples of waste, fraud, and just complete incompetence by the government when you see this High-Speed Rail?

• 3:51Speaker 02

  California was supposed to buy the actual trains and the trains that would be considered High-Speed Rail. The state didn't buy the trains,

• 4:03Speaker 02

  my opinion, because they know that there will never be a train on these tracks.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  So California has not even bought the trains yet?

• 4:10Speaker 02

  No. If we would just buy one-way tickets at current ridership between San Francisco and LA, which is the goal of California High-Speed Rail, we could subsidize free tickets one-way for the next 150 years. Now, with the new estimate that California High-Speed Rail is going to be 236 billion dollars, uh, we could subsidize one-way tickets between San Francisco and LA for the next 300 years. So, to me, it would make more sense for all of us to just buy the flights from San Francisco to LA than it would be to build a train, or whatever this is,

• 4:54Speaker 02

  and spend more money doing that. I mean, it doesn't make any sense mathematically.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Now, we're on top of the High-Speed Rail, and there's not any rail that has been placed. It's actually just a bunch of cement. High-Speed Rail to nowhere. That's what they should call it, actually. And despite the California High-Speed Rail appearing to be impossible to finish, California has allocated 1 billion dollars a year to finish the project, while they actually need anywhere from 100 to 200 billion dollars to finish it. And the High-Speed Rail even becomes more interesting, and you realize how impossible it is the further along the alignment you go. And later, we'll be confronting the senator who's over the oversight committee for the transportation inside of California. We then saw some train tracks where the hub of the High-Speed Rail is supposed to be. Hello. How are you guys doing? Is this the High-Speed Rail, though?

• 5:40Speaker 04

  Uh, no. So you can't be out here, this is the High-Speed.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Not the High-Speed Rail? Where's that going to be the hub for the High-Speed Rail? You don't know where the hub is going to be for the High-Speed Rail? No? Alright. And despite these guys saying this is not the hub for the High-Speed Rail, which it really is, we then went down the alignment, and this is what we found. So this location right here was actually bought in 2006 for developers to develop this land, and then they set forth the plan to actually go through with the High-Speed Rail in 2008. In order for the High-Speed Rail to actually happen, they're going to have to go through and buy each and every single one of these houses that is currently being built. Keep in mind right now, they're building the High-Speed Rail while these people are building houses on the alignment. Let's go talk to a city manager right now. And how is it possible right now that here in California,

• 6:24Speaker 01

  you have a government who is spending billions upon billions of dollars for this High-Speed Rail? Meanwhile, a construction site is right here where they're building houses on where that High-Speed Rail is supposed to go?

• 6:35Speaker 04

  Uh, we don't really know. Typically, government buys all of the alignment upfront. That way, you don't have cost of buying it once it's developed. Like, this will bring it up 10 or 11 times what bare land value would be. So, we don't really know. They, we, communication's pretty sparse, so we're left mostly in the dark.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Do you think that this High-Speed Rail has just been some sort of fantasy for the people inside of Sacramento and the politicians of California?

• 6:59Speaker 04

  Look, it's, you've got a project that duplicates Amtrak's current service route. I will tell you, from a ground perspective, we don't understand why they're sticking two rail lines next to each other that are going to serve the same areas.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  And how many more cases of this do you think are inside of this alignment for the High-Speed Rail?

• 7:16Speaker 04

  I don't think this is atypical. I think this has happened quite a bit up and down the valley.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  California actually abandoned the route from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Now, they're focusing from Merced to Bakersfield, and so the High-Speed Rail will actually not even be servicing people from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The High-Speed Rail Bridge ends over there. It continues over here onto this road, but as you'll see, it then has to go through a bunch of farmland, just like this. Now, they have the road right here for the High-Speed Rail, but in other locations, do they have it? We're going to speak with a farmer right now. Now, we're in the middle of an orchard right now. How will the farmers be affected from the High-Speed Rail?

• 7:52Speaker 05

  Ranches that have been contiguous for hundreds of years will now be split. And that requires you now having to travel to both sides, right? Your infrastructure has to be pulled from one side to the other, whether it be irrigation, power supplies, and even just, and operationally, it's just going to make it everything real inconvenient.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  When California brought about the plan for the High-Speed Rail, did you guys vote on it, or did you guys have any say-so with it? Or do you even think it's going to happen?

• 8:15Speaker 05

  You know, all the voters had a chance, had a chance to vote, and it passed. Um, but it was a very vague on the ballot. No one knew where it was going to go. To me, they're putting it in all the wrong spots. Um, it was to serve two different populations, the north state and the south, and they're, where they're deciding to put it is it's going to impact an area that didn't need the High-Speed Rail to begin with.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  They're allocating millions and billions of dollars to this each and every single year, and now they're saying they're going to need, uh, almost 100 billion dollars more, if not 200 billion dollars. What could farmers of California do if they had 100 billion dollars invested into them?

• 8:50Speaker 05

  Oh, man. It could revolutionize the state. I mean, agriculture has been the backbone of this state since its founding. And we're not investing in water infrastructure. We're not investing in energy infrastructure. And it's just, it's sad, because we're worried about a train that's going to serve a small sector of the population. And what really needs to be done is something that's going to be good for all of us in the state.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  So pretty soon, we could see a High-Speed Rail come right through here, where all these almonds are at, and people are going to be suffering because of it.

• 9:19Speaker 05

  Yes, and there'll probably be no one on the train.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Now, we came here to Sacramento to go speak with the people at the California High-Speed Rail Authority office. It is 4:09 right now, and we just went inside, and nobody's here. Really? Says it'll open. They close at 5:00 PM. However, they are not here, but we are going to speak with a senator who just approved and passed a bill that's going to give 1 billion dollars for the next 20 years to the California High-Speed Rail Authority. We're going to go talk to him and see why he approved that. Senator Cortez, how are you doing? Good. My name's Nick Shirley. We're doing a little investigation on the High-Speed Rail. We just want to ask, what made you want to secure 1 billion dollars for the next 20 years for the High-Speed Rail?

• 10:02Speaker 06

  I believe it's a good, uh, long-term commitment that we need to make.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  And do you think that's actually ever gonna happen here inside the state of California?

• 10:10Speaker 06

  It is happening. Have you been there?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually have.

• 10:12Speaker 06

  Well, then you know it's happening.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  And there's actually not a single piece of rail or track that's been laid.

• 10:17Speaker 06

  They're getting ready to do that right now.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  And do you think in 20 years, the high-speed rail will be done? This promise is gonna be done in 2020?

• 10:25Speaker 06

  Might be, might not.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  And Gavin Newsom even said in a private video, like, it's not even possible, essentially.

• 10:31Speaker 06

  I have a lot of transportation projects I've worked on for 20 years that are just finally getting started, and they're all worth it.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  And do you believe, as the Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, do you believe the High-Speed Rail Authority has been sufficiently accountable for the increase and delays that have taken place with the high-speed rail?

• 10:46Speaker 06

  Well, we're trying to hold them accountable.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  And what can you give to people to make them believe that the high-speed rail is actually going to be built and finished in our lifetime? Or in your lifetime?

• 10:56Speaker 06

  It's not my commitment. My commitment is it's the greatest economic development project in the country, and, uh, people should be embracing that all the way to the federal government. There's no other economic development project that even comes close to that in this country, and it's a shame that, uh, you know, certain people in the country aren't taking, uh, taking that seriously, so,

• 11:17Speaker 06

  that's how we get things done, is when the federal government and the state government work together, build dams, build bridges, build highways, build high-speed rail. That's what needs to happen.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  And you do believe that we'll see the, uh, finish of the high-speed rail in our lifetime?

• 11:30Speaker 06

  There's 21, uh, construction projects going on right now with thousands of workers, so you'll see it get done.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  Besties, don't be like the high-speed rail. Please welcome, Nick Shirley.

• 11:54Jason Calacanis?

  Fuck yeah, fuck yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  What's up, bro?

• 12:00Jason Calacanis?

  Sax, this is your guy. Get in there.

• 12:02David Sacks?

  Wow. Uh, maybe a good place to start, actually, is that California was so afraid of what you're doing, exposing their fraud, that they actually passed a law to stop you from doing your investigations and, you know, your videos where you actually show up at these places that are stealing taxpayer money. Um, could you just, I mean, I, I'm still, like, shocked that they could get away with that. I know you're fighting it in court, and I fully expect it'll be unconstitutional in, like, 20 years, whenever it makes its way through the court system, but could you just explain that?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I exposed California for all the fraud that they've enabled here inside the state, and they use what's called immigration support service providers. And it quite literally means anybody who provides services to illegal immigrants or immigrants, and that includes nonprofits and healthcare facilities. So, uh, actually today, this just happened literally today, I filmed all these daycares in San Diego, and when I exposed it, Newsom came after me. But today, they found 12 individuals who were all immigrants, and they charged them of $10 million of fraud. That happened today.

• 13:07Jason Calacanis?

  California did.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  California. The DOJ did.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  So underneath this new bill, this new law that they created, if these immigration support service providers were to give me a piece of paper saying, "Hey, you can't upload that video," I can't upload that video. And they only created that after I exposed the fraud.

• 13:26David Sacks?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay. First of all, what is an, was it immigration support services? Like, what is that?

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it means, uh, legal services, healthcare facilities, um, quite literally anything where your tax dollars go to provide the services for illegal immigrants or immigrants here inside the state of California.

• 13:43David Sacks?

  From the state of California. So the state of California is funding these businesses, basically?

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:48David Sacks?

  To provide services to illegals.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can be medical, it can even be NGOs, nonprofits that receive grants from the government. For instance, the people who sponsored this bill is called Chirla. They've received $80 million, and they do the advocacy work for illegal immigrants here inside the United States.

• 14:04David Sacks?

  Wait, they got $80 million? Sorry, million or billion? Just, 80 million?

• 14:09Jason Calacanis?

  A nonprofit.

• 14:10David Sacks?

  Nonprofit.

• 14:11Jason Calacanis?

  And then, it sounds like their, the, the law is written that any service to immigrants, you can't go do this work, because they're trying to protect the community.

• 14:22David Sacks?

  So wait, but how do they stop you? So let's say you, so you go to one of these NGOs or businesses that's received this funding, you record it, um, and now they're saying you can't upload it?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so if they simply were enrolled in this service, then they give me a piece of paper saying, "Hey, you can't upload that video," a demand letter, "I can't upload the video." And if I do, I'll get a $4,000 fine, and then I'll have to go to court, and I'll have to pay for their legal fees if they win. So $4,000 is just the minimum. If they have 10 employees in there who all are part of this service.

• 14:51Jason Calacanis?

  But Nick, sorry, doesn't that violate your constitutional rights?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, First Amendment rights.

• 14:55Jason Calacanis?

  And so, do you sue the state of California?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm suing the state of California right now.

• 15:00Jason Calacanis?

  To undo that bill?

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:03Jason Calacanis?

  Ostensibly, by the way, Sax, this was all under the pretext of our favorite term, "safety." Because what Nick Shirley was doing in knocking on a door and saying, "Is this business open or closed?" Was making people feel unsafe. And if you use that word, "unsafe," well, then everybody has to rally around it. And they literally called this the Nick Shirley Law. So I think this is the most amazing, uh, badge for you, and it's an award. The fact that they're creating laws to try to stop you from doing basic journalism means you're kicking fucking ass, Nick.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 15:37Jason Calacanis?

  Don't stop.

• 15:41Chamath Palihapitiya?

  These First Amendment cases, though, have been incredibly well litigated, so do they just pass this knowing that it will probably get overturned at the federal level, and then it's up to you to raise the money, find the con law people, and then take the case? Is that what it is? Or do they actually legitimately think there's legal standing? Like, what is your team tell you about that law that's trying to stop you?

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I don't think they thought Nick Shirley would hear about this bill, because they called it AB 2624. And unless an assemblyman dubbed it to stop Nick Shirley, like, I probably wouldn't have heard about it. So California, they've pretty much passed all these laws, like, it's called, it's called "call me for you," "call me for you" for a reason. Like, to forget a bill passed in California in the, in the legisla, with the legislators, there's, uh, 40 senators, 30 of them are Democrats, 10 of them are Republicans, it needs 21 votes to pass. So it's quite literally, nearly almost impossible for a Republican to pass anything here inside the state of California.

• 16:35David Sacks?

  Let's be clear, Gavin Newsom signed this.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:39Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And who is the impetus of this bill? Like, is there a way that people are teasing out the the funding cycle and the people that were behind this thing, or no?

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Well, Chirla, they're the cosponsor, but who received $80 million. The person who created this bill is the wife of the Attorney General. Her name's Mia Bonta. So meanwhile, the Attorney General is supposed to prosecute the fraud, while his wife's creating laws to make it harder for fraud to be prosecuted and to go after and be exposed.

• 17:03Chamath Palihapitiya?

  How did you start? Let's take a step back, Nick, for the folks that don't necessarily know the origin story. How did you stumble into this? Because...

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, uh, when I was 15 years old, I started making YouTube videos, vlogs and pranks. As I got older, I got more interested to see what was actually happening in the world. But at that time, around 2020, you couldn't make videos with the word "Trump" in the title, or if you talked about politics or talked about COVID, you might be demonetized, so you couldn't make any money. And so then I ended up taking like a two-year break, went on a mission trip for our church, and went to, uh, Santiago, Chile. I started learning about, um, all these people that were fleeing Venezuela. They were going to Chile, and they were telling me about how people are going to the United States. So then when I got back to the United States, my mom was also keeping up to date with that, and then when I got to the, back home, I went to the southern border, and I started interviewing people in Spanish, saying like, "Hey, how'd you guys come over here? Like, what's going on?"

• 17:50Speaker 01

  And I thought it was, like, super sad that all these people were coming over, fleeing the country, and then I get this lady's WhatsApp, who was from Ecuador, she said she had no money at the border, and the next day she texted me saying she was in New York City. And I was like, "That's super strange." And so for the past two and a half years, I've been making a video every single week about something that's happening here inside the United States. And, like, I went from 20,000 subscribers, nobody knowing me, to now having, uh, created one of the most viewed videos ever in internet history, exposing the fraudsters in Minnesota. And, uh, I was, I only knew about that fraud because I had been making a video every single week from across the world.

• 18:28Chamath Palihapitiya?

  What happens? Like whistleblowers reach out to you and say, "Hey, Nick, go over here, go over there?"

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yes, so, like, I rely heavily upon the people in, in these states to let me know what's going on. Like, I'm pretty much like a, I said, made a joke, I'm a, I'm like a congressman for the entire United States who actually listens to the people.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  But I don't work for anybody.

• 18:46Jason Calacanis?

  Well, and what I really appreciate about what you're doing is, man on the street is a really challenging, uh, art form and journalistic, uh, format. It's incredibly brave for you to go out there, put yourself at risk, and you have, just to be clear, so people can appreciate this, you have no formal journalistic training, you have learned everything on your own, and you have funded it, uh, and I think it's important that we're clear about this, because people make allegations, "Oh, you're a plant, somebody's funding you." You're funded by the people through your X.com account. You make tens of thousands of dollars a month, I think, maybe hundreds of thousands a year, just to sustain yourself.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, for me to, like, when I, my whole goal was to make $300 a day in 2023. I thought I could, like, do everything with $300 a day. I was like, "I'm gonna be ballin', that's a hundred, that's a $100,000 a year." And then, uh, I started making more and more money. I posted this Minnesota fraud video. My mom literally films it. That's my favorite thing. People be like, "Nick's a fed." I'm like, "Would a fed have his mom filming his YouTube videos when he's 24 years old?"

• 19:46Jason Calacanis?

  It's not a fed thing to do.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, not a fed thing to do. I think they could find somebody better if they, if that was the case. But, um, I was just 100% working, uh, for myself to show people what was actually happening, and I've created a lot of change.

• 20:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  The, the audience reaction is a little polarized, right? There are obviously people like us who are like...

• 20:07Jason Calacanis?

  You know, stealing is wrong.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 20:09Jason Calacanis?

  Um, then there's obviously fraudsters who can be angry at you.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Very angry.

• 20:13Jason Calacanis?

  Um, but then there are passive viewers that actually really dislike what you're doing.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't understand.

• 20:18Jason Calacanis?

  How do you unpack that? Like, why, why is that reaction happening?

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Ultimately, I know what I'm, ultimately, I know what I'm doing is right. And for you to be defending a fraudster who opens up a leering center, I'm like, you might need to rethink something.

• 20:30Jason Calacanis?

  I can tell you what this is.

• 20:31David Friedberg?

  People say you're racist.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, people say I'm racist.

• 20:33Jason Calacanis?

  I can tell you what's happening here, Chamath. Having been a journalist and come up with these.

• 20:37David Friedberg?

  Oh, here we go.

• 20:38Jason Calacanis?

  No, no, it's actually super important.

• 20:41David Friedberg?

  How long till Jason lectures Nick?

• 20:43Jason Calacanis?

  It's not a lecture, it's an insight, and you're lucky to hear it, so sit back. What you represent to them is a threat, because they came up and they wanted to do what you're doing. They were idealistic, these journalists, and they wanted to be brave enough to uncover these things. And they've become captured and politicized, and they have picked a side. You haven't. That's why, that's why they criticize you. And the criticism they have of you is, oh, he didn't, he wasn't fact checking here, wasn't thorough enough here. Yeah, okay, fine, on the margins, you're learning on the job, and I've had conversations with you privately about little nuances of things that you need to tighten up. None of that is important.

• 21:27Jason Calacanis?

  What's important is that you find fraud. You find actual, real fraud, and you put the people on camera, and you fucking shame them, and then they get arrested. And you're forcing the AGs in this country to face it. And it's just you, it's just you and your pure desire and energy to do it, and that's what journalists hate about you. Because they could do it too, and they should be ashamed that they don't. This was the job of 60 Minutes and Frontline, and they forgot how to do their job. And you're picking up the mantle of what Frontline and 60 Minutes used to be.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  I agree, give me some.

• 22:01Jason Calacanis?

  Fuck yeah, that guy. Are the AGs taking up the cases?

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I'll go expose it, and if they want to do something about it, I put all the information in the videos. And so, that's one thing I have seen, is there actually has been change. Like, they just found the 12 people today, the leers in Minnesota, most, most of them fled the country, I believe, but they got the head.

• 22:21Jason Calacanis?

  Oh, is that right? So, give us the coda, actually, about the, the daycares in Minnesota.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Yes, the daycares in Minnesota, they, that was the craziest thing, because I was just sitting in my room, I just posted that video, I had no idea it was gonna be like the biggest video ever. It got 4 billion views in 7 days. Uh, which was pretty insane. Uh, so I posted that video, and then there starts to be like riots and protests. People start dying to cover for the leers. The politicians were like incentivizing people to go out and riot, because they knew like the ice was there, but they could distract everyone by getting people out to the street to cover up for the fraud. Well, it didn't really work, because Tim Walz dropped out of reelection, but in Minnesota, they, the head person of the leering centers, who had received $4 million, she tried to go to London on a one-way ticket, and then she got caught for daycare fraud.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  And so, she was the head, like, the head honcho of the leers. She got caught. She got busted. Um, then the biggest autism bust of all time took place there as well. So, like, I've been very productive. So, wait, so did she get prosecuted? Yes, and she pled guilty. She pled guilty? Yeah. Oh, wow. And what's the sentence? I don't know yet. Okay, maybe it hasn't happened yet, or? Yeah.

• 23:32David Friedberg?

  Did you, did you see Bill Gurley's presentation?

• 23:34Speaker 01

  I watched a bit of it, it's kind of hard to hear backstage.

• 23:36David Friedberg?

  Yeah, so, I mean, there's a point he was making, which is that journalists seem to have become selective in the stories that they're chasing, and the investigations that they're doing, and there seems to be a reason, that's this kind of politicized point. What's your view? Have you met with journalists and talked with them? Have any of them reached out? And do you have a sense on what, what, what goes on? What motivates them to say things, do things, one way or not the other way?

• 24:01Speaker 01

  No one from the mainstream has reached out to me to say like, hey, how are you doing this? Instead, they like investigate me, and they'll write hit pieces on me. I'm like, okay, like, good for you.

• 24:09Jason Calacanis?

  Investigating the investigator, yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:11Jason Calacanis?

  That, that shows you exactly how threatened they are by you. And I think, where, where you are gonna be, just having known you for 1 year, and watching the improvements in the crispness, you are gonna be so dangerous when you have a modest amount of resources. And I think what we really need to do is commit to making sure you have more funding. And so, I'm gonna, right after we get on here, I'm gonna subscribe, and I'm gonna put in, you know, whatever, a couple thousand dollars a month to support you. And I think everybody here should. You're doing great work, you need to have some researchers on the team, you need to have some backup, and you need to have security, because what you're doing is truly a threat to criminals and the mob.

• 24:49David Friedberg?

  Nick, you're the son that Jason has always wanted.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  I'll take it.

• 24:52Jason Calacanis?

  What was that, Chamath?

• 24:53David Friedberg?

  You're the son that Jason has always wanted.

• 24:55Jason Calacanis?

  No, no, I mean, I have 3 great daughters, but I, I'm just, you're what I got in, when I got into journalism, what you're doing is why I got into it, which was, the role of journalism, and I think Bill Gurley pointed it out so well in his talk, which was, there are still great investigative journalists out there, just not enough of them. And I, I think it's fantastic that there's a new generation doing this, and that you're doing it independently.

• 25:16David Friedberg?

  Is there a new generation, or are? Yeah, this is what, so, there have been a few others that have emerged since you came out. Minnesota Peace was such a big, maybe inspiration, but it was also a beacon to a lot of people, like, oh, we can go do this, like you did. Are you seeing more of this? Do you think that they're being successful, and what do you think's changing?

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think a lot of people are taking it up, and they're seeing like with X, like, if it wasn't for Elon and X, like, none of this would have been possible. For instance, I posted that video about the fraud, and on YouTube, it does well, it gets a few million views. On X, it got 140 million views, and the most important people in the world see it, and they're able to see like, oh, we're not doing our job, let's go do what needs to be done. Like, the government, I caught them kind of backhanded on that, so they had to go step in. But I do think a lot of individuals, like, I do hope I am motivating a lot of kids, especially my generation, to be less of a complainer and be more of a doer. So, and I think journalism, people think of it as just like showing what's going on.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Well, you can actually have massive, create massive change inside of the country, in the areas that you live in. Uh, that's something that I've seen with my journalism, I'm like, I'm not just playing like the defense, like, I'm actually going out, showing people what's going on, and I'm not just leaving the story after it's done. Like, I'm continuing to follow through, because if it's real corruption, like, it needs to be taken down.

• 26:33David Friedberg?

  Right. And what other people don't realize, because you became, I think, pretty famous from the Minnesota video, but you had other stuff before where it wasn't about chasing down corruption. Like, you went into the favelas in Brazil, right? Which was incredibly scary.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:47David Friedberg?

  And you've done a lot of this stuff, are you still doing those sorts of things? Or is everything now about government corruption?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  I would love to continue to do those videos, and I will to do more. These past 8 months, every morning, I'm waking up to something new about fraud and corruption, so I've kind of just like been spearheading that. But, uh, I would like to get more into that stuff. Like, I, I almost got kidnapped in the Brazilian favelas. I met up with this, the head of Commando Vermerlo inside this, inside this favela in, in Rio de Janeiro, and literally, like, there's only a few things that could have happened with me and him in this broken-down shack on the top of the favela. Got also nearly taken hostage in Cuba, 2 cars, a 2-star communist general came down to try and figure out why I was in Cuba and why I was leaving early. So, like, that stuff's still super important. I, the fraud stuff's just kind of taken over my life recently, though.

• 27:34Jason Calacanis?

  What are the other big pockets of fraud that you are scratching at, that you think exist? The big honeypots that you're gonna go chase down and uncover?

• 27:43Speaker 01

  I, like, welfare fraud here inside the United States is just absolutely.

• 27:46Jason Calacanis?

  Welfare fraud.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Insane, like, all of it.

• 27:48Jason Calacanis?

  Can you explain that?

• 27:49Speaker 01

  For instance, like food stamps. Uh, there's a, there's a strip club in Portland, Oregon, where you can use your SNAP card. Uh, like, the government, especially underneath Biden, uh, they literally let open like the floodgates to fraud. I mean, Tim Walz was celebrating and using the daycares in his debates against J.D. Vance.

• 28:11Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Uh, so, all these social benefit programs have literally been looted, whether it be SNAP, whether it be daycares, whether it be adult daycares, like, literally, you name it, hospices. Like, all these things that have received government money are just full of fraud.

• 28:24Jason Calacanis?

  And so, now you're just trying to pull the threat and uncover as much of it as possible?

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's hard now, because like, I have to have security, like, people literally want to kill me. And so, I have to be super strategic, like, what's gonna stop a fraudster from me knocking on his door, and then he, him realizing that his time's up, and him just shooting me so the video doesn't get posted? Like, that's like the stuff I think about when I go to bed, like, how do I go out and make these videos a bit differently?

• 28:46Jason Calacanis?

  Well, are there different ways that you can get the information you need to tell the story without actually having to confront the person in real time?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, but people want to see the person get confronted.

• 28:54Jason Calacanis?

  So, I mean, but this is what's so interesting, because what you're talking about is like, at the end of the day, you're still fighting the attention mechanism that you live under, you know? Like, your incentive is to tell the truth, and then, but there's a last point where your incentive is, I must do something that will get views as well.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, that's how all this stuff happens.

• 29:16Jason Calacanis?

  Well, you know, I'm gonna.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  That's part of it.

• 29:18Jason Calacanis?

  60 Minutes, as an example, does undercover reporting, and it always has. And they would, if a subject would not come on 60 Minutes, they would go to their home and wait for them outside their office and home to confront them and ask those questions. They would tell them they're gonna do it. So, I think you're well within your right to do that. I think, as you professionalize your operation, um, and it's incredibly brave what you're doing, I think you have to ask for a bit more support from the audience. And, you know, right now, you can do a $5 subscription, but you should also ask people to be charter supporters, you know, at a $500 level, $1,000 level, like Substack might allow you to do. And I think you should be very aggressive in asking for more support. Because the government, we heard from Vice President J.D.

• 30:01Jason Calacanis?

  Vance, 10, 20% of our tax dollars are being wasted. If we support you to do this work, get a researcher, get an extra video editor, you just need about 3 or 4 people around you to support you, and this is really gonna take off. If you have those 3 or 4 people, um, we're all gonna save more money. And we need to, as, as a country, to get behind you and say, people who are stealing from the government, that is, they should carry double the sentence, because you're stealing from the actual society. Right? And I don't care what country, it doesn't matter what state it is, immigrant or American, and they've been here, you're stealing from the actual country that is giving you, you know, the protection of living in these United States.

• 30:44Jason Calacanis?

  It is really sinister to steal from the country. It really is. And, and just, I'm really upset that you are faced with security issues and a lack of support, and this criticism on the ticky tacky things do not stop doing what you're doing.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. And like, if we can stop fraud, we can literally save the country. Like, that's something people understand.

• 31:05David Friedberg?

  What's crazy is it's not just fraud. I think the California High-Speed Rail Project, anyone can look at that objectively and say, that is the most insane thing on earth. Why are we doing this $240 billion to go from Fresno to Modesto at 3 times the price of an airplane ticket? None of it makes sense. Literally, it's like, none of it makes sense. And the guy got paid half a billion dollars for non-work. It's a billionaire in Italy who got paid that money.

• 31:27Jason Calacanis?

  Wait, how much did he get paid?

• 31:29David Friedberg?

  Half a billion. So, the.

• 31:31Jason Calacanis?

  You say half a billion?

• 31:32David Friedberg?

  Did you watch the video?

• 31:33Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 31:34David Friedberg?

  So, after I saw that video, so, Nick, Nick sent me that video, and then I traced down who got paid that half billion. And the ultimate owner is a billionaire in Italy.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  I didn't know that. Yeah, insane.

• 31:44David Friedberg?

  And, um, the whole story, when you, when you kind of dig into this, so this isn't fraud, it's legal. It's a legal system.

• 31:50Jason Calacanis?

  It's leakage, it's organized leakage.

• 31:52David Friedberg?

  It's a legal, it's a legal system, and, and I think it falls under that idea of waste or some sort of corruption, but I think it is as, the fraud stuff, anyone can get behind. But this is the stuff.

• 32:01Jason Calacanis?

  Well, it's unethical and illogical.

• 32:02David Friedberg?

  There's complacency, there's corruption, there's unaccountability, and these are the things that just trickled into this massive waterfall that we're drowning in right now. And I think it's really important what you're doing. And I think on behalf of a lot of people, I really appreciate the mission you're on. You're an incredible person, we thank you for the work.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Thank you guys so much. Thanks for reporting.

• 32:21Jason Calacanis?

  Bravo, Nick.

• 32:22David Friedberg?

  Fuck yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Appreciate it.

• 32:24David Friedberg?

  Thank you, bro.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, first shot.

• 32:26David Friedberg?

  Thanks, Jason. Appreciate it.