Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) failed to acknowledge the rampant fraud in the Somali community in Minnesota while pledging to launch an audit of the state government during her first policy event as a gubernatorial candidate.
Klobuchar offered her plan to “transform” the Minnesota government into a “government that is innovative, effective, and accountable” at a Sunday news conference in St. Paul, where she announced a “top-to-bottom audit” should she be elected governor:
“That audit will look at state agencies to identify waste, fraud, and abuse,” she explained.
While critics have speculated that a Klobuchar administration would essentially be an extension of that of current Gov. Tim Walz, the longtime senator claimed she would enact change.
“I don’t like the status quo,” Klobuchar said. “I wouldn’t be running for governor if I wanted things — to have things remain the same. I want to see change.”
She notably did not mention any of the Somali-run fraud rings that have plagued her state, despite more than 20 Minneapolis locations, “largely Somali linked businesses,” being raided by the FBI due to suspected fraud just days before the press conference.
On the other side of the aisle, Republican gubernatorial candidate and Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth has made it clear that she wants to draw attention to the perpetrators of welfare fraud, including the Somali-owned daycare clinics exposed in a citizen journalist’s viral video that made it all the way to the White House.
YouTube creator Nick Shirley’s December 2025 video shed light on a great deal of Minnesota’s billion-dollar fraud scandal, including his segment on the government-funded Somali-run “Quality Learing Center” in South Minneapolis, reporting that the supposed learning center had not even spelled its name correctly on its sign.
Shortly after the video was published, Demuth held a press conference in which she revealed that the Minnesota House Republican Caucus had worked with Shirley and state agency whistleblowers to “get the information out to the public and to hold the Walz administration accountable.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.