Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that the Trump administration was giving right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley $10,000 and launching a $25 million bounty program for members of the public to report fraud.
In December 2025, Shirley posted a viral video alleging fraud at Minnesota daycares operated by members of the local Somali community. Shirley lingered in parking lots and asked to enter daycares, taking the refusals as evidence that the centers were not actually serving children. The video quickly went viral, prompting a massive government response: Federal immigration agents descended on the Minneapolis area and the Trump administration froze Minnesota’s federal funding for child care. Shirley has since visited other US states under similar pretexts, showing up unannounced at grocery stores and hospice facilities looking for evidence of fraud. Vance and other members of the administration publicly praised Shirley, who has since become a pillar of the MAGA-aligned content creator ecosystem. It has helped popularize a genre of so-called independent journalism popular on the right in which content creators and influencers confront companies or people they suspect of committing fraud or crimes as the basis for their online content. Harassment, or even immigration repression, often follows.
The administration told Fox News it was also launching the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program (WHIP), a $25 million pool open to anyone who believes they have witnessed fraud. “Particular emphasis” is placed on fraud in palliative care, home health care, daycare and special services, according to a government website. A chatbot collecting responses instructs the reporting party: “Briefly describe what you saw, heard or read. A few sentences are sufficient. Include names, dates, amounts or records if you have them, and how you know them. Note any details you are unsure of.”
According to Fox News and the reporting portal, members of the public who report fraud are eligible to receive up to $30,000 if a submitted report leads to a conviction or significant federal action. But speaking Tuesday, Trump contradicted the $30,000 limit.
“If you turn someone in and… find a billion dollars, we’ll give that person a 1 percent commission,” Trump said today. (One percent of $1 billion would exceed the $30,000 limit.) “And if it’s $10 billion, $200 billion, $400 billion, we’ll give that person a 1 percent commission,” Trump continued.
The White House did not immediately clarify how the $10,000 payment to Shirley was calculated or how the program is funded in the first place.
Shirley’s methods have been criticized particularly in Minnesota, where extensive fraud investigations were already underway before he came to create content. He accused the companies of falsifying child care services based on little more than being denied entry to the facilities and, to the frustration of many, acted as if his video was the first fraud investigation in the state. Subsequent visits by state officials to the centers Shirley presented found them operating “as expected.”
