Official White House account posts Pixar-style AI meme targeting Somalis after claims of fraud at Minnesota daycares

Donald Trump’s administration has shared an AI-generated fake trailer for an animated film denigrating Somali immigrants following viral claims that Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota are fraudulently taking millions of dollars in government funding.

Administration officials and right-wing media personalities have seized on a series of fraud cases involving government programs in which most of the defendants have roots in the East African country.

In the artificially generated Pixar-inspired clip posted by a right-wing podcaster and shared by an official Trump administration X account on New Year’s Day, a group of Somali men travel to Minnesota to defraud the state’s daycare program and live the high life.

“We don’t need to be pirates anymore. I found a better way. Government-funded daycare. We must go to Minnesota,” one character says.

Descending a mansion staircase and lighting a cigar with a $100 bill, another character says: “Remember when we had to illegally steal from innocent people like thugs? Well now we’re stealing from innocent taxpayers. Just like the government intended.”

The Independent has requested comment from the White House.

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The president has repeatedly used racist and derogatory language to describe Somali immigrants and U.S. citizens with roots in a nation he calls a “s***hole” and “barely a country.”

During a White House Cabinet meeting last month, Trump called them “garbage” people who “come from hell.”

“When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in their country,” he said. “Let them go back to where they come from and fix it.”

The president also baselessly alleged Somali immigrants are “taking over” Minnesota and “roving the streets looking for ‘prey’” as his administration surged federal law enforcement agents to the state to make hundreds of arrests.

Federal prosecutors and state investigators have spent years probing fraud in the state’s childcare system and convicting dozens of defendants. Right-wing media personalities have also spent years targeting the state — home to the nation’s largest Somali population — with bogus allegations that it’s “ground zero for ISIS recruitment inside America” and under siege by Somali immigrants who are manipulating elections.

But new allegations from a 23-year-old influencer have dovetailed with the president’s anti-immigration agenda and his years-long attempts to undermine Democratic elected officials in the state, including former vice presidential candidate and current governor Tim Walz.

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David Shirley’s 43-minute tour of day care facilities quickly went viral last month, boosted by Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance, and fueled the Trump administration’s latest wave of law enforcement actions in the state.

Last week, in response to the video, the Department of Health and Human Services froze federal child care funding to all states, including Minnesota, and plans to release those funds “only when states prove they are being spent legitimately.”

The Small Business Administration also suspended nearly 7,000 borrowers in the state after reviewing “thousands” of potentially “fraudulent” federal payouts, according to administrator Kelly Loeffler.

Those borrowers were approved for 7,900 loans worth $400 million under the COVID-19-era programs, including the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel also announced new operations in the state in response to Shirley’s video.

Noem posted on social media that federal officers were “conducting a massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud,” while Patel said agents plan to “dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the investigation “a top priority for the administration” in an interview with Fox & Friends on Wednesday.

“The Department of Justice, as we speak, is continuing to execute search warrants and subpoenas,” she said. “People will be in handcuffs as a result of the fraud that Gov. Walz has allowed to occur [for] for many, many years. The Department of Homeland Security is conducting door-to-door investigations on the ground at potential fraud sites, and they are also, of course, conducting continued deportations of illegal aliens in Minnesota’s communities.”

Leavitt also said the administration is “not afraid to use denaturalization” and strip citizenship from Somali Americans in the state.

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State and federal prosecutors have been digging into allegations for years, including under President Joe Biden’s administration.

During Biden’s presidency, at least 47 people were charged, and the cases have grown to include at least 78 defendants as investigations continue. At least 57 people have been convicted at trial or as a result of guilty pleas.

Last month, a federal prosecutor estimated that more than half of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 Minnesota-run programs since 2018 may have been stolen.

A number of Shirley’s allegations, which included filming allegedly empty daycare centers that received federal funds, have not been verified; Minnesota’s Republican Party officials also admitted to collaborating with him “to get the information out to the public and to hold the Walz administration accountable.”

The manager of one facility said Shirley visited outside of its regular hours, while a CNN camera crew interviewing Shirley outside a different center filmed people dropping off children.

“How do I know that [the allegations are] true?” Shirley said when asked by CNN. “Well, we showed you guys what was happening, and then you guys can go ahead and make your own analysis.”

Each of the 10 facilities featured in his video had been visited at least once by state investigators within the past six months, according to Tikki Brown, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families.

“While we have questions about some of the methods that were used in the video, we do take the concerns that the video raises about fraud very seriously,” she said this week.