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The video opens with a question and a slamming door. Nick Shirley, the 23-year-old right-wing content creator who rose to sudden infamy and influence last week, confronts two Somali women as the camera rolls.

“Hello, we’d like to ask where the money is going,” Shirley says as the women scramble away. It’s a scene that repeats again and again throughout his wildly viral 43-minute video — published to YouTube on December 26 — that purports to “investigate” widespread fraud in Minnesota’s publicly funded daycare centers.

Issues in the program were already well-known. But the video, with its 3.4 million views, kicked off a wider national scandal. The federal government promptly froze child care payments to the state. On Monday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz abruptly dropped his reelection campaign. The Trump administration also surged hundreds of ICE agents to the Minneapolis area as part of a major enforcement action that left one woman dead.

Since Shirley’s video came out, copycats have descended on daycare centers across the country, eager to capitalize on the unprecedented........

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