CLUB RECAP: Watch Our Latest Assignment
Check out all the right-wing influencers we dug into in last night's meeting
In our last meeting, we had an off-the record conversation about how right-wing influencers are shaping narratives. We used the following info to prep in case our readers want to follow along!
Minnesota Daycare Fraud Content
In December, pro-Trump creator Nick Shirley posted a video claiming to expose widespread financial fraud at Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota, which went viral and was boosted by right-wing media and members of the Trump administration.
Shirley visited various day care centers in Minnesota, filming people he found there and asking, “Where are the children?” After he wasn’t allowed to enter the day care facilities, he declared there were “no children anywhere.”
Despite Minnesota investigators debunking Shirley’s claims about the facilities he covered, right-wing media and the Trump administration ran with the claims and used them as an excuse to slash Minnesota’s child care funding and escalate immigration enforcement in the state, ultimately leading to 4,000 arrests, months of protests, and the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Videos Alleging Voter Fraud
Trump aligned “independent reporters” are shifting to creating on the ground video content purporting to expose voter or voter registration fraud. This narrative shift coincides with the Trump administration’s widespread push to interfere with the midterm elections – often using immigration or conspiracies related to voter fraud or noncitizens voting as a pretext to do so.
TPUSA’s Frontlines and Savanah Hernandez co-posted a video to Instagram showing a petitioner on LA’s Skid Row “exchanging cigarettes for signatures.”
Cam Higby released a video featuring Jonathan Choe purporting to uncover fraudulent voter registrations along LA’s Skid Row. The title graphic for the video states it’s part 1.
Higby also posted a clip of the video to Instagram, where he alleges to have witnessed people exchanging “cash for registration signatures on ballot initiatives.”
Nick Shirley rebooted James O’Keefe’s debunked voter fraud myths for a new audience in a YouTube video on “California’s Suspected Voter Fraud.”
Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson released a “documentary” claiming that California’s assistance programs for unhoused individuals were being used to “rig national elections.”
Right-wing commentators David Khait and Fabian Garcia teamed up to release a series of videos investigating voter fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, visiting a homeless shelter, a church, and more. For the church, the influencers claimed that over 2,000 people used the location as their voter registration address. However, the video omits reporting that Georgia’s voter laws allow unhoused residents to use nonresidential addresses to help them register to vote.
Khait and Garcia published a similar video about locations in Fulton County, Georgia, on YouTube on February 17. The video has been amplified by several right-wing figures, including Trish Regan and Libs of TikTok
ICE Ride-along Videos
After a select group of right-wing and right-leaning creators were granted exclusive access to ICE raids and ride-alongs, the influencers posted misleading videos which Trump administration officials re-posted and used as evidence to support their anti-immigrant agenda.
Right-wing influencer and Real America’s Voice correspondent Ben Bergquam participated in at least 4 ICE ride-alongs in Chicago and posted a video to Facebook from one of his October ride-alongs which shows him referring to a group of bystanders as a “beehive of activist traitors,” with on-screen text that said, “Riding with ICE in Chicago exposing the enemies within!”
During a visit to Chicago in October, Benny Johnson went on a ride-along and to an ICE facility with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and he posted content of the visit that earned over 2 million views in total.
Shirley went on a ride-along in Chicago in October and posted at least two videos that earned over 2 million combined views. The videos show Shirley interviewing masked agents, riding in an ICE vehicle, and observing people being arrested.
CECOT Content
Since 2024, at least five YouTube content creators have been granted access to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, the megaprison to which the Trump administration began sending immigrants last year. The resulting YouTube videos have been viewed over 200 million times, and at least one creator appeared on Fox News several times to discuss what he saw while filming. Below are a few examples of their videos.
Nick Shirley posted a tour of CECOT and appeared on Fox News at least 4 times to discuss his visit
UAE-based YouTuber Joe Hattab posted a tour of CECOT, earning over 49 million views
Turkish YouTuber Ruhi Cenat also posted a video tour, earning over 95 million views