• What Happened: Independent journalist Nick Shirley released a 40-minute investigation Monday visiting fake daycares in San Diego and shell hospice centers in Van Nuys, documenting over $170 million in suspected fraud. Newsom's press office attacked him. He fired back.
  • Why It Matters: CBS News, Dr. Oz, and state auditors have all independently confirmed the same Van Nuys hospice cluster as fraud ground zero. One building has 89 hospices registered to it. Over 700 LA hospices have multiple fraud red flags per state review. Medi-Cal spending has doubled to $222 billion.
  • Bottom Line: The man who helped end Tim Walz's career just showed up in California. Newsom's people are already panicking.

Nick Shirley, the independent journalist whose Minnesota daycare fraud videos went viral and froze over $10 billion in federal childcare funds, just turned his camera on California. What he found makes Minnesota look like a warm-up act.

In a 40-minute video released Monday, Shirley and his crew went door to door at daycares in San Diego and hospice centers in Van Nuys, documents in hand, asking simple questions. At a San Diego daycare claiming 14 children enrolled, he found no children and no adults. At another claiming seven enrolled, state inspectors had visited four separate times and found zero children every single time.

At one apartment operating as a licensed daycare, two small children were found outside alone with no adult in sight. No teacher. No supervisor. Nobody.

"This is what taxpayer-funded fraud looks like," said journalist Mario Nawfal. "Children abandoned in the name of a paycheck."

In Van Nuys, it got worse. Shirley visited a stretch of Victory Boulevard where nearly 500 hospice centers operate within three miles of each other, with 89 registered to a single building on Friar Street. He walked into empty offices, found buildings with nothing inside, and documented facilities that had billed millions while showing zero signs of operation. One location, Miracle Healing Hospice, billed $1.3 million in 2023. The building was completely empty. Not a single piece of furniture.

Parked outside these empty buildings: Teslas, BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, a Cybertruck, and a $200,000 Maybach. "This is the sound of hospice money," Shirley said, standing behind one of the luxury vehicles.

The numbers behind what Shirley filmed are not his alone. CBS News independently called Los Angeles "ground zero" for hospice fraud in a March 10 investigation, identifying over 700 licensed hospices in LA County with multiple fraud red flags. Federal auditors found LA hospices overbilled Medicare by $105 million in a single year. Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, visited Van Nuys in February and flagged the same building. State Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo found 197 hospice agencies registered to the same dilapidated address.

Medi-Cal, California's version of Medicaid, has more than doubled since 2022, from $108 billion to a proposed $222 billion in 2026. The state's population has not doubled. The fraud has.

Shirley estimates the facilities he personally visited and documented account for over $170 million in suspected fraud. The Newsom press office responded Monday by mocking him on X. Shirley responded directly: "You do realize I'm trying to help America eliminate fraud and waste, right? No need to try and make me look like the bad guy for exposing fraud. People are over it."

Rep. Kevin Kiley has requested a GAO audit of California's fraud. A federal task force led by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli is already investigating. Steve Hilton's CalFraudia report puts statewide fraud at $434 billion.

Newsom is the current frontrunner on prediction markets for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. Nick Shirley just showed up in his state with a camera. The clock is ticking.