Nick Shirley：揭露政府欺诈、起诉加州并对抗媒体

Hey, besties. If you were given $15 billion, what could you build? The next PayPal, perhaps the next SpaceX, the next Google, or would you build a high-speed rail?

This is the California high-speed rail that goes to absolutely nowhere. And I mean absolutely nowhere—literally nowhere. This is all California has to show for $15 billion and 18 years of work. In 2008, they said they were going to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. To this date, they have connected literally nothing.

Now, to finish this project, it's estimated to cost $100 billion to $200 billion. Funny enough, in 2008, China also created its own high-speed rail. They've connected the whole country of China—over 30,000 miles. Here in California, they haven't connected a single town.

We're going to break down this entire thing from start to finish to show you what is actually happening with the California high-speed rail. Let's get into it. Now, let's go talk to somebody who knows a lot about the California high-speed rail. What's the truth about the high-speed rail here inside California?

1. The High Speed Rail Cost Explosion

Well, we call it California high-speed rail, but all we have is concrete and rebar and about $15 billion spent. It currently is the most expensive infrastructure project happening in the world today.

The original estimate for California high-speed rail was $33 billion. It then jumped to $126 billion, and now the newest estimate is $236 billion. This project is on track for one thing, and that is to be the third-most-expensive infrastructure project in the history of the world.

Number 1 is the interstate project of the 1950s. Number 2 is the International Space Station, and now it is California high-speed rail. The difference between those 3 projects is that you can drive on I-5 or I-80 and drive across the entire country. You can go to outer space. We will never ride California high-speed rail.

So, it goes from there all the way to right here. This is where it ends. It is probably the most expensive piece of concrete known to man and is often referred to here in the Central Valley as a modern-day Stonehenge.

How come they continue to say that they're going to continue to build the high-speed rail when there's actually proof that it is quite literally impossible?

Governor Newsom, in a video himself from 2016, I believe, actually admitted to all of us in a private video that he doesn't believe that this project will ever be done in our lifetime. He said:

“The facts seem overwhelming that this project is not going to materialize in our lifetime.”

And now this is the result of over $15 billion. Who's taken the $15 billion? And where's the $15 billion gone if this is all that they have to show for it?

One-third of the entire cost of California high-speed rail has gone to this part called change orders and delays because they didn't know where the infrastructure was or how to build this actual train.

Contractors who were awarded a parcel to work on are owed $170,000 a day—$5 million a month—for every single day they can't work. We just settled here in California very recently, in February, the largest settlement in a delay case: over half a billion dollars. Because a contractor couldn't work on the actual project, they were owed half a billion dollars.

What are some of the biggest examples of waste, fraud, and just complete incompetence by the government when you see this high-speed rail?

California was supposed to buy the actual trains—the trains that would be considered high-speed rail. The state didn't buy the trains, in my opinion, because they know that there will never be a train on these tracks.

So California has not even bought the trains yet?

No. If we would just buy one-way tickets at current ridership between San Francisco and L.A., which is the goal of California high-speed rail, we could subsidize free tickets one way for the next 150 years.

With the new estimate that California high-speed rail is going to be $236 billion, we could subsidize one-way tickets between San Francisco and L.A. for the next 300 years. So, to me, it would make more sense for all of us to just buy the flights from San Francisco to L.A. than it would be to build a train or whatever this is and spend more money doing that. It doesn't make any sense mathematically.

Now, we're on top of the high-speed rail, and there isn't any rail that has been placed. It's actually just a bunch of cement. The high-speed rail to nowhere—that's what they should call it, actually.

Despite the California high-speed rail appearing to be impossible to finish, California has allocated $1 billion a year to finish the project, while they actually need anywhere from $100 billion to $200 billion to finish it. And the high-speed rail becomes even more interesting, and you realize how impossible it is, the further along the alignment you go.

Later, we'll be confronting the senator who's over the oversight committee for transportation in California. We then saw some train tracks where the hub of the high-speed rail is supposed to be.

Hello.

Hey.

How are you guys doing? Is this the high-speed rail, though?

No. You can't be out here. This is private.

Not the high-speed rail. Where's the hub for the high-speed rail going to be?

I'm not sure.

You don't know where the hub is going to be for the high-speed rail?

No.

All right.

2. The Rail Alignment Hits Homes

Despite these guys saying this is not the hub for the high-speed rail—which it really is—we then went down the alignment, and this is what we found.

This location right here was actually bought in 2006 for developers to develop this land. Then they set forth the plan to actually go through with the high-speed rail in 2008. In order for the high-speed rail to actually happen, they're going to have to buy each and every single one of these houses that is currently being built.

Keep in mind, right now they're building the high-speed rail while these people are building houses on the alignment. Let's go talk to a city manager right now.

How is it possible that here in California, you have a government spending billions upon billions of dollars for this high-speed rail, while a construction site is right here where they're building houses on the land where that high-speed rail is supposed to go?

We don't really know. Typically, the government buys all of the alignment up front. That way, you don't have the cost of buying it once it's developed. That will bring it up 10 or 11 times what bare-land value would be.

We don't really know. Their communication is pretty sparse, so we're left mostly in the dark.

Do you think that this high-speed rail has just been some sort of fantasy for the people inside Sacramento and the politicians of California?

Look, you've got a project that duplicates Amtrak's current service route. I will tell you, from a ground perspective, we don't understand why they're sticking 2 rail lines next to each other that are going to serve the same areas.

How many more cases of this do you think are inside this alignment for the high-speed rail?

I don't think this is atypical. I think this has happened quite a bit up and down the valley.

3. The Reroute Threatens Farmers

California actually abandoned the route from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Now they're focusing from Merced to Bakersfield. The high-speed rail will actually not even be servicing people from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

The high-speed rail bridge ends over there. It continues over here onto this road, but as you'll see, it then has to go through a bunch of farmland just like this. Now, they have the route right here for the high-speed rail, but in other locations, do they have it? We're going to go speak with the farmer right now.

Now, we're in the middle of an orchard. How will the farmers be affected by the high-speed rail?

Ranches that have been contiguous for hundreds of years will now be split. That requires you to travel to both sides, right? Your infrastructure has to be pulled from one side to the other, whether it be irrigation, power supplies, or even just the operational side of it. It's going to make everything really inconvenient.

When California brought about the plan for the high-speed rail, did you guys vote on it, or did you have any say in it? Do you even think it's going to happen?

All the voters had a chance to vote, and it passed. But it was very vague on the ballot. No one knew where it was going to go.

To me, they're putting it in all the wrong spots. It was to serve 2 different populations in the north and the south of the state, and where they're deciding to put it is going to impact an area that didn't need the high-speed rail to begin with.

They're allocating millions and billions of dollars to this each and every single year. Now they're saying they're going to need almost $100 billion more, if not $200 billion. What could farmers of California do if they had $100 billion invested into them?

Oh, man, it could revolutionize the state. Agriculture has been the backbone of this state since its founding.

We're not investing in water infrastructure. We're not investing in energy infrastructure. It's sad because we're worried about a train that's going to serve a small sector of the population. What really needs to be done is something that's going to be good for all of us in the state.

So pretty soon, we could see a high-speed rail come right through here, where all these almonds are. People are going to be suffering because of it.

Yes. And there'll probably be no one on the train.

4. The Senator Defends The Project

Now, we came here to Sacramento to go speak with the people at the California High-Speed Rail Authority office. It is 4:09 right now, and we just went inside. Nobody's here.

Hallelujah.

Really?

They said they’re open.

They close at 5:00 p.m.; however, they are not here. But we are going to go speak with a senator who just approved and passed a bill that’s going to give $1 billion for the next 20 years to the California High-Speed Rail Authority. We’re going to go talk to him and see why he approved that.

Senator Cortese, how are you doing?

Good.

My name is Nick Shirley. We’re doing a little investigation on the high-speed rail. We just want to ask what made you want to secure $1 billion for the next 20 years for the high-speed rail?

I believe it’s a good long-term commitment that we need to make.

And do you think that’s actually ever going to happen here inside the state of California?

It is happening. Have you been there?

Yeah, I actually have.

All right. Well, then you know it’s happening.

And there’s actually not a single piece of rail or track that’s been laid.

They’re getting ready to do that right now.

And do you think in 20 years the high-speed rail will be done as promised? It was going to be done in 2020.

It might be, might not.

Gavin Newsom even said in a private video that it’s not even possible, essentially.

I have a lot of transportation projects I’ve worked on for 20 years that are just finally getting started, and they’re all worth it.

And do you believe, as chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, that the High-Speed Rail Authority has been sufficiently accountable for the increases and delays that have taken place with the high-speed rail?

Well, we’re trying to hold them accountable.

And what can you give people to make them believe that the high-speed rail is actually going to be built and finished in our lifetime or in your lifetime?

It’s not my commitment. My commitment is that it’s the greatest economic development project in the country, and people should be embracing that all the way to the federal government. There’s no other economic development project that even comes close to that in this country. And it’s a shame that certain people in the country aren’t taking that seriously.

So that’s how we get things done: when the federal government and the state government work together. Build dams, build bridges, build highways, build high-speed rail. That’s what needs to happen.

And you do believe that we’ll see the completion of the high-speed rail in our lifetime?

There are 21 construction projects going on right now with thousands of workers. So you’ll see it get done.

Sacks, this is your guy. Get in there.

5. California Targets Nick Shirley

Wow. Maybe a good place to start, actually, is that California was so afraid of what you’re doing—exposing their fraud—that they actually passed a law to stop you from doing your investigations and your videos, where you show up at these places that are stealing taxpayer money. I’m still shocked that they could get away with that. I know you’re fighting it in court, and I fully expect it’ll be unconstitutional in 20 years, whenever it makes its way through the court system. Could you just explain that?

Yes. I exposed California for all the fraud that they’ve enabled here inside the state. They use what’s called immigration support service providers, and it quite literally means anybody who provides services to illegal immigrants or immigrants. That includes nonprofits and health care facilities.

Actually, today—this just happened literally today—I filmed all these day cares in San Diego, and when I exposed it, Newsom came after me. But today, they found 12 individuals who were all immigrants and charged them with $10 million of fraud. That happened today.

California did?

California—the DOJ did. So under this new bill, this new law that they created, if these immigration support service providers were to give me a piece of paper saying, “Hey, you can’t upload that video”—a demand letter—I can’t upload the video. And they only created that after I exposed the fraud.

Wait, wait, wait. Okay, let me—first of all, what is an immigration service provider? What is that?

Yeah, it means legal services, health care facilities, quite literally anything where your tax dollars go to provide services for illegal immigrants or immigrants here in San—

—from the state of California. So the state of California is funding—

—these businesses, basically.

To provide services to illegals?

Yes.

It can be medical. It can even be NGOs, nonprofits that received grants from the government. For instance, the people who sponsored this bill are called CHIRLA. They’ve received $80 million, and they do advocacy work for illegal immigrants here inside the United States.

Wait, they got $80 million? Sorry, million or billion? An $80 million nonprofit?

Nonprofit.

And then it sounds like the law is written so that any service to immigrants—

Yeah.

—you can’t go do this work because they’re trying to protect the community.

So wait, but how do they stop you? Let’s say you go to one of these NGOs or businesses that have received this funding. You record it, and now they’re saying you can’t upload it.

Yeah. So if they simply were enrolled in this service, then they give me a piece of paper saying, “Hey, you can’t upload that video”—a demand letter—and I can’t upload the video. If I do, I’ll get a $4,000 fine. Then I’ll have to go to court, and I’ll have to pay their legal fees if they win. So $4,000 is just the minimum if they have 10 employees in there who are all part of the service.

Sorry, doesn’t that violate your constitutional rights?

Yeah, First Amendment rights.

And so do you sue the state of California?

Yeah, I’m suing the state of California right now to undo that bill.

Yes.

Ostensibly, by the way, Sacks, this was all under the pretext of our favorite term: safety. What Nick Shirley was doing in knocking on a door and saying, “Is this business open or closed?” was making people feel unsafe. And if you use that word—unsafe—then everybody has to rally around it.

They literally called this the Nick Shirley law. So I think this is the most amazing badge for you, and it’s an award. The fact that they’re creating laws to try to stop you from doing basic journalism means you’re kicking ass, Nick. Don’t stop.

These First Amendment cases, though, have been incredibly well litigated. So do they just pass this knowing that it will probably get overturned at the federal level, and then it’s up to you to raise the money, find the constitutional-law people, and take the case? Is that what it is? Or do they actually legitimately think there’s legal standing? What does your team tell you about that law that’s trying to stop you?

Yeah. I don’t think they thought Nick Shirley would hear about this bill because they called it AB 2624. Unless an assemblyman dubbed it the Stop Nick Shirley Act, I probably wouldn’t have heard about it.

So California—they’ve pretty much passed all these laws. It’s called Commiefornia for a reason. To get a bill passed in California in the legislature, there are 40 senators: 30 of them are Democrats and 10 of them are Republicans. It needs 21 votes to pass. So it’s quite literally nearly impossible for a Republican to pass anything here inside the state of California.

Let’s be clear: Gavin Newsom signed this.

Yeah.

And who was the impetus for this bill? Is there a way that people are teasing out the funding cycle and the people who were behind this thing, or no?

Well, CHIRLA is the co-sponsor, and they received $80 million. The person who created this bill is the wife of the attorney general. Her name is Mia Bonta. Meanwhile, the attorney general is supposed to prosecute the fraud. Well, his wife is creating laws to make it harder for fraud to be prosecuted and to go after and expose it.

How did you start? Let’s take a step back, Nick, for the folks who don’t necessarily know the origin story. How did you stumble into this?

6. Nick Shirley Builds His Platform

When I was 15 years old, I started making YouTube videos—vlogs and pranks. As I got older, I got more interested in seeing what was actually happening in the world. But at that time, around 2020, you couldn’t make videos with the word “Trump” in the title. If you talked about politics or COVID, you might be demonetized, so you couldn’t make any money.

I ended up taking a 2-year break on a mission trip for our church and went to Santiago, Chile. I started learning about all these people who were fleeing Venezuela. They were going to Chile, and they were telling me about how people were going to the United States.

Then I got back to the United States. My mom was also keeping up to date with that. When I got back home, I went to the southern border and started interviewing people in Spanish, saying, “How did you guys come over here? What’s going on?”

I thought it was super sad that all these people were coming over, fleeing the country. Then I got this lady’s WhatsApp number. She was from Ecuador, and she said she had no money at the border. The next day, she texted me saying she was in New York City. I was like, “That’s super strange.”

For the past 2.5 years, I’ve been making a video every single week about something that’s happening here inside the United States. I went from 20,000 subscribers, with nobody knowing me, to creating one of the most-viewed videos ever in internet history, exposing the fraudsters in Minnesota.

And I only knew about that fraud because I had been making a video every single week from across the world.

What happens? Do whistleblowers reach out to you and say, “Hey, Nick, go over here. Go over there”?

Yes. I rely heavily upon the people in these states to let me know what’s going on. I’m pretty much—I made a joke and said I’m like a congressman for the entire United States who actually listens to the people.

But I don’t work for anybody.

What I really appreciate about what you’re doing is that man-on-the-street is a really challenging art form and journalistic format. It’s incredibly brave for you to go out there and put yourself at risk. You have, just to be clear, so people can appreciate this, no formal journalistic training. You have learned everything on your own, and you have funded it.

I think it’s important that we’re clear about this because people make allegations: “Oh, you’re a plant. Somebody’s funding you.” You’re funded by the people through your X.com account. You make tens of thousands of dollars a month, I think—maybe hundreds of thousands a year—just to sustain yourself.

Yeah. My whole goal was to make $300 a day in 2023. I thought I could do everything with $300 a day. I was like, “I’m going to be balling.” That’s $100,000 a year.

Then I started making more and more money. I posted this Minnesota fraud video. My mom literally filmed it. That’s my favorite thing. People are like, “Nick’s a Fed.” I’m like, “Would a Fed have his mom filming his YouTube videos when he’s 24 years old?”

Not a Fed thing to do.

Yeah, not a Fed thing to do. I think they could find somebody better if that was the case. But I was just 100% working for myself to show people what was actually happening, and I’ve created a lot of change.

The audience reaction is a little polarized, right? There are obviously people like us who are like—

You know, stealing is wrong.

Then there are obviously fraudsters who can be angry at you—

Very angry.

But then there are passive viewers who actually really dislike what you’re doing.

Yeah, I don’t understand.

How do you unpack that? Why is that reaction happening?

Ultimately, I know what I’m doing is right. If you’re defending a fraudster who opens up a learning center, I’m like, you might need to rethink something.

I can tell you what this is.

People say you’re racist.

I can tell you what’s happening here, Chamath. Having been a journalist and grown up with these people—

Oh, here we go.

No, no, it’s actually super important.

Jason lectures Nick.

It’s not a lecture. It’s an insight, and you’re lucky to hear it, so sit back.

What you represent to them is a threat because they came up and wanted to do what you’re doing. They were idealistic, these journalists, and they wanted to be brave enough to uncover these things. They’ve become captured and politicized, and they have picked a side. You haven’t.

That’s why they criticize you. The criticism they have of you is, “Oh, he wasn’t fact-checking here. He wasn’t thorough enough here.” Okay, fine. On the margins, you’re learning on the job. I’ve had conversations with you privately about little nuances of things that you need to tighten up.

None of that is important. What’s important is that you find fraud. You find actual, real fraud, and you put the people on camera and shame them. Then they get arrested, and you’re forcing the AGs in this country to face it.

It’s just you and your pure desire and energy to do it. That’s what journalists hate about you, because they could do it too, and they should be ashamed that they don’t. This was the job of 60 Minutes and Frontline, and they forgot how to do their job. You’re picking up the mantle of what Frontline and 60 Minutes used to be.

I agree. Give me some.

[Expletive], yeah. I die.

Are the AGs taking up the cases?

I’ll go expose it, and if they want to do something about it, I put all the information in the videos. One thing I have seen is that there actually has been change. They just found the 12 leaders in Minnesota today. Most of them fled the country, I believe, but they got the head person.

Oh, is that right? So give us the color, actually, about the daycares in Minnesota.

Yes. The daycares in Minnesota—the craziest thing was that I was just sitting in my room. I had just posted that video, and I had no idea it was going to be the biggest video ever. It got 4 billion views in 7 days, which was pretty insane.

I posted that video, and then there started to be riots and protests. People started lying to cover for the leaders. The politicians were incentivizing people to go out and riot because they knew ICE was there, but they could distract everyone by getting people out into the street to cover up for the fraud.

It didn’t really work, because Tim Walz dropped out of reelection. In Minnesota, the head person of the learning centers, who had received $4 million, tried to go to London on a one-way ticket. Then she got caught for daycare fraud. She was the head honcho of the learning centers. She got caught and busted.

The biggest autism bust of all time took place there as well, so I’ve been very productive.

So wait, did she get prosecuted?

Yes, and she pleaded guilty.

She pleaded guilty?

Yeah.

Oh, wow. And what’s the sentence?

I don’t know yet.

Okay. Maybe it hasn’t happened yet?

Yeah.

Did you see Bill Gurley’s presentation?

I watched a bit of it. It was kind of hard to hear back there.

There was a point he was making, which is that journalists seem to have become selective in the stories they’re chasing and the investigations they’re doing. There seems to be a reason for that—it’s this kind of politicized point. What’s your view? Have you met with journalists and talked with them? Have any of them reached out? Do you have a sense of what goes on and what motivates them to say things or do things one way and not the other way?

No one from the mainstream has reached out to me to say, “Hey, how are you doing this?” Instead, they investigate me and write hit pieces on me. I’m like, “Okay, good for you.”

Investigating the investigator. That shows you exactly how threatened they are by you.

Having known you for 1 year and watching the improvements in the crispness, you are going to be so dangerous when you have a modest amount of resources. I think what we really need to do is commit to making sure you have more funding. Right after we get off here, I’m going to subscribe, and I’m going to put in whatever—a couple thousand dollars a month—to support you. I think everybody here should.

You’re doing great work. You need to have some researchers on the team. You need to have some backup, and you need to have security, because what you’re doing is truly a threat to criminals.

No, I’ll take it.

What was that? What was it?

You were the son that Jason has always wanted.

No, no. I mean, I have 3 great daughters, but what you’re doing is why I got into journalism, which was the role of journalism. I think Bill Gurley pointed it out so well in his talk. There are still great investigative journalists out there; there are just not enough of them.

I think it’s fantastic that there’s a new generation doing this, and that you’re doing it.

There have been a few others who have emerged since you came out. The Minnesota piece was such a big inspiration, maybe, but it was also a beacon to a lot of people. They thought, “Oh, we can go do this like you did.” Are you seeing more of this? Do you think they’re being successful, and what do you think is changing?

Yeah, I think a lot of people are taking it up. They’re seeing that with X, if it wasn’t for Elon and X, none of this would have been possible.

For instance, I posted that video about the fraud on YouTube. It did well; it got a few million views. On X, it got 140 million views. The most important people in the world see it and are able to think, “Oh, we’re not doing our job. Let’s go do what needs to be done.”

I caught the government kind of red-handed on that, so they had to step in. But I do hope I’m motivating a lot of kids, especially my generation, to be less of a complainer and more of a doer.

People think of journalism as just showing what’s going on. You can actually create massive change inside the country in the areas where you live. That’s something I’ve seen with my journalism. I’m not just playing defense; I’m actually going out, showing people what’s going on. I’m not just leaving the story after it’s done. I’m continuing to follow through, because if it’s real corruption, it needs to be taken down.

7. The Next Fraud Investigations

What other people don’t realize, because you became famous from the Minnesota video, is that you had other stuff before where it wasn’t about chasing down corruption. You went into the favelas in Brazil, right? That was incredibly scary, and you’ve done a lot of this stuff. Are you still doing those sorts of things, or is everything now about government corruption?

I would love to continue to do those videos, and I will do more. These past 8 months—

Every morning, I'm waking up to something new about fraud and corruption, so I've kind of just been spearheading that. But I would like to get more into that stuff. I almost got kidnapped in the Brazilian favelas. I met up with the head of Comando Vermelho inside a favela in Rio de Janeiro, and literally, there were only a few things that could have happened with me and him in this broken-down shack at the top of the favela. I also nearly got taken hostage in Cuba. A 2-star communist general came down to try to figure out why I was in Cuba and why I was leaving early. That stuff's still super important. The fraud stuff's just kind of taken over my life recently, though.

What are the other big pockets of fraud that you're scratching at, that you think exist? The big honeypots that you're going to chase down and uncover?

Welfare fraud here inside the United States is just absolutely insane. All of it.

Can you explain that?

For instance, food stamps. There's a strip club in Portland, Oregon, where you can use your SNAP card. The government, especially under Biden, literally let the floodgates to fraud open. Tim Walz was celebrating and using the daycares in his debates against J.D. Vance, right?

So all these social-benefit programs have literally been looted, whether it be SNAP, daycares, adult daycares—you name it, hospices. All these things that have received government money are just full of fraud.

So now you're just trying to pull the thread and uncover as much of it as possible.

Yeah. And it's hard now because I have to have security. People literally want to kill me. I have to be super strategic. What's going to stop a fraudster from me knocking on his door, him realizing that his time's up, and just shooting me so the video doesn't get posted? That's stuff I think about when I go to bed. How do I go out and make these videos a bit differently?

Well, are there different ways that you can get the information you need to tell the story without actually having to confront the person in real time? People want to see the person get confronted.

What's so interesting is that, at the end of the day, you're still fighting the attention mechanism that you live under. Your incentive is to tell the truth, but there's a last point where your incentive is, “I must do something that will get views as well.”

Yeah. That's how all this stuff happens.

That's part of what 60 Minutes, as an example, does. It does undercover reporting and always has. If a subject would not come on 60 Minutes, they would go to their home and wait for them outside their office or home to confront them and ask those questions. They would tell them they were going to do it, so I think you're well within your rights to do that.

I think as you professionalize your operation—and it's incredibly brave what you're doing—you have to ask for a bit more support from the audience. Right now, you can do a $5 subscription, but you should also ask people to be charter supporters, at a $500 level or $1,000 level, like Substack might allow you to do.

I think you should be very aggressive in asking for more support, because we heard from Vice President J.D. Vance that 10% to 20% of our tax dollars are being wasted. If we support you to do this work, get a researcher, get an extra video editor—you just need about 3 or 4 people around you to support you, and this is really going to take off. If you have those 3 or 4 people, we're all going to save more money.

And we need to, as a country, get behind you and say that people who are stealing from the government should carry double the sentence, because you're stealing from actual society.

Right?

I don't care what country it is or what state it is, whether they're immigrants or Americans. You're stealing from the actual country that's giving you the protection of living in these United States. It is really sinister to steal from the country. It really is.

I'm really upset that you're faced with security issues, a lack of support, and criticism on the ticky-tacky things. Do not stop doing what you're doing.

Thank you very much. If we can stop fraud, we can literally save the country. That's something people don't understand. What's crazy is, it's not just fraud. I think the California high-speed rail project—anyone can look at that objectively and say, “That is the most insane thing on earth. Why are we doing this?” $240 billion to go from Fresno to Modesto at 3 times the price of an airplane ticket. None of it makes sense. Literally, none of it makes sense. And the guy got paid half a billion for no work.

It's a billionaire in Italy who got paid that money. I tracked him.

How much did he get paid?

Half a billion.

So the—

Say “half a billion.”

Did you watch the video?

Yeah. After I saw that video, Nick sent me that video, and then I tracked down who got paid that half billion. The ultimate owner is a billionaire in Italy.

I didn't know that.

The whole story, when you dig into this, is that this isn't fraud. It's legal.

Mhm.

It's a legal scheme. It's a legal scheme, and I think it falls under that idea of waste or some sort of corruption. But as far as the fraud stuff, anyone can get behind it. This is the stuff—

Unethical and illogical.

There's complacency, there's corruption, there's unaccountability, and these are the things that just trickled into this massive waterfall that we're drowning in right now. I think it's really important what you're doing, and on behalf of a lot of people, I really appreciate the mission you're on. You're an incredible person. We thank you for the work.

Thank you guys so much. Thanks for being—

No problem. I appreciate it.

Yeah. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Great job.

Thanks, Jason. Appreciate it.