'Big issue': Analysts reveal Trump's true intentions behind focus on Minnesota fraud
President Donald Trump is not being honest about his intentions for focusing his attention on social services fraud committed in Minnesota.
The fraud cases gained renewed attention over the weekend after a right-wing influencer named Nick Shirley posted a video on X that claimed to find $110 million in child care fraud committed by Somalians in Minnesota. Trump and several MAGA voices have focused intently on the cases, using them to attack Trump's political foes like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat.
Former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci and British journalist Katty Kay discussed the story on a new episode of the podcast "The Rest is Politics US." They argued that Trump's true intentions for focusing on the story is to change the subject of the 2026 midterm from the economy to immigration.
"The step-back, the bigger picture is about welfare and fraud and government and trust in government and thrown into that [is] immigration, particularly Muslim immigrants, because these most Somali immigrants will be Muslim immigrants and you've got a kind of toxic mix there of things that will be brought up," Kay said. "I can imagine the Haitian immigrants and eating the dogs and the cats was brought up in the last election campaign. This is going to resurface in the midterms."
"That's the big issue for me," Scaramucci said. "If I look at the midterms coming up and giving people a a preview of this, it's going to be about presidential approval rating. It's going to be about jobs and inflation. It's going to be about the state of the economy."
Trump's approval rating has steadily fallen since he took office in January. According to The Economist, his approval rating stands at 39%, which represents a 17-point decline since the beginning of the year.
Trump's approval rating on the economy is also hovering in the mid-30s, according to polls.
A recent AP-NORC poll found that immigration is one of Trump's strongest issues, with a 49% approval rating.