Early activities Shirley started his
YouTube career as an amateur vlogger and prankster at age 16. Most of his pranks involved his high-school friends, while others included publicity stunts such as disrupting celebrity weddings. He also offered to sell some of his own recorded footage, including of the
January 6 attack, to media companies such as
CNN and
HuffPost.
Political videos , in September 2025. Shirley is commonly described as right-wing. His YouTube channel has over 1.1 million subscribers and more than 200 million total views. Shirley is best known for street interviews and direct questions. Shirley has described himself as an independent journalist. Republican legislators had provided information that appeared in the video; one Republican floor leader said they were "ready and willing to provide information ... including some of the information that ended up in that video". Shirley made multiple videos in support of then-presidential candidate
Donald Trump in the months preceding the
2024 U.S. presidential election. He paid a number of Hispanic men $20 each to hold pro-
Joe Biden and pro-immigration signs in front of the White House as part of a publicity stunt to support Trump. When asked by
Reuters whether he had exploited participants in the video, he said he "wanted to give the migrants an opportunity to voice their opinions". Also in 2024, Shirley released footage from inside the Salvadorian maximum-security prison
CECOT, which he praised. He has also amplified Trump's false claim
that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in
Springfield, Ohio. In October 2025, Shirley participated in a
White House roundtable discussion with Trump and other right-wing figures, such as
Andy Ngo and
Jack Posobiec, on topics including
antifa. Shirley claimed in the title of one of his videos that
Portland had "fallen" and antifa had "taken control".
ICE arrested several people selling watches on Canal Street in
Lower Manhattan after he made a video in which he called them "illegal scammers". In an interview with
Fox News, Shirley defended his videos, saying, "fraud is fraud—it doesn't matter if it's a Black person, white person, Asian person, Mexican... and we work too hard simply just to be paying taxes and enabling fraud to be happening."
Allegations of daycare and healthcare fraud in Minnesota On December 26, 2025, Shirley published a video, filmed on December 16, in which he alleged widespread fraud at Somali-run child care centers and healthcare companies in Minnesota. It received over 135 million views on X and 3 million on YouTube. As of December 2025, investigations by state officials have not found evidence of fraud at the sites Shirley visited. On February 19, day cares featured in the video sued the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families, alleging that the agency withheld funds and conducted investigations without evidence. After the video's release, the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security and
Federal Bureau of Investigation increased their presence in the state and federal funding for the childcare centers was frozen. Somali-owned businesses reported a surge in harassment and threats after the video came out.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement increased enforcement activity in Minnesota under an initiative known as
Operation Metro Surge. ==Media appearances==