Some takedowns are worth watching, and once in a while, you see a really good one. Last January, we were treated to one such in a House of Representatives Oversight Committee hearing, when Rep. Brandon Gill (TX-26) was questioning Democratic witness Brendan Ballou during hearings on the Minnesota welfare/fraud issues. What was said then was, well, revealing. Watch:
Brandon Gill: "If Somalians are the backbone of Minnesota, why are nearly 80% of them still on welfare after being here for 10+ years?" pic.twitter.com/80u0SmxlHs
— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) July 19, 2026
Here's how that takedown went:
Rep. Gill: Mr. Ballou, thank you for being here. Let me ask you, does large-scale Somali immigration make Minnesota stronger or weaker?
Brendan Ballou: Certainly stronger.
Rep. Gill: Certainly stronger. Do you know what percentage of Somali-headed households in Minnesota are on food stamps?
Brendan Ballou: No.
Rep. Gill: 54 percent. Do you know what that number is for native Minnesota-headed households?
Brendan Ballou: Well, to be clear, a majority of the...
Rep. Gill: It's seven percent. There's a big difference between 54 percent and seven percent. Is there not?
Brendan Ballou: Excuse me, sir, could I please answer the question?
Rep. Gill: Let me move on, we've got a lot of questions here. What percentage of Somali-headed households in Minnesota are on Medicaid?
Brendan Ballou: I don't know.
Rep. Gill: It's 73 percent.
It goes on in that vein for some time. Why does this matter now, six months later? Because things in this issue haven't changed. Oh, yes, the FBI and local enforcement have cleaned up some of the fraud, and that work continues. But what about the welfare issue?
Brendan Ballou, later in the clip, makes the point that the majority of the Somalis living in Minnesota were born in the United States. Rep. Gill makes the point that half of them don't speak English. This is a catastrophic lack of even any attempt to assimilate to the United States. They aren't even trying. And, given our generous welfare systems, there's no reason why they should. If this isn't an argument for a ground-up, structural reform of our welfare system, beginning with denying it to immigrants, legal or illegal, then I can't imagine what might be.
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What's even more amazing, though, is the Democrat's witness, Brendan Ballou. This guy isn't some random activist. He was a special Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division from 2020 to 2025, primarily during the Biden administration. And yet, he somehow is able to parrot that leftist talking point about Somali immigrants somehow making Minnesota "stronger."
How? How does an immigrant population that is on public assistance, taking the taxpayers' money at several times the rate of the native population, make Minnesota stronger? How does an immigrant population, half of whom refuse to learn English, make Minnesota stronger? What, exactly, are these people contributing to make Minnesota a stronger state - or a better place to live, to work, and to raise a family?
This is cognitive dissonance that registers on the Richter scale. And until this problem is resolved, until people from anywhere in the world, Somalia or Sweden, can no longer come into the United States and use our welfare system as a hammock, the numbers Rep. Gill adroitly pointed out won't improve.
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