Reporter Threatens to Enter 'Conservative-Backed' Day Cares to Film Children in Bizarre Response to Minnesota Fraud Scandal
There’s a difference between aggressive journalism and something that just sets off every normal alarm bell — and “reporter” Andrew Mercado’s latest outburst lands squarely in the latter category.
In a moment that seems less like reporting and more like ideological performance art, the self-styled YouTube journalist managed to turn a serious discussion about fraud into something unsettling, juvenile, and wildly inappropriate.
At a time when Minnesota is grappling with documented, large-scale fraud cases — many involving government-funded child care centers that appear to be collecting millions but not caring for actual kids — one would expect even partisan commentators to at least pretend to engage the substance of the issue.
Instead, Mercado opted for provocation, fantasizing about storming day care centers with cameras and “demanding to see their children,” as if that bears any resemblance to what investigators or journalists are actually doing.
The post reads less like a good-faith argument and more like a man so consumed by partisan reflex that he’s lost the ability to distinguish oversight from intimidation, and accountability from voyeurism.
Before unpacking why this framing is both wrong and revealing, it’s worth looking at Mercado’s words in full — because they say far more about his worldview than he likely intended:
I’m going to bring a camera team with me into conservative-backed daycare centers in Minnesota and demand to see their children. I want to uncover ALL of the fraud in our state from daycare and childcare centers. The reaction from MAGA on multiple grown men going into childcare…
— Andrew Mercado (@Guru_Merc) December 28, 2025
“I’m going to bring a camera team with me into conservative-backed daycare centers in Minnesota and demand to see their children,” Mercado posted to X on Sunday. “I want to uncover ALL of the fraud in our state from daycare and childcare centers.
“The reaction from MAGA on multiple grown men going into childcare centers without permission and cameras filming have said it’s ok. For journalism. For Charlie.”
How else can you describe Mercado’s screed as anything other than “creepy”? There is no universe in which “demanding to see children” inside a day care facility is a normal or defensible response to allegations of financial fraud.
Someone check this guy’s browser history
— someguy (@Yoyoyoyoy42) December 28, 2025
“Someone check this guy’s browser history,” one biting response to Mercado read.
Conservatives aren’t asking to peer into classrooms or interrogate kids — they’re asking how taxpayer money was siphoned, who signed off on it, and why oversight failed so spectacularly.
Congrats. You did it. pic.twitter.com/Zk5HmYTiMp
— William Wolfe 🇺🇸 (@WilliamWolfe) December 28, 2025
Trying to blur that line isn’t just dishonest, it’s grotesque. Mercado’s framing turns legitimate scrutiny of books, contracts, and administrators into something lurid and disturbing, as if investigating fraud somehow requires invading children’s spaces.
Additionally, Mercado’s argument collapses the moment you flip the politics. If credible evidence emerged that “conservative-backed daycares” (whatever that even means) were ripping off taxpayers, conservatives would be the first to demand investigations, prosecutions, and reforms. Accountability isn’t conditional on ideology — it’s the point.
The fact that Mercado can’t even imagine that response tells you everything. In his worldview, fraud only matters if the “right” people are accused, and scrutiny itself becomes suspect if it threatens a protected political constituency. This is, plain and simple, unhinged tribalism.
Lastly, I’d be remiss not to point out that the “For Charlie [Kirk]” line is the tell — the moment where any pretense of seriousness evaporates. Invoking a dead man’s name to sneer at political opponents isn’t edgy or clever; it’s indecent.
More than anything else, it underscores how detached parts of the left have become from basic human decency. When mockery replaces argument and tragedy is repurposed as a punchline, it’s no longer about defending the vulnerable or exposing wrongdoing. It’s about scoring points, no matter how ugly the method.
And make no mistake, Mercado’s Sunday diatribe is the definition of “ugly.”
It’s ugly in spirit, ugly in intent, and plainly ugly for anyone not completely consumed by ideological partisanship.
If this is what constitutes “journalism” on the left these days, it’s little wonder that trust in that field is as disastrously low as it is in 2025.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
