I have to admit that if it weren’t for my Captain Crumb Cruncher, I’d never have known who Ms. Rachel was. Sadly, I do. I’ve spent more than my share of time, while filling in for his parents, watching her alongside the captain during those moments when I needed a break, and only her squealy, hypnotic videos would do.
Well, that is until I got to know more about her. Once I did, no more Ms. Rachel—at least when I’m in charge of the remote. The good news is that I’ve been able to graduate the captain to more suitable and sophisticated children’s TV. For instance, last week I introduced him to opera in the form of The Rabbit of Seville, and I must say, it was a hit.
The sooner we leave Ms. Rachel in the dust the better. If you’re not familiar with her, lucky you, but there are some things you should know. She’s really, really big. People throw words around like “influencer” these days, but Ms. Rachel actually is one. With 20.2 million subscribers on YouTube, she has tremendous power to influence children.
How does she use that influence? Let’s start with the good, or at least the tolerable.
“Ms. Rachel” is the internet persona of Rachel Accurso, and according to her bio, she was a theater kid at a Maine high school and at the University of Southern Maine. Surprised? From there, she went on to earn master’s degrees in early childhood education and music education. This is the perfect resume for a kids’ TV personality, dontchathink?
She met her husband at a Unitarian church, and of course, he’s a Broadway music director. Rachel and Aron Accurso had their first child in 2018, and not long after that, concerned over her child’s speech delay, she decide to launch a YouTube channel.
She has told reporters over the years that after having difficulty finding media resources for her son, she decided to create one. Quite frankly, that’s the beauty of America and entrepreneurialism, right? Her YouTube channel has been wildly successful. In the process, she and her contrived squeaky voice, which would break a thousand wine glasses, have become famous. I mean, she's nails-on-a-chalkboard grating. But still, who says you can’t have it all? Fame, money, family—the whole bit.
Ms. Rachel wears blue jean overalls, a simple T-shirt underneath, and always wears one of the most fixed, plastered-on smiles you’re likely to find no matter how far or deep you look through children’s media. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Once you create a brand like hers, it has to be consistent, and it has to create the feeling you want it to create in the same way every time.
She’s able to do that, and I can tell you that as hard as it is to get and keep an older baby’s and toddler’s attention, she’s able to break through the screens of those oversized TVs that stream her content and make a connection.
In the time I’ve spent watching her work, I’ve often wondered what the psychology is behind the ubiquitous high-pitched, squealy voices. In Ms. Rachel's case, I've also wondered how old a kid needs to get before he realizes her serial killer smile isn't genuine.
Mister Rogers, whom I also watched quite a bit with my own kids when they were young, was more my speed. The man you saw on that screen wasn’t a persona. He wasn’t faking it. That was him. I can personally attest to this. He wasn’t noisy, loud, or in your face. He didn’t look like he chugged three Red Bulls right before going on camera. But Ms. Rachel does.
Something Fred Rogers was careful not to do was use his brand carelessly. He knew the power he had, and he wielded it gently, carefully, and in keeping with his core Christian beliefs. He was an ordained minister, and he saw his work as a ministry.
Fred Rogers was the epitome of someone who knew his lane and stayed in it, and he was clear on why he did so. He was there for the well-being of the kids as a minister and as an educator. He decided his role was not to be political, partisan, or an activist. He certainly was no agitator. And he’s still respected to this day.
As for Ms. Rachel, I was tempted right here to launch into a rant on the Unitarian Church in order to draw a distinction between Fred Rogers and Rachel Accurso, but I resisted that temptation in the interest of keeping this post on topic.
That topic is Accurso’s decision to show up outside of a DHS facility in New Jersy, in full costume in the persona of Ms. Rachel, to agitate in favor of people who’ve broken federal law and now face deportation.
Ms Rachel is outside Delaney Hall DHS center in NJ singing about knocking down walls and freeing criminal illegal aliens.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 10, 2026
Parents, keep your kids away! pic.twitter.com/MswGteLXM7
To be sure, this was a made-for-TV-news event. Accurso made the appearance outside of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Delaney Hall in New Jersey. That’s been ground zero for the most recent waves of highly publicized assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by Antifa and other violent radical leftist mobs. These are the groups Ms. Rachel has aligned with.
The purpose for her appearance is to put a happy face on the otherwise gutturally ugly anarchist attacks on law enforcement officers just trying to enforce federal immigration law.
The PR strategists behind this no doubt saw it as a way to frame it all as, “Hey, if someone like Ms. Rachel is siding against ICE, it must be bad.”
True to character, in the videos I’ve seen, Accurso has done her best imitation of Saint Mother Teresa to try to draw a stark contrast between herself and what the legacy media portrays as thuggish ICE officers. Everybody knows their part and their role, and they play it.
The cover story for the celebrity appearance of Ms. Rachel was, as Fox News put it, “to visit families she said had been ‘terrorized’ by immigration enforcement.
At the press photo op, Accurso said, "How is ripping this family apart and taking him (one of the illegals slated to be deported) from his children, one with severe special needs, OK?...I spoke with many traumatized kids who are scared to sleep at night. Why are we terrorizing children?"
Well, Ms. Rachel, the uncomfortable answer begins with the letter “I,” which is the first letter in the word “illegal.” As in he broke federal law to enter America, and for the first time in years, the federal government is getting serious about protecting Americans and taxpayers and sending illegals back to their actual countries. They do have a home where they can unite with their families and be safe. It’s just not here.
In the Fox News story on the Ms. Rachel PR stunt, a DHS spokesperson provided the perfect counterweight.
Fox News reported, “A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson strongly pushed back on those claims…saying that critics of immigration enforcement have ignored children exploited by smugglers and sex traffickers who crossed the border under the Biden administration.”
Fox News added that the DHS spokesperson killed the whole “family separation” narrative, stating, "ICE does not separate families. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates."
What Accurso may not know, or may not want to know, is that DHS has been working to put an end to the exploitation of 450,000 unaccompanied children who wound up in America under the Biden administration. Many have been unaccounted for since they arrived in the land of the free. In other words, we don’t know if they continue to be trafficked or how they are being treated.
Don’t look for Ms. Rachel to sing a song about that. The people she so actively supports have been responsible for so much of the chaos and deplorable treatment of illegals and those trafficked kids.
This isn’t the first episode of Accurso getting political. My colleague Michael Cantrell reported in March how Accurso added an anti-ICE theme to her pre-existing campaign for “Hamas-led Palestine over Israel.”
Times have changed. Mister Rogers is dead. This generation of babies and toddlers get their ABCs from grown-up theater kids who sound like they suck on helium balloons before they talk into microphones. Nothing is real. It’s all fake, except for the leftist part. And as with anything the left gets involved with, it’s all about power. Getting it and keeping it.
People like Rachel Accurso are just good leftist soldiers waging war in the battle over your kids’ minds to pave the way for leftist control of America. Accurso may have started as an educator, but now she's nothing more than another leftist agitator.
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