Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Tina Smith met with business owners affected by the looting and riots following the George Floyd protests on June 5, 2020, in Minneapolis. | Source: Star Tribune via Getty Images / Getty
Republican-led attempts to discredit Tim Walz’s handling of protests following the police murder of George Floyd have been firmly undermined after old audio confirmed Donald Trump praised Minnesota’s governor amid the social justice demonstrations.
A pro-Kamala Harris social media account unearthed the old audio and shared it on Wednesday as Republicans launched a disingenuous attack on Walz by claiming in part that he “let rioters burn Minneapolis.”
However, a 2020 phone call between Trump — who was president at the time — and Walz shows that Trump completely co-signed the way that Minnesota’s governor dealt with the protests.
“I totally agreed with the way he handled it the last couple of days,” Trump can be heard saying on the phone call about Walz calling in the National Guard. “I asked him to do that.”
Trump later says on the same call that he thinks Walz is “an excellent guy” and praises what his administration did in Minneapolis as being “incredible.”
Trump notably added: “I was very happy.”
Walz responded by commiserating with the protesters.
“Our city is grieving and in pain,” Walz said before noting that the “protesters are expressing outrage that is real.”
Walz acknowledged some “bad actors in this” before pointing out their “ legitimate anger” at watching the police unabashedly murder an unarmed Black man in broad daylight.
Listen below:
The glaring contradiction between the Republican machine claiming one thing and the actual, easily refutable facts of the matter is the latest evidence that the trump Campaign and its surrogates have been thrown into complete disarray after Harris picked Walz to be her running mate.
The unearthed audio came after repeated fearmongering partisan attacks on Walz in the aftermath of Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis.
House Majority Leader and Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise falsely claimed on X, formerly Twitter, that Walz “let rioters burn Minneapolis to the ground in 2020.”
House GOP Chair Elise Stefanik and New York Rep. lied that Walz “supported BLM rioters who torched Minneapolis to the ground.”
And Trump’s own running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, made a similarly false claim while invoking the topic of race during a speech in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
“You think the Black business leaders in Minneapolis are grateful — the working-class business leaders are grateful — that Tim Walz allowed rioters to burn down their business?” Vance disingenuously asked the audience.
The criticism of Walz isn’t only coming from Republicans.
On Tuesday night, political pundit Van Jones questioned whether Harris chose Walz because of “anti-Jewish bigots” in the Democratic Party who didn’t want her picking Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
That was an indirect reference to President Joe Biden’s administration’s response to the conflict in Gaza in which the U.S. has been funding and arming Israel.
On Wednesday night, pro-Palestinian protesters who interrupted Harris’ speech in Michigan showed that the issue is still a significant factor on the campaign trail.
After the protesters chanted, “Kamala, Kamala you can’t hide! We won’t vote for genocide,” Harris asked them to be quiet while she was speaking and suggested if they did not, her candidacy would end in failure.
“You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking,” Harris said.
SEE ALSO:
10 Reasons Kamala Harris Picked Tim Walz To Be Her Running Mate
