Editor’s note: A comprehensive profile of Tim Walz has just been published by the Freedom Center’s vital resource, DiscovertheNetworks.org – an online encyclopedia of the Left and its networks. While a great deal has been written about Walz in the last few days on the Internet, the Freedom Center is confident in saying that this is by far the most comprehensive and informative profile of Walz that’s been published thus far. Frontpage is honored to share it with our readers below. Don’t miss it.

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Background

Timothy James Walz was born in West Point, Nebraska, on April 6, 1964. His mother was Darlene Rose Walz (née Reiman), and his father was James Frederick Walz (1929-1984), a high-school administrator. After joining the Army National Guard at the age of 17, Tim Walz graduated from high school in 1982 and then spent several years working in agriculture and factory jobs. In 1989 he earned a bachelor’s degree in social science education from Nebraska’s Chadron State College (CSC).[1]

Walz’s Ties to Communist China, Before & After Marriage

After completing his studies at CSC, Walz, through Harvard University’s WorldTeach program, worked for a year teaching American history and English to teenage students in China. Upon returning to the United States and taking a job as a teacher at an Alliance, Nebraska high school, Walz told the Nebraska National Guard’s newspaper: “Going there [to China] was one of the best things I’ve ever done.” In a similar spirit, he would later reflect upon his time in China by saying: “No matter how long I live, I will never be treated that well again.”

In Nebraska, Walz met and fell in love with a fellow instructor named Gwen Whipple. The couple eventually married in 1994 and spent their honeymoon in China.

In 1994 as well, the Walzes together established a small business called Educational Travel Adventures, Inc., which devoted its efforts chiefly to organizing educational trips to China for American high-school students. As Daniel Greenfield reports in FrontPage Magazine:

“Walz’s student trips to China were subsidized by the Chinese government. According to a newspaper article at the time, Walz had the idea while working in the Communist country and a ‘friend helped contact the authorities and funding came through from the government.’ The students on Walz’s trip[s] enjoyed a ‘special status’ that ‘let them go places other people can’t.’ The students would then be taken to a university [where they were taught] about the Chinese government. Walz however urged students to ‘downplay their America-ness.’”

Walz and his wife would also go on to make numerous trips to China as a couple, unaccompanied by any students, nearly every summer through 2003.

Walz’s ties to China further included a stint he served as a visiting Fellow of International Relations at the Macau Polytechnic University.

Drunk Driving Incident

In 1995, a Nebraska state trooper stopped the 31-year-old Walz for driving 96 mph in a 55 mph zone. AQrrested when he failed a sobriety test at the scene, Walz eventually pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of reckless driving.

Move to Minnesota

In 1996, Walz and his wife relocated to the latter’s home state of Minnesota, where Mr. Walz was hired as a geography teacher and football coach at Mankato West High School. In response to one student’s request, Walz in 1999 agreed to serve as the faculty sponsor of a newly formed gay-straight alliance on campus.[2]

Master’s Degree

In 2001, Walz earned a master’s degree at Minnesota State University.

Lying about How He Became a Democrat

In 2004, Walz volunteered to work for Democrat Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign against George W. Bush. At the time – and for many years thereafter – Walz falsely claimed that he had become a Kerry supporter not because of any preference he had for leftwing politics, but rather, as a result of a negative experience he had been forced to endure at a pro-Bush event which he attended with two of his students on August 5, 2004. Some time later, in a fawning, pro-Democrat piece that was published in the January/February 2006 issue of The Atlantic magazine, author Joshua Green laid out the narrative that Walz had already begun to espouse by that time. Wrote Green:

“Command Sergeant Major Tim Walz is a twenty-four-year veteran of the Army National Guard, now retired but [was] still on active duty when a visit from [incumbent] President George W. Bush shortly before the 2004 election coincided with Walz’s homecoming to Mankato, Minnesota. A high school teacher and football coach, he [Walz] had left to serve overseas in Operation Enduring Freedom.[3]  Southern Minnesota is home to a large Guard contingent that includes Walz’s unit, the First 125th Field Artillery Battalion, so the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are naturally a pressing local concern — particularly to high school students headed into the armed services.

“The president’s visit struck Walz as a teachable moment, and he and two students boarded a Bush campaign bus that took them to a quarry where the president was to speak. But after they had passed through a metal detector and their tickets and IDs were checked, they were denied admittance and ordered back onto the bus. One of the boys had a John Kerry sticker on his wallet.

“Indignant, Walz refused. ‘As a soldier, I told them I had a right to see my commander-in-chief,’ the normally jovial forty-one-year-old recently explained to a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party dinner in the small town of Albert Lea, Minnesota.

“His challenge prompted a KGB-style interrogation that was sadly characteristic of Bush campaign events. Do you support the president? Walz refused to answer. Do you oppose the president? Walz replied that it was no one’s business but his own…. Walz thought for a moment and asked the Bush staffers if they really wanted to arrest a command sergeant major who’d just returned from fighting the war on terrorism.

“They did not. Instead, Walz was told to behave himself and [was] permitted to attend the speech, albeit under heavy scrutiny. His students were not: they were sent home. Shortly after this, Walz retired from the Guard. Then he did something that until recently was highly unusual for a military man. He announced he was running for Congress—as a Democrat.”

But the chain of events described by Walz and memorialized by Joshua Green was entirely fictitious, as evidenced by photographs that later surfaced showing Walz displaying an “Enduring Freedom Veterans for Kerry” placard while participating in a pre-arranged protest against the August 5, 2004 Bush rally.

Charges of “Stolen Valor”

In 2005, Walz retired from the Army National Guard after 24 years of service,[4]  having achieved the rank of Master Sergeant, or E-8 (Eighth Enlisted Grade). But at that time – and for many years thereafter – Walz’s official website biography identified him as having attained the higher rank of Command Sergeant Major, or E-9. However, Walz held that more prestigious title only briefly before it was rescinded because of his failure to complete all the requirements upon which it was contingent. In a November 2, 2018 letter published in the West Central Tribune, two retired Army Command Sergeant Majors — Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr — explained the nature of Walz’s misrepresentation, writing:

“Tim Walz has embellished and selectively omitted facts and circumstances of his military career for years. […]

“On September 18th, 2001 Tim Walz reenlisted in the Minnesota Army National Guard for six years.

“In early 2003 he was selected to attend the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy. The non-resident course consists of two years of correspondence coursework, followed by a two-week resident phase at Fort Bliss, Texas. When a Senior Non-Commissioned Officer accepts enrollment in the course, they accept three stipulations. First, they will serve for two years after graduation from the academy, or promotion to Sergeant Major or Command Sergeant Major, whichever is later. Second, if they fail the course they may be separated from the military. Third, they will complete the course or be reduced to Master Sergeant without board action. […]

“In late summer of 2003, First Sergeant Walz deployed with the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion in support of Operation Enduring Freedom to Italy. The mission was to augment United States Air Force Europe Security Forces doing base security for six months. In no way were the units or Soldiers of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion replacing any units or military forces so they could deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.

“After the units return[ed] to Minnesota in the spring of 2004, he [Walz] was selected by high level Command Sergeants Major to serve in the position of the Command Sergeant Major of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion.

“On August 5th, 2004 he was photographed holding a sign at a protest outside a President Bush campaign rally in southern Minnesota.

“On September 17th, 2004 he was conditionally promoted to Command Sergeant Major. The conditions had been outlined to him when he was counseled and he signed the Statement of Agreement and Certification. If the conditions are not met, the promotion is null and void, like it never happened.

“In early 2005, a warning order was issued to the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, which included the position he was serving in, to prepare to be mobilized for active duty for a deployment to Iraq.

“On May 16th, 2005 he quit, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war. His excuse to other leaders was that he needed to retire in order to run for congress. Which is false, according to a Department of Defense Directive, he could have run and requested permission from the Secretary of Defense before entering active duty; as many reservists have. If he had retired normally and respectfully, you would think he would have ensured his retirement documents were correctly filled out and signed, and that he would have ensured he was reduced to Master Sergeant for dropping out of the academy. Instead he waited for the paperwork to catch up to him. His official retirement document states, SOLDIER NOT AVAILABLE FOR SIGNATURE.

“On September 10th, 2005, conditionally promoted Command Sergeant Major Walz was reduced to Master Sergeant. It took a while for the system to catch up to him as it was uncharted territory; literally no one quits in the position he was in, or drops out of the academy. Except him.

“In November of 2005, while the battalion trained for war at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, it received an offer from retired Master Sergeant Walz. He offered to fund raise for the battalions bus trip home over Christmas that year.

“The 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion was deployed for 22 months in 2006 – 2007. During this time, they were restricted by Army regulations and could not speak out against a candidate for office. In November 2006 he was elected to the House of Representatives. He claims to be the highest-ranking enlisted service member ever to serve in congress. Even though he was conditionally promoted to Command Sergeant Major less than eight months, quit before his obligations were met, and was reduced to Master Sergeant for retirement. Yes, he served at that rank, but was never qualified at that rank, and will receive retirement benefits at one rank below. You be the judge.

“On November 1st, 2006, Tom Hagen, Iraq War Veteran, wrote a letter to the editor of the Winona Daily News. Here are a couple of sentences from the letter: ‘But even more disturbing is the fact that Walz quickly retired after learning that his unit — southern Minnesota’s 1-125 FA Battalion — would be sent to Iraq. For Tim Walz to abandon his fellow soldiers and quit when they needed experienced leadership most is disheartening.’

“Here is part of Tim Walz’s response: ‘After completing 20 years of service in 2001, I re-enlisted to serve our country for an additional four years following Sept. 11 and retired the year before my battalion was deployed to Iraq in order to run for Congress.’

“According to his official Report of Separation and Record of Service, he re-enlisted for six years on September 18th, 2001. However, in his response he says that he re-enlisted for four years, conveniently retiring a year before his battalion was deployed to Iraq. Even if he had re-enlisted for four years following Sept.11, his retirement date would have been September 18th, 2005. Why then did he ‘retire’ on May 16th, 2005, before his supposed four-year enlistment was up? And he makes it sound like he ‘retired’ a year before his battalion deployed to Iraq; when in reality he knew when he ‘retired’ that the battalion would be deployed to Iraq.

“The bottom line in all of this is gut wrenching and sad to explain. When the nation called, he quit. He failed to complete the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy. He failed to serve for two years following completion of the academy, which he dropped out of. He failed to serve two years after the conditional promotion to Command Sergeant Major. He failed to fulfill the full six years of the enlistment he signed on September 18th, 2001. He failed his country. He failed his state. He failed the Minnesota Army National Guard, the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, and his fellow Soldiers. And he failed to lead by example. Shameful.”

Notwithstanding the foregoing facts as Behrends and Herr have presented them, Walz, during his 2006 campaign for Congress, referred to himself as “Command Sergeant Major.”

Behrends criticized Walz on subsequent occasions as well, such as when he said in September 2022: “The public needs to know how pathetic his [Walz’s] leadership was as a National Guardsman. He abandoned us. What the hell kind of leader does that? As soon as the shots were fired in Iraq, he turned and ran the other way and hung his hat up and quit. It’s stolen valor is really what it is. I don’t know of anybody else that’s done what he’s done.”

Additional False Military Claims

When Walz first ran for Congress in 2006, his initial campaign announcement identified him as “a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” a title widely understood to signify someone who had served on the ground in Afghanistan, or in the airspace above Afghanistan, post-9/11. But Walz had never done either of those things, having spent his time instead in Italy working “in support” of Operation Enduring Freedom, and in Norway working in support of NATO forces.

Eighteen years later, while campaigning as Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate in 2004, Walz, calling for “common sense” gun-control legislation, advocated a ban on the kind of weapons “that I carried in war.” But in fact, he had never seen active combat during his military service.

Trained as a Radical as He Enters Politics

While preparing in 2005 to launch his 2006 campaign as a Democrat candidate for Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District seat in the U.S. House, Walz attended Camp Wellstone, a “boot camp”-type project of Wellstone Action, the latter of which was a leftwing training organization named in memory of the late Democrat Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone (1944-2002). As The Jerusalem Post puts it, Camp Wellstone “was designed to teach aspiring leaders in Minnesota and beyond the basics of door-knocking and coalition-building in a few days.” Some of the notables who, at various times, served stints on Wellstone Action’s advisory committee included: Warren Beatty, Julian Bond, Heather Booth, Robert Borosage, Donna Brazile, Peter Edelman, Keith Ellison, Russell Feingold, Al Franken, Leo Gerard, Tom Harkin, Jonathan Kozol, John Lewis, Gerald McEntee, Walter Mondale, Frances Fox Piven, Robert Redford, Robert Reich, Mark Ritchie, Andrew Stern, Antonio Villaraigosa, and Peter Yarrow.

Elected to Congress with Socialist Support

Deceptively portraying himself as a moderate during his campaign, Walz won his 2006 race to represent Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, whose U.S. House seat had been held for the previous 12 years by a Republican. Walz would subsequently go on to win re-election five times, in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. A key supporter of his campaigns was the Council for a Livable World, an anti-nuclear organization founded in 1962 by the socialist activist and alleged Soviet agent, Leo Szilard.

Netroots Nation

At the 2011 Netroots Nation conference, Walz participated in a “Fight Back for Good Jobs” rally sponsored by the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA). Other notable Democrats in attendance included Van Jones, Sen. Ben Cardin, and Rep. Keith Ellison.

Supporting the Iran Nuclear Deal

In 2015, Rep. Walz voted in favor of the nuclear deal which the Obama–Biden administration — along with the governments of Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany — together finalized with Iran. The official name of the accord was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and its key elements included the following:

• Iran was permitted to keep and operate more than 5,000 nuclear centrifuges, machines necessary for enriching uranium to the degree necessary for the production of nuclear weapons.
• Iran received $150 billion in revenue from sanctions relief, even though Obama-Biden acknowledged that Iran would likely use some portion of that money to fund its military and terrorist activities.
• Iran was prohibited from purchasing weapons from other countries for five years, and from buying missile technology for eight years. But there were two enormously significant exceptions: Russia and China could continue to make weapons deals with Iran.
• Iran was given the discretion to block international inspectors from its military installations.
• Only inspectors from countries that had diplomatic relations with Iran would be given access to Iranian nuclear sites. Thus, there would be no American inspectors.
• Sanctions were lifted on critical parts of Iran’s military, including a previously existing travel ban against Qasem Suleimani, leader of the terrorist Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
• Iran was not required to renounce terrorism against the United States, as the Obama-Biden administration deemed such an expectation “unrealistic.”
• Iran was not required to affirm its “clear and unambiguous … recognition of Israel’s right to exist” — a requirement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pleaded for.
• Whatever restrictions were placed on Iran’s nuclear program, would expire — due to so-called “sunset clauses” — at various times over the ensuing 5 to 11 years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the JCPOA as a “bad mistake of historic proportions” that would enable Israel’s mortal enemy, Iran, to “receive a sure path to nuclear weapons” capable of incinerating the tiny Jewish state and all of its inhabitants in a single moment.

But U.S. Democrats were much more ebullient in their assessment of the deal:

• Vice President Joe Biden, dismissing the concerns of critics who warned that the sunset clauses for key parts of the agreement would “pave Iran’s path to a bomb,” stated that such naysayers simply “don’t get it, they’re wrong.”
• Senator Kamala Harris characterized the deal as “the best available option for blocking Iran from developing nuclear weapons capability and to avoid potentially disastrous military conflict in the Middle East.”
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the deal “a diplomatic masterpiece.”
• And Rep. Walz wrote that while “this deal is far from perfect,” he believed it to be “our best path forward.” Moreover, Walz would continue to vocally defend the agreement in subsequent years, and he criticized President Donald Trump when the latter eventually withdrew the U.S. from the accord in 2018.

Ties to Hamas-Linked CAIR

Walz has heaped praise upon the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim extremist group co-founded in 1994 by individuals affiliated with the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). The IAP, for its part, was a creation of senior Hamas operative Mousa Abu Marzook and functioned as Hamas’ public-relations and recruitment arm in the United States. Said Walz to a gathering of CAIR members in October 2017: “The years you have spent serving our community and defending civil liberties are an incredible accomplishment. Thank you for the wonderful work you do in Minnesota and across our great nation.”

On March 28, 2019, in the city of St. Paul, Walz spoke at a “Challenging Islamophobia” conference hosted by CAIR’s Minnesota chapter. In the course of his remarks, he proudly announced the formation of a new civil-rights office that would address the alleged prevalence of “Islamophobia” in Minnesota, which was home to more Somali Muslims than any other state in America. Photos taken at the conference showed Walz posing with Hatem Bazian, a prominent anti-Semitic scholar who: (a) has long defended Palestinian terrorist activities targeting Israel; (b) founded Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a campus group that organizes and sponsors anti-Israel events and campaigns more actively than any other student group in the nation; and (c) founded SJP’s parent group, American Muslims for Palestine, which promotes the Hamas-inspired Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and has been investigated for allegedly financing Islamic terrorism.

Governor of Minnesota

In 2018, Walz was elected as Minnesota’s 41st governor, defeating Republican Jeff Johnson by a margin of 53.8 percent to 42.4 percent.

Walz was later re-elected as governor in 2022, and in 2023 he became chair of the Democratic Governors Association.

Continuing Ties to Communist China

It is likely that Walz has spent more time in Communist China than any other major elected official in America. Indeed, during his 12-year tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives, he went back to China a number of times to meet with influential political figures there.

Between 2013 and 2018, Walz served first as the Vice Ranking Member, and then as the Ranking Member, of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. As FrontPage Magazine columnist Daniel Greenfield notes, Walz during those years “occasionally maintained credibility by expressing concern about human rights” while “remain[ing] comfortably enmeshed with promoting China’s agenda.”

When greeting a Chinese delegation to the United States in 2014, Walz said: “When we work together and when we collaborate together, there’s nothing we can’t solve.”

In 2015, Walz visited China and praised its infrastructure as well as the progress the nation was making on addressing the alleged crisis of climate change.

In 2015 as well, Walz was part of a congressional delegation led by Nancy Pelosi that traveled to China, Tibet, and Hong Kong. A November 14, 2015 press release issued by Pelosi’s office included such passages as the following:

• “We engaged in candid talks with the Secretary of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), Chen Quanguo; Vice Party Secretary of TAR, Baima Chilin; and Party Secretary of Lhasa, Qi Zhala regarding the importance of respecting Tibet’s autonomy, its ecology, and the human rights and religious freedom of its diverse people.”
• “In Beijing, the delegation met with the Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Li Keqiang; National People’s Congress Chairman, Zhang Dejiang; and National People’s Congress Vice Chairman, Zhang Ping.”
• “The delegation and Chinese officials discussed the importance of building upon President Obama and President Xi’s agreements on climate change, protection of cyber space and countering the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
• “The delegation reiterated the imperative of respect for religious freedom and expression in Tibet; autonomy and democracy in Hong Kong; and respect for human and women’s rights across China. The delegation also expressed specific concerns related to the recent arrest and detention of human rights lawyers and activists.”
• “At Peking University, the delegation participated in a climate change forum with students who shared their determination to address the climate crisis.”

Joining Pelosi and Walz in the 2015 delegation to Asia were U.S. House members Jim McGovern, Betty McCollum, Joyce Beatty, Alan Lowenthal, and Ted Lieu.

In 2016, Walz stated: “I’ve lived in China, and as I’ve said, I’ve been there about 30 times. I don’t fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship. I totally disagree.”

In a letter he wrote as governor of Minnesota, Walz boasted that his state “has promoted Minnesota’s connections with China and hosted numerous senior Chinese leaders for decades.”

In September 2019, Walz, having just returned from a trip to Asia, voiced his displeasure over President Trump’s ongoing trade war with China, where: (a) Trump had initially set tariffs and other trade barriers on China in an effort to force the latter to end its longstanding unfair trade practices, and (b) the Chinese government then took retaliatory measures. Asserting that Minnesota’s farmers desperately needed the Trump administration to forge a trade deal with China, Walz said: “There’s just no substitute for 1.6 billion consumers who are hungry to get our China trade negotiations normalized. There is not enough market in the rest of the world to absorb our capacity.”

Soon thereafter, the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association (USCPFA) invited Walz to speak at its October 2019 national convention in Minneapolis alongside a number of highly influential Communist figures. When promoting the event, the Association described Walz as “one of a select few members of the Legislative Branch with extensive, on-the-ground experience in the Middle Kingdom.”

• Though the USCPFA was now portraying itself as an alliance of ordinary citizens seeking to improve relations between the United States and China, its roots were as a Communist front organization. As Revolution magazine once put it: “Communists, members of the Revolutionary Union (and later the Revolutionary Communist Party) were instrumental in the formation of the earliest local Friendship Associations in 1971 and played a significant role in the creation of the national association and in the building of locals across the country.”
• Similarly, in his 2023 publication, Red Destinies, historian Colin B. Burke wrote that the USCPFA, “like the Party’s front organizations of the 1930s and 1940s,” “was advertised as a liberal, non-political organization supporting peace and cultural understanding. But in 1971, the founders had other missions: Advance the interests of Communist China and world communism.”

When Walz made his appearance at the USCPFA convention in 2019, his fellow speaker was Li Xiaolin, president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), which, as Daniel Greenfield notes, “leads a billion-dollar Chinese influence operation flagged by the U.S. State Department for ‘directly and malignly influencing’ American politicians.”

Ties to the Islamic Extremist Asad Zaman

While serving as governor of Minnesota between 2019 and 2024, Walz hosted Imam Asad Zaman, executive director of the Muslim American Society (MAS) of Minnesota, on at least five separate occasions. Moreover, the Walz administration gave $100,000 worth of grants to MAS’s national organization, which was founded in 1992 as the U.S. chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, the latter of which has been described by Islam expert Robert Spencer as “the parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda.” Some additional facts about Zaman:

• On his Facebook account, Zaman in 2014 shared a link to a blog post that characterized Jews as the perpetrators of “the real terrorism in Palestine.”
• In 2015, Zaman posted an online link to “The Greatest Story Never Told,” a video depicting Adolf Hitler as a misunderstood hero whom historians had unfairly maligned.
• In 2016, Zaman reposted a Hamas press release mourning the death of Motiur Rahman Nizami, a Bangladeshi political leader affiliated with Jamaat e-Islami , a terrorist entity aligning itself with extremist elements in al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other violent factions. Nizami himself was convicted of rape, murder, and leading an armed group that perpetrated torture and extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh’s 1971 war for independence.
• Just hours after Hamas terrorists had murdered some 1,200 Israelis in a series of coordinated terror attacks on October 7, 2023, Zaman posted a message on Facebook stating that he “stands in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli [retaliatory] attacks.” He also shared a picture of a Palestinian flag, in response to a post stating that “Palestine has the right to defend itself.”

Walz’s COVID Lockdown Restrictions

During the early weeks and months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Walz allowed nursing homes in Minnesota to admit COVID-positive patients; few other states in the nation permitted such admissions. Predictably, residents of Minnesota nursing homes who became infected with COVID therein, constituted 81.9 percent of all coronavirus-related deaths statewide – a figure higher than that of any other U.S. state. “According to data compiled by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF),” reported Breitbart.com, “Minnesota has the highest percent of COVID-19 deaths from nursing home patients of any of the 36 states that report that data. In fact, Minnesota’s 81.9 percent is 40 percent higher than the 41 percent average in those 36 states for COVID-19 deaths from nursing home patients.”

On May 13, 2020, Walz issued COVID-related lockdown restrictions that outlawed religious gatherings of more than 10 people in any one location. A week later, Minnesota’s six Catholic bishops as well as the diocesan administrator of the Diocese of Duluth together signed an open letter announcing that, in defiance of Walz’s order, public Masses would resume as of May 26. The letter stated that: (a) many people of faith “were disappointed in Governor Walz’s May 13 announcement that he would end the Stay-at-Home order to allow more commerce but prohibit religious gatherings of more than ten people”; (b) “an order that sweeps so broadly that it prohibits, for example, a gathering of 11 people in a Cathedral with a seating capacity of several thousand defies reason”; and (c) the governor’s order “does not address both the vital importance that faith plays in the lives of Americans, especially in this time of pandemic, and the fundamental religious freedom possessed by houses of worship that allows our country to thrive.”

On July 22, 2020, Walz announced a statewide mask order for Minnesotans, requiring all individuals to wear face-coverings in indoor public venues. “This is the quickest way to ending the COVID pandemic,” said Walz. “It is the surest way to getting us to the therapeutics and vaccines and with the least amount of impact on Minnesotans, and it is the absolute economic key to making sure that businesses are open and stay open.” This mask mandate would not end until May 2021, when, after the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggested that fully vaccinated people could now go without masks in most indoor and outdoor settings, the Minnesota executive council voted unanimously to lift the mandate.

On October 18, 2021, Walz announced the launch of his “Kids Deserve a Shot” initiative, a vaccine incentive program for young Minnesotans aged 12 to 17. The program: (a) offered $200 gift cards to people in that age group as a reward for getting vaccinated against COVID-19, and (b) pledged to award, via a lottery system, collegiate scholarships of up to $100,000 apiece to five additional young people.

Walz Injects Race into the COVID Pandemic

As the deadly COVID-19 pandemic continued to sweep across the United States, Governor Walz, who had a great deal of influence over the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and was personally authorized to appoint the department’s commissioner, used his clout to promote the use of racial preferences in MDH’s dispensation of highly coveted COVID therapeutics. In compliance with Walz’s wishes, for example, MDH instituted a policy that made monoclonal antibodies — a very effective coronavirus treatment that was in short supply and thus had to be rationed — more accessible for nonwhite people than for whites. Specifically, MDH devised a point system to help medical professionals determine which COVID-positive patients ought to qualify to receive the precious, relatively scarce antibodies. In that system — where 4 points were necessary to qualify someone as a highest-need COVID patient — 2 points were automatically allotted to anyone who could be classified as “BIPOC” — i.e., Black, Indigenous, or People Of Color. This meant that a person’s BIPOC status alone would earn him or her just as many points as the presence of cardiovascular disease, obesity, or diabetes — co-morbidities known to dramatically increase the likelihood of serious or fatal outcomes for COVID patients. Under this MDH scoring system, a healthy 25-year-old black person seeking monoclonal antibodies would be given preference, strictly because of racial considerations, over a 55-year-old white person with hypertension, or over a 64-year-old white person of relatively average health.

On January 12, 2022, the conservative legal-advocacy group America First Legal (AFL) sent MDH’s then-commissioner, Jan Malcolm, a letter threatening a lawsuit if the department did not remove racial considerations – which AFL described as “blatantly unconstitutional, immoral and racist” — from its scoring system. “The color of one’s skin,” the letter read, “is not a medical condition akin to hypertension, heart disease, or obesity, which are known to aggravate the risk of death or severe illness among those infected with COVID-19.” In response to AFL’s threat, MDH immediately removed race as a factor to be considered in the rationed dispensation of monoclonal antibodies.

Walz’s Response to the Death of George Floyd & the Ensuing Race Riots

The infamous death of George Floyd at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin occurred on Monday, May 25, 2020. During the next two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, Black Lives Matter-affiliated protests and riots in the city became increasingly numerous and violent, leaving the area looking like a devastated war zone. Minneapolis’ Democrat mayor, Jacob Frey, telephoned Walz on Wednesday to request that the governor deploy National Guard troops to help quell the chaos. But not until Thursday, May 28, did Walz sign an executive order activating the Minnesota National Guard. This was too little, too late, however. As of Thursday night, May 28, only 90 National Guard troops were on the ground in the Twin Cities — an insufficient number to combat the massive hordes of rioters and vandals. The violence, therefore, continued to grow more intense. Perhaps the most memorable scene that day was the burning down of the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct building, which occurred after Walz had instructed the police to give up the building to the rioters and arsonists, and to flee the scene. Meanwhile, Walz issued at least two separate statements indicating that he had completely failed to avert the massive crisis that was now engulfing the city:

• “This is the largest civilian deployment in Minnesota history that we have out there today. And quite candidly, right now, we do not have the numbers. We cannot arrest people when we’re trying to hold ground because of the sheer size, the dynamics, and the wanton violence that’s coming out there.”
• “I will take responsibility for underestimating the wanton destruction and the size of this crowd. We have deployed a force, that, I think … would have, in any other civilian police operation, worked. But the terrifying thing is to hear people who have seen this, and myself looking at this, it resembles more of a military operation at times now, as, especially, ringleaders moving from place to place.”

Walz finally mobilized the full Minnesota National Guard on Saturday, May 30. By Sunday, May 31, the violence in Minneapolis had largely abated.

During the course of the mayhem that was tearing Minneapolis apart, Walz issued a number of statements characterizing the destruction as an understandable response to America’s long legacy of racism against black people, and as a wake-up call to the nation at large. Some examples:

• “Minneapolis and St. Paul are on fire. The fire is still smoldering in our streets. The ashes are symbolic of decades and generations of pain, of anguish, unheard, much like we failed to hear George Floyd as he pleaded for his life, as the world watched, by people sworn to protect him, his community, our state. Philando Castile, silenced, unheard. So many other [nonwhite] friends, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, senselessly died in our street. Their voices went unheard, and now generations of pain is manifesting itself in front of the world — and the world is watching…. What the world has witnessed since the killing of George Floyd on Monday has been a visceral pain, a community trying to understand who we are and where we go from here.”
• “Watching this [police killings of unarmed blacks] happen across the United States. Watching another name be added [to the list of black people killed by police]. And for those of us who are old enough [to remember], to Rodney King, to Mike Brown, And unfortunately now we’ve added George Floyd.”
• “I want to be very clear and speak to that [black] community. The very tools [police and other law-enforcement personnel] that we need to use to get control, to make sure that buildings aren’t burned, and the rule of law collapses [doesn’t collapse], are those very institutional tools that have led to that [current] grief and pain. I understand clearly there is no trust [for the police] in many of our communities. And the differentiation between the Minneapolis Police Department that we witnessed losing trust of those they are there to serve, is very difficult for people to make for those [white people with political power] standing up here with me. I understand that. And I will not patronize you as a white man, without living those lived experiences, of how very difficult that is. But I’m asking you to help us. Help us use a humane way to get the streets to a place where we can restore the justice so that those that are expressing rage and anger and demanding justice are heard.”
• “People who are concerned about that police presence, of an overly armed camp in their neighborhoods that is not seen in communities where children of [white] people who look like me run to the police; others [nonwhites] have to run from [the police]. So I understand that that’s out there.”
• “The achievement gap for our communities of color is a shame on this state — that we continue to mire by talking about, but don’t repair it.”
• “We cannot have the looting and the recklessness that went on. We cannot have it, cuz we can’t function as a society. And I refuse to have it take away the attention of the stain that we need to be working on, [which] is what happened with those fundamental institutional racism [sic] that allows a [black] man to be held down [by a white police officer] in broad daylight.… These are things that have been brewing in this country for 400 years.”
• “It is time to rebuild. Rebuild the city, rebuild our justice system, and rebuild the relationship between law enforcement and those they’re charged to protect. George Floyd’s death should lead to justice and systemic change, not more death and destruction.”
• “And those people on the streets — many of whom were arrested for speaking a fundamental truth — that we must change, or we will be right back here again.”
• “Communities need to be heard. They’re frustrated. Not just out on the streets and say, ‘Why are you doing that?’  Because they’re not being heard. they’re demanding that these changes be made. They told us last year: ‘Change cash bail. Change how you do traffic stops.’  It didn’t happen, and look what we got.”

During a May 29, 2020 appearance on Fox News, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani argued that both Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey should resign their posts because they had utterly failed to protect their constituents:

“[The] first person who threw a brick would have been arrested. The second person who burned a car would have been arrested. The third person who tried to hurt somebody would have been arrested, and it would have been over. And the statement to them would be push it any further and try me, and you’re — you’re going to regret it. …

“Progressive Democrats are incapable of keeping their people safe because they have criminal family policies that are pathetic, that are dangerous, and now, we are seeing the results are only there, but watch the cities that start burning. They are all going to be run by so-called progressive, idiot Democrats who let criminals out of jail, who set bail for murderers and who encourage this kind of thing. …

“The governor should resign because he’s had four days to protect his people. He’s not doing it. This is about protecting people’s property and protecting people’s lives.”

Meanwhile, in a May 31, 2020 interview on SiriusXM, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie likewise excoriated Walz for his lack of leadership:

“When you’re governor of a state, you are the commander-in-chief of the National Guard in your state. That National Guard, as soon as that police killing occurred, they should have been prepositioned because you had to believe there was a significant risk of some real problems and civil unrest. The fact that the governor of Minnesota essentially did almost nothing for 48 hours — was barely visible in Minnesota, was not having the national guard prepositioned and ready to go — it is malpractice. And not only did it create destruction and mayhem in Minneapolis, but it really gave the permission slip to the rest of the country to act in the same way.”

On June 2, 2020, Walz’s Minnesota Department of Human Rights announced that it was launching an investigation into possible civil-rights violations by the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). “Silence is complicity,” said Walz. “Minnesotans can expect our administration to use every tool at our disposal to deconstruct generations of systemic racism in our state. As we move forward, we ask the community to watch what we do, not what we say. It is going to take action at all levels from the neighborhood on up, to get the change we need to see. This effort is only one of many steps to come in our effort to restore trust with those in the community who have been unseen and unheard for far too long.”

On June 9, 2020, Governor Walz issued a proclamation urging Minnesotans to honor the memory of George Floyd by marking the start of his 11:00 a.m. funeral service that morning with a period of silence lasting 8 minutes and 46 seconds – the length of time for which Officer Derek Chauvin had allegedly pressed his knee down upon Floyd’s neck. “The world watched in horror as George Floyd’s humanity was taken away from him,” read Walz’s proclamation. “We will not wake up one day and have the disease of systemic racism cured. We must do everything in our power to come together to deconstruct generations of systemic racism in our state so that every Minnesotan – Black, Indigenous, Brown, or White – can be safe and thrive.”

During an April 20, 2021 appearance on MSNBC’s The Last Word, Walz continued to call for sweeping changes not only to policing practices, but to the treatment of black Americans generally:

“It’s that societal change that makes it that we — I think a lot of Minnesotans … and the country, this sense of dread that you’ve been feeling, this sense of, we can’t have occupying large numbers of police on our streets all the time. That’s the feeling that black parents have when they send their kids to soccer practice. And I think maybe it’s starting to dawn on some folks that, unless this gets taken up now, we’re going to be right back here again. And I don’t think there’s anybody in this state or across the country [who] want to end back here again. And so, I am committed now. I think this gives us the momentum to move these things. I hope we see that in the United States Congress, to move some of the pieces of legislation that are there. But this is what has to happen, and just to be candid with you, we can’t be denying the right to vote to black communities when they’re saying, thank God we’re able to vote for somebody like Keith Ellison to be the attorney general.”

Failure to Monitor a Fraudulent COVID Relief Program That Robbed Millions of Taxpayer Dollars

In September 2022, the U.S. Justice Department charged a number of Somali immigrants in Minnesota with having misused a coronavirus relief program run by Feeding Our Future (FOF) – a nonprofit organization ostensibly designed to provide food for needy schoolchildren during the COVID-19 pandemic – as a vehicle for perpetrating the nation’s largest COVID-related fraud scheme. By vastly overstating the number of free meals they had served at some 50 locations across Minnesota, the perpetrators fraudulently collected at least $250 million in taxpayer funds. They then used that money to purchase things like jewlry, luxury automobiles, houses, and coastal resort properties abroad. When the fraudsters were eventually identified and tried in court, they attempted to bribe one of the jurors in exchange for a “not guilty” verdict.

When Walz subsequently claimed that his Department of Education had been forced by a court order to continue making payments to FOF, Ramsey County District Court Judge John Guthmann in 2022 approved the release of a statement making it crystal clear that Walz’s claim was “false.” Said the statement:

“On February 26, 2022, the Star Tribune reported on a federal investigation of FOF. The article included the following false statement: ‘In April 2021, Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann told the department it didn’t have the authority to stop payments and ordered the department to resume payments.’ Since February, that Star Tribune quote has been repeated or paraphrased on many occasions by many other media outlets. The same media sources reported that, in her April 4, 2022, testimony to the Minnesota Senate, the Commissioner of the Education stated that the MN Department of Education tried to stop payments to FOF, only to be ordered by Judge Guthmann to resume payments.

“That is false. Then, when federal indictments were announced this week, many new reports were published. On September 22, 2022, Governor Tim Walz told the media that the Minnesota Department of Education attempted to end payments to FOF because of possible fraud, but that Judge Guthmann ordered payments to continue in April 2021. That is also false.

“As the public court record and Judge Guthmann’s orders make plain, Judge Guthmann never issued an order requiring the MN Department of Education to resume food reimbursement payments to FOF.  The Department of Education voluntarily resumed payments and informed the court that FOF resolved the “serious deficiencies” that prompted it to suspend payments temporarily. All of the MN Department of Education food reimbursement payments to FOF were made voluntarily, without any court order.”

After Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor published a devastating June 2024 report that exposed the monstrous ineptitude of the state’s Department of Education, which was responsible for overseeing FOF’s activities, Walz was forced to publicly accept responsibility for his administration’s failure to identify the fraud and stop it.

Praising Joe Biden

In an August 2023 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Walz described President Joe Biden as “one of the most highly effective presidents we’ve ever seen.”

Contempt for Donald Trump

In a July 2024 appearance on MSNBC’s Inside, Walz asserted that former President Donald Trump was a “terrifying” a figure, and that the entire world would be at risk if he were to win the upcoming presidential election. “There are some scary things that Trump is planning to do,” said host Jen Psaki. “T’m not suggesting you are trying to back away from that, but tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that.”

Walz replied: “Yeah, he is terrifying. He’s going to strip reproductive rights. He is going to weaponize the federal government. He is going to put the world at risk by pulling it out of alliances.” “This guy [Trump] has done nothing,” Walz continued. “He’s accomplished nothing. He has never served in the military. He’s never been successful at business. He comes up and says, ‘Oh, I send the National Guard.’ Everyone knows that wasn’t true in Minneapolis. We watched George Floyd die on the streets, and it was a tough time. He is tweeting from his bunker to shoot people [rioters]. That is not leadership. That doesn’t solve anything. I think you take that away from him by stating the obvious, and people are doing that. You wouldn’t hang around this guy. It’s just too weird.”

Vice Presidential Candidate

On August 6, 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris, who had recently been named as the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, announced that she had chosen Walz to be her running mate for the 2024 election.

Walz’s Positions on Key Issues

Abortion

Walz believes that all women should have an unrestricted right to abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy – subsidized by taxpayers, in cases of economic hardship.

In October 2017, Rep. Walz voted against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36), legislation designed to prevent the performance of abortions 20 weeks after conception, at which time scientific evidence indicates the baby can feel pain.

On January 31, 2023, Governor Walz signed H.F. 1, or the Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act, a bill enshrining a woman’s “right” to sterilization and abortion without limits. The enactment of this statute made Minnesota the first U.S. state to codify abortion rights via legislative action since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. “Today,” said Walz, “we are delivering on our promise to put up a firewall against efforts to reverse reproductive freedom. No matter who sits on the Minnesota Supreme Court, this legislation will ensure Minnesotans have access to reproductive health care for generations to come. Here in Minnesota, your access to reproductive health care and your freedom to make your own health care decisions are preserved and protected.” By contrast, Cathy Blaeser, the co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL), condemned H.F. 1, saying:

• “The PRO Act means a right to abort any baby for any reason at any time up to birth. It means that the elective killing of a human being in utero is perfectly legal even in the third trimester of pregnancy, when the child can feel excruciating pain and could live outside the womb. It means that parents have no right to know when their teenage daughter has been taken to undergo an abortion.”
• “Gov. Walz’s absolutist abortion policy puts Minnesota in the company of just a small handful of countries around the world, including North Korea and China. It is extreme, inhumane, and harmful to women and children who deserve so much better.”
• “This law doesn’t just allow late abortion for medical emergencies or hard cases. It allows late abortion for any reason whatsoever, and it’s an open invitation to notorious late abortion practitioners to come to Minnesota to set up shop. Here in Minnesota, you don’t even need to be a doctor or have a licensed facility in order to perform abortions. The lack of guardrails to protect women and children is appalling.”

In March 2023, Walz was one of 14 Democrat governors who signed a letter pressuring the leaders of major U.S. pharmacies to make abortion pills (like mifepristone) widely available. “We write in light of recent media reports indicating that some major pharmacy retail companies, faced with political pressure, may be considering not dispensing critical abortion medication to millions of individuals,” the governors said. “We hope you will see this attempted interference in the private market for what it is: a threat to the rights of Americans to access basic healthcare.” In addition to Walz, the Democrat governors who signed this letter included: Gavin Newsom of California, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Janet Mills of Maine, Wes Moore of Maryland, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Kathy Hochul of New York, Tina Kotek of Oregon, Jay Inslee of Washington, and Tony Evers of Wisconsin.

In January 2024, CBS News reported that Governor Walz “says he is open to putting a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights on the November ballot.”

Affirmative Action

Walz believes that public and private employers alike should be legally required to implement affirmative-action hiring and promotion policies that give preference to nonwhites and women, as compensation for historical injustices.

Afghanistan Withdrawal of 2021

In July 2024, Governor Walz whitewashed the disastrous manner in which the Biden-Harris administration had withdrawn U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021. “[I]t was a messy situation,” said Walz, “the situation with the Taliban and the things that Donald Trump led [sic] up to it. Exiting a conflict is never going to be good. That situation was horrific. There were Minnesotans on the ground that were providing aid to that. I think the biggest thing was, is an understanding that the way that that was prosecuted, the way that we tried to bring stability, was simply going to be incredibly difficult…. So, look, the Afghan withdrawal was tragic, but it was a longstanding situation that rolled over many, many months and over both terms of presidents.”

Constitution: A “Living” Document

Walz has said: “I do believe the Constitution is a living document. I think Jefferson’s quote, about as mankind progressed and as technology progressed, the document was to progress with it, [unintelligible] how you deal with these things.”

Controversial Books in School Libraries & Classrooms

In 2023, parents in Minnesota organized to stop Call Me Max, a book about a transgender boy, from being read aloud to kindergarten children. Specifically, the parents expressed concerns that the story would raise doubts and anxieties about sexual identity in children too young to understand the concept. Deriding such parental efforts as “regressive,” Governor Walz on May 17, 2024 signed Senate Bill 3567, a state law barring parental groups from removing books or other materials from school libraries “based solely on the viewpoint, content, message, idea, or opinion conveyed.” The new law stipulated that all decisions regarding what materials to stock should be entrusted to “a licensed library media specialist, an individual with a master’s degree in library sciences or library and information sciences, or a professional librarian or person with extensive library collection management experience.”

When 3567 was first introduced in March 2024, Walz criticized Republican-led states for restricting students’ access to LGBTQ+ materials. “Those who have asked for book bans have never been on the right side of history,” he told Minnesota Public Radio at that time. “They have never been viewed as being the folks that were the heroes of freedom; they have never been viewed as the people that were looking out for others,” “Trying to tell someone else’s children that they can’t read The Hobbit, or whatever it might be, you’re in the wrong,” Walz added.

Crime

Walz believes that the death penalty should be abolished as “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Walz argues that the discretion of judges and juries should not be diminished by formulaic sentencing policies like “Three Strikes” laws.

In 2020, Governor Walz suggested that in order to give blacks and other nonwhite minorities a sense that the criminal-justice system is not entirely stacked against them, it would be necessary to either reform or end the cash bail syestem.

Drugs

Walz has long advocated for the legalization of recreational cannabis.

As a candidate for governor in 2017, Walz said the following about the prospect of legalizing marijuana for both medical and recreational uses: “We have an opportunity in Minnesota to replace the current failed policy with one that creates tax revenue, grows jobs, builds opportunities for Minnesotans, protects Minnesota kids, and trusts adults to make personal decisions based on their personal freedoms.”

In October 2018, Rep. Walz again called for the full legalization of both medical and recreational marijuana.

In 2022, Governor Walz called for the creation of a Cannabis Management Office to oversee the “safe and responsible legalization of cannabis for adult use in Minnesota.”

On May 30, 2023, Governor Walz signed House File 100 into law, thereby legalizing the recreational use of cannabis in his state.

Education

Walz believes that voucher programs designed to enable low-income parents to send their children to private schools rather than to failing public schools, constitute bad policy because they rob the public schools of vital resources.

In October 2015, Rep. Walz voted against the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act, which sought to allow eligible students in Washington, D.C.’s abysmal public schools to enroll in participating private schools.

In October 2018, Rep. Walz articulated his desire to provide 2 years of tuition-free education at Minnesota state colleges for all students hailing from families with annual incomes of $125,000 or less.

In May 2023, Governor Walz approved an education funding measure that authorized the use of state tax dollars to pay all college and university tuition costs for illegal aliens from families with annual incomes below $80,000. In most states, such benefits are typically reserved only for legal immigrants and American citizens.

Electoral College

Walz has said: “I do believe the Constitution is a living document. I think Jefferson’s quote, about as mankind progressed and as technology progressed, the document was to progress with it, [unintelligible] how you deal with these things. But I do think you have to be very careful about some of those core principles. It always seems to me, going back to the Senate and the filibuster, the Electoral College seems very undemocratic to me.”

Energy & Environment

In November 2006, Rep. Walz advocated “reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and the negative effects on our air, water and climate.”

In October 2018, Rep. Walz characterized climate change as a very real and urgent threat to humanity and the natural world.

In January 2022, Governor Walz called for an investment of $13.8 million of taxpayer funds in a statewide electric-vehicle charging infrastructure.

In June 2024, Governor Walz pledged that by the year 2040, Minnesota would be 100 percent reliant on wind, solar, and other sources of power favored by environmentalists – i.e., a carbon-free electrical grid. “We are going to see these projects get in the ground, we are going to see them create jobs, we are going to see them create energy independence for Minnesota, and at the same time we are doing our part to reduce carbon emissions,” he said. Moreover, Walz’s policy stipulated that by January 2025, all Minnesotans would be legally required to obtain at least one-fourth of their electricity from “green” sources. Minnesotans would also be barred from selling conventional power to other states, a prohibition that prompted neighboring states to charge that the policy was “constitutionally suspect” and represented “an improper attempt by Minnesota to export its wholly internal energy-policy decisions to its neighboring states in patent violation of those states’ rights and sovereignty.”

As of June 2024 as well, Minnesota had enacted no fewer than 132 policies and fiscal incentives that encouraged the use of green energy — more than any other U.S. state except California. Among those incentives, as National Review noted, were: “a state energy rebate, renewable-energy credits, property-tax exemptions, and an exemption from the 7 percent state sales tax” – all of which shifted many of the financial burdens associated with green energy onto the shoulders of Minnesota’s taxpayers.

Free Speech Restrictions

In a 2022 interview on Joy Reid’s MSNBC program The ReidOut, Governor Walz — referring to what he called the spread of “insidious” “misinformation” that could potentially threaten America’s government and way-of-life — stated that “there’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, especially around our democracy.”

In a subsequent commentary regarding Walz’s remark, The Post Millennial noted that such professed concerns about “misinformation” could be exploited as justifications for abuse-of-power and selective prosecution by the legal system:

“Douglass Mackey, a meme maker, was prosecuted for posting a joke about voting and how to vote. Mackey shared a meme that said people could text their vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. He was convicted of violating rights.

“Kristina Wong, also in 2016, posted a video instructing Trump voters to vote on the wrong day, the day after the election that year. She was not prosecuted, the assumption being that everyone knew she was joking around. When prosecuting Mackey, the Department of Justice could not find a single person who believed his post or thought they could vote for Hillary via text. He was sentenced to prison time anyway.”

Gender Pay Gap

In early 2009, Rep. Walz voted in favor of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (LLFPA), which amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and stipulated that the 180-day statute-of-limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit would be reset with each new paycheck that was allegedly affected by gender-based pay discrimination.

On April 14, 2015, Rep. Walz’s office issued a press release that said: “Walz Calls for Passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act on Equal Pay Day: Women in Minnesota Earn Only 80 Cents for Every Dollar Earned by Men.” The text of the release then continued as follows: “As we mark Equal Pay Day on April 14, Rep. Walz stated that more needs to be done to close the wage gap that still exists between women and men–including passage of the critical Paycheck Fairness Act. Equal Pay Day acknowledges that it took an additional three-plus months into 2015 for women’s wages to finally catch up to wages earned by men in 2014.”

Both the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act are founded on the premise that women are underpaid by American employers in comparison to men. But the notion of a gender pay gap is one of the most enduring falsehoods of our time. For one thing, equal-pay-for-equal-work has been explicitly mandated by U.S. law since 1963. And as the longtime employment lawyer Warren Farrell, who was a board member of the National Organization for Women from 1970-73, explained in his book Why Men Earn More, the 23-cent [per dollar] “pay gap” is neither a result of gender bias nor workplace discrimination. It can be explained entirely by the fact that women as a group tend to make certain very logical and legitimate employment-related choices which, while affording them a number of benefits that they value highly, tend to suppress incomes—for reasons that are also logical and legitimate. For example, women, as compared to men, are much more likely to seek employment in fields that:

• are non-technical or involve the social — as opposed to the physical — sciences;
• offer a high level of physical safety;
• involve work that is performed indoors as opposed to outdoors (where bad weather can make working conditions poor);
• feature a pleasant and socially dynamic working environment;
• are characterized by lower levels of emotional turbulence;
• offer desirable shifts or flexible working hours;
• require fewer working hours per week or fewer working days per year; and
• do not require long commutes or geographic relocation.

Such advantages come at a cost; they make certain fields more attractive and thus expand the pool of applicants to a point that, in some cases, exceeds the demand for services. This, in turn, exerts a downward pressure on salaries. Yet this trade-off is quite acceptable to many working women: Only 29% of women, versus 76% of men, report that their primary motivation for working is to “build wealth.” Research has shown repeatedly that women are more likely to pursue jobs that they perceive to be socially useful, while men, for various reasons, tend to give greater emphasis to money.

An even more significant cause of the gender pay gap is the fact that women tend to compile fewer years of uninterrupted service in their jobs than men. Indeed, women are far more likely to leave the workforce for extended periods in order to attend to family-related matters such as raising children. This is simply a life choice to forego some degree of financial reward in exchange for the emotional reward of being an at-home parent, whether full-time or part-time. During the course of their work lives, men accumulate an extra 5 to 9 years on the job as compared to their female counterparts, and each of those additional years translates to approximately 3 or 4 percent more in annual pay.

When all of the above variables are factored into the equation, the gender pay gap disappears entirely. That is, when men and women work at jobs where their titles, responsibilities, qualifications, and experience are equivalent, they are paid the same.

By no means is this a new phenomenon. In fact, even in the 1950s, the pay gap between men and never-married women — i.e., those women who were unlikely to have temporarily left the work force in order to raise children — was less than 2%. Never-married white women, meanwhile, actually earned 6% more than never-married white men.[5]

Guns & Second Amendment

For much of his time in Congress, Walz was a strong supporter of gun rights and he consistently received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA). That changed when he renounced the NRA in the wake of a February 14, 2018 mass shooting in which a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In a February 23, 2018 opinion piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Walz wrote:

“I’ve never been a member of the NRA, but I know many gun-owning Minnesotans still think of the organization as it was when I was growing up: as an advocate for sportsmen and women that held gun-safety classes. Today, though, it’s the biggest single obstacle to passing the most basic measures to prevent gun violence in America — including common-sense solutions that the majority of NRA members support.

“That’s why last fall I donated all the NRA campaign contributions I’ve ever received — $18,000 — to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund that helps the families of those injured or killed while serving our nation in uniform. I won’t accept NRA contributions for my campaign for governor. In fact, I expect the NRA to spend millions trying to defeat me.”

In the same piece, Walz articulated his support for “common sense reforms” like the implementation of “universal background checks”; “‘no fly, no buy’ legislation”; “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for research into gun violence”; and “an assault-weapons ban.” Walz also boasted that he had voted against “concealed-carry reciprocity,” and that he had co-sponsored a bill to ban so-called “bump stocks.”

In 2023, Governor Walz signed legislation that instituted universal background checks and red-flag laws in Minnesota. “I understand our rights as Americans,” he said prior to signing the bill, “… but I refuse to allow extremists to define what responsible gun ownership looks like and to make this about the 2nd Amendment. This is not about the 2nd Amendment, this is about the safety of our children and our community.”

During his first campaign appearance with Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris in August 2024, Walz pushed for a ban on AR-15 rifles and other firearms that Democrats characterize as “assault weapons.”[6]

Health Care

In November 2006, Rep. Walz voiced his support for a centralized, government-run, universal healthcare system.

In October 2018, Rep. Walz said, with a spirit of optimism, that a government-run, single-payer type healthcare system “is on Minnesota’s horizon.”

Walz believes that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is an excellent statute that can serve as a strategic stepping stone toward the eventual implementation of a government-run, single-payer healthcare system.

Immigration

Walz believes that legal restrictions on immigration are basically racist because they tend to prevent Hispanics and other nonwhites from entering the United States.

Walz claims that social services should be made available to all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status.

Walz argues that illegal aliens should be offered amnesty if they have been productive members of American society.

In November 2006, Rep. Walz voiced his support for providing illegal aliens with a “path to citizenship.”

In an October 2017 interview, Rep. Walz boasted that his office had “helped resettle countless people [illegal migrants] into this community.’”

In October 2018, Rep. Walz called for providing “DREAMers” — i.e., illegal migrants who first came to the U.S. as minors — with a path to citizenship.

In March 2023, Governor Walz signed into law a bill that would enable as many as 77,000 eligible illegal aliens to legally obtain driver’s licenses — thereby reversing a 20-year-old state law that required anyone seeking a driver’s license to be either a legal resident or an American citizen. Asserting that the new law would “make our communities safer for all Minnesotans,” Walz stated solemnly: “We look at our most vulnerable people and we see neighbors. And that’s why we’re giving undocumented Minnesotans the opportunity to get a driver’s license and live their lives with dignity.”

In May 2023, Governor Walz approved an education funding measure that authorized the use of state tax dollars to pay all college and university tuition costs for illegal aliens from families with annual incomes below $80,000. In most states, such benefits are typically reserved only for legal immigrants and American citizens.

On July 30, 2024, Governor Walz told CNN that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s pledge to finish the construction of a wall along America’s southern border was nothing more than a hollow talking point. Said Walz: “I always say, let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30-foot ladder factory. That’s not how you stop this [illegal migration]. You stop this [by] using electronics, you stop it [by] using more border control agents, and you stop it by having a legal system that allows for that tradition of allowing folks to come here, just like my relatives did to come here, be able to work and establish the American dream.”

Israel–Hamas War

At daybreak on October 7, 2023, the Gaza-based Islamic terror group Hamas — an organization candidly and explicitly dedicated, since the day of its inception, to the mass murder of Jews and the permanent annihilation of Israel — carried out a massive, multi-front, surprise attack against the Jewish state. The terrorists fired at least 5,000 rockets into southern and central Israel while a host of armed Hamas fighters simultaneously infiltrated the Israeli border in dozens of separate locations by land, sea, and air (with paragliders). The attack had been planned in conjunction with officers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, along with agents of the Iran-sponsored terrorist groups Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. All told, the official Israeli casualty toll was more than 1,200 dead (including at least 32 Americans) and 4,500 injured. The Hamas barbarians, in the course of their atrocities, paraded some of their victims’ mutilated corpses through the streets of Gaza, to the raucous cheers of bloodthirsty Palestinian crowds. Moreover, they took more than 250 Israelis hostage, including dozens who were American citizens, and moved them to the Gaza Strip, where some would be murdered in cold blood while others would be raped or otherwise violated while being held as bargaining chips for future negotiations with Israel. These barbaric Hamas attacks prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare, also on October 7, that Israel was officially “at war” with Hamas.

On October 20, 2023, Governor Walz wrote on social media: “The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas, and Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.” But Walz’s claim was untrue; indeed, Hamas was highly popular among the Palestinian people. As the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies reported in March 2024:

“Palestinian support for Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza remains high, according to a Palestinian poll released on March 20. That support has increased since the Iran-backed terrorist group attacked Israel on October 7. The poll, published by the Ramallah-based non-profit Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, also indicates that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his faction have grown even more unpopular since the war in Gaza started. […]

“According to the poll, only seven percent of Gazans blamed Hamas for their suffering. Seventy-one percent of all Palestinians supported Hamas’s decision to attack Israel on October 7 — up 14 points among Gazans and down 11 points among West Bank Palestinians compared to three months ago. Fifty-nine percent of all Palestinians thought Hamas should rule Gaza, and 70 percent were satisfied with the role Hamas has played during the war.

“Before October 7, Fatah would have defeated Hamas in a head-to-head vote of all Palestinians 26 to 22 percent. If elections were held today, Fatah would lose to Hamas 17 to 34 percent. […]

“Only 5 percent of Palestinians think Hamas’s massacre on October 7 constitutes a war crime.”

In the spring of 2024, when college and university student protest groups began portraying Israel’s military response to the Hamas atrocities of October 7 as excessive, Governor Walz, favoring a ceasefire, spoke out in support of the students. “This is a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “They [the protesters] have every right to be heard…. These folks are asking for a change in course, they’re asking for more pressure to be put on…. You can hold competing things: that Israel has the right to defend itself, and the atrocities of October 7 are unacceptable, but Palestinian civilians being caught in this … has got to end.”

Minimum Wage

In October 2018, Rep. Walz voiced his support for a $15-per-hour minimum wage in Minnesota.

Social Security

Walz believes that the Social Security system should remain entirely and permanently under federal control, with no movement whatsoever toward any degree of privatization.

Socialism

After Vice President Kamala Harris picked Governor Walz as her vice presidential running mate in 2024, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — the largest organization of socialists in the United States — cheered in a social-media post: “Harris choosing Walz as a running mate has shown the world that DSA and our allies on the left are a force that cannot be ignored.”

During a “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call in early August 2024, Governor Walz openly advocated for socialism. “Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values,” he said. “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”

On August 8, 2024, Daniel Pilla of National Review explained the fallacy in Walz’s suggestion that socialism and “neighborliness” resemble each other:

“Socialism is a forced economic system under which the government usurps total control of a nation’s means of production, distribution, and exchange (i.e., buying and selling). That is to say, all of the essential elements of economic activity are owned by the government and controlled by unelected bureaucrats. There is no free market in the production of goods or services, and no free choice by consumers as to what they will buy or not, or at what prices. Individuals are told by government agents where to work, how to work, and what they will be paid to work. In every real way, socialism imparts government-enforced slavery on the working class in that all freedom of choice is removed from one’s economic activities.

“Neighborliness is the antithesis of socialism. Neighborliness involves the voluntary cooperation of individuals freely helping one another without an expectation of economic benefit, solely for the purposes of making the world a better place (or at least one’s small corner of the world). … Voluntary action is the essential definition of neighborliness. By contrast, socialism is force.”

Transgender Issues

In a 2017 town hall that he conducted while he was a member of the U.S. House, Rep. Walz said he believed that children as young as 10 years of age could identify as members of the opposite sex. Regarding the formulation of policies designed to regulate the use of school bathrooms by such children, he stated: “These are children my son’s age, a fourth grader, a 10-year-old who, just wants to go to the bathroom … and their identity is male or female and they just go in that bathroom and use it.”

In a March 2023 executive order, Governor Walz’s administration opened the door to state-funded genital surgeries for minors when it removed, from Minnesota’s state healthcare policy, age restrictions on most transgender medical and surgical procedures.

Also in March 2023, Walz described conservative governors as “bullies,” for seeking to ban hormone treatments and radical surgeries for minors who claimed to be transgender.

In March 2023 as well, Governor Walz signed an executive order formally making his state a “refuge” for people seeking to avail themselves of “transgender” surgeries and drugs, and of doctors willing to perform and prescribe them. “Today, Minnesota joins other states and a growing number of municipalities that have acted in solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community,” the order declared. “We stand with this community by maintaining a refuge for those who seek and provide gender affirming health care services.” According to DoNoHarmMedicine.org, “gender affirming” care is “based on the dangerous premise that any child who has distress that he or she thinks is related to their sex should automatically be treated with social transition to the sex of their choice followed by hormonal interventions and then possibly surgery to remove healthy body parts,” while “underlying mental health problems are usually not addressed.”

Moreover, Walz’s March 2023 executive order: (a) directed all state agencies to protect, “to the fullest extent of their lawful authority,” anyone “providing, assisting, seeking, or obtaining” such interventions; (b) ordered various governmental departments to issue a “joint administrative bulletin” instructing health insurance companies to cover the costs of all drugs and procedures deemed “medically necessary” for transgender-related matters; (c) placed a moratorium on permitting the state to assist any investigation that could potentially result in doctors or parents facing legal or financial consequences for providing “gender-affirming care” to people afflicted with gender dysphoria; and (d) enacted a “protection against extradition,” which would authorize the governor to use “discretion to decline requests for the arrest or surrender” of anyone accused of violating another state’s restrictions against “transgender” procedures. The order also declared that “[n]o state agency will comply with a subpoena issued in another state seeking information about a person or person’s child who travels to this state for gender affirming health care services related to potential child protection matters or criminal charges against a parent, guardian, or provider for seeking, obtaining, or providing gender affirming health benefits.”

In April 2023, Governor Walz signed a bill that banned the practice of conversion therapy, which WebMD defines as “any emotional or physical therapy used to ‘cure’ or ‘repair’ a person’s attraction to the same sex, or their gender identity and expression.” The legislation signed by Walz: (a) barred any medical or mental healthcare practitioner from offering such therapy to minors or to “vulnerable” adults; (b) made it illegal for any entity to publicly advertise their ability to change a person’s sexual orientation or perceived gender identity; (c) outlawed the dissemination of advertising materials referring to transgenderism as “a mental disease, disorder or illness”; and (d) forbade insurance companies and healthcare plans from covering the costs of conversion therapy.

Also in April 2023, Governor Walz signed legislation protecting the right of all Minnesotans, including minors, to receive “gender-affirming care.” Further, this legislation barred state legal authorities from honoring any out-of-state subpoenas or arrest warrants seeking to bring civil or criminal actions against anyone who was wanted in another state for having helped a person gain access to abortion or gender-affirming care.

In late May 2023, Governor Walz signed into law an education finance bill requiring all school districts and charter schools in Minnesota to make available, free of charge, tampons and menstrual pads in all school bathrooms for students in grades 4 through 12, including boys’ bathrooms. The bill’s language stated that “the products must be available to all menstruating students.” Rep. Sandra Feist of Minnesota’s Democratic–Farmer–Labor (DFL) Party explained the need for this statute by saying that: (a) “not all students who menstruate are female”; (b) non-female menstruators “face a greater stigma and barrier to asking for these products”; and (c) “menstruators deserve equity at school.”

Walz believes that schoolteachers and administrators should not notify parents if their children suddenly begin to claim that they are, or may be, of another gender.

Unionization of the Workplace

In October 2018, Rep. Walz spoke against right-to-work legislation. According to Investopedia: “A right-to-work law gives workers the freedom to choose whether or not to join a labor union in the workplace. This law also makes it optional for employees in unionized workplaces to pay for union dues or other membership fees required for union representation, whether they are in the union or not.” –

Voting Rights

Walz claims that voter ID laws are racist and are designed to suppress voter turnout among nonwhite minorities.

In 2004, Governor Walz’s official website highlighted his support for:

• “restoring voting rights for over 55,000 formerly incarcerated people in Minnesota”
  (Note: such individuals overwhelmingly vote for Democrats)
• “establishing automatic voter registration”
  (The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky writes: “Mandatory voter registration [MVR], previously termed ‘universal’ registration, could … result in the registration of large numbers of ineligible voters as well as multiple or duplicate registrations of the same individuals. When combined with the accompanying proposal that states allow any individuals who are not automatically registered to register and vote on Election Day, MVR presents a sure formula for registration and voter fraud that could damage the integrity of elections.”)
• “creating a permanent absentee voting status”
  (In 2005, a landmark report by the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, known informally as the Carter-Baker Commission, advised all U.S. states that in order to help guarantee free and fair elections, they should minimize the use of mail-in ballots, which “remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”)
• “pre-registering 16- and 17-year-olds to vote”
  (A Heritage Foundation report says that “allow[ing] 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds to register, when combined with a ban on voter ID and restrictions on the ability to challenge the eligibility of a voter,… would effectively ensure that underage individuals could vote with impunity.”)

Footnotes:

1. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tim-Walz;  https://ballotpedia.org/Tim_Walz;  https://keywiki.org/Tim_Walz
2. Ibid.
3. “Operation Enduring Freedom” was the official name of the U.S. military action in Afghanistan that began on October 7, 2001 with targeted attacks against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces.
4. Walz had served in the Nebraska National Guard from 1981 to 1996, and in the Minnesota National Guard from 1996 to 2005.
5. https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/other/gender-pay-gap/ 
6. Data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation indicated that there were more than 28 million AR and AK-style rifles in circulation at that time.