Republicans are attacking Tim Walz’s response to the protests in Minneapolis in 2020, but at the time, then-President Donald Trump said he “completely” agreed with the Minnesota governor’s handling of the riots following the murder of George Floyd, weakening a key Republican attack line this week after Walz was nominated as Kamala Harris’ vice president for the 2024 election.
“I completely agree with the way he’s handled this over the last few days,” Trump said of Walz in a June 1, 2020, call in which he also described the Democratic governor as “a great guy.”
The call was led by Trump, who was joined by then-Attorney General Bill Barr, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and was attended by a number of governors, while protests across the country, some of which devolved into violent riots, were spreading after Floyd’s death on May 25.
Details of the call, in which Trump implored governors across the country to “dominate” protesters, were previously reported, and the CNN published the full transcript of the call on the day it occurred, in 2020.
It’s not uncommon for even the most bitter political rivals to offer tempered praise to one another after natural disasters or serious national crises — especially those that require cooperation between state and federal governments. Yet more than four years later, Trump’s praise for Tim Walz takes on new meaning as the Republican candidate and his allies try to remind Americans of that year’s national protests, associating Walz with images of burning Minneapolis and the damage subsequent ones.
“You have a large National Guard out there ready to come in and fight hard. I tell you, what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They came in and dominated. And it happened immediately,” Trump told governors. “Tim Walz. Again, I was very pleased with the last few days. Tim, you called big numbers and the big numbers knocked them down so fast it was like knocking down bowling pins.”
The call came a week after Floyd’s death. At the time and in the following years, Republicans publicly criticized Walz for allegedly delaying calling out the Minnesota National Guard.
Trump’s 2024 campaign, in responding to the CNN regarding the 2020 praise for Walz and the details of the call, stated that he was only complimentary to the Minnesota governor since, as of June 1, Walz “had already acted.” However, they argued that Trump was always frustrated that Walz didn’t take more action sooner.
Walz first activated the National Guard on May 28, three days after Floyd’s death, and the same day that protesters set fire to the exterior of a Minneapolis police station.
“The important thing here is the timing and context of these comments. He was praising a governor who finally, after days of madness, had done something. So it wasn’t in real time. It was after Walz finally did something about it,” a senior Trump campaign aide told CNN.
A second Trump aide reiterated the point, telling CNN that the call occurred “in the context of what President Trump encouraged many of these governors and local leaders to do, which was to finally stop or do something about these riots. It had been seven days, or however many days, that Minneapolis had been burning, and President Trump was essentially saying: finally, folks, finally, the burning and the looting and the rioting has stopped.”
Allies close to Trump echoed the aide’s sentiment, highlighting the panic among government officials at the time about how to contain the riots and the urgency of seeking support to stop the violence.
During the 2020 call, Walz also expressed some words of appreciation for the Trump administration’s response, thanking Esper for the “strategic guidance.” He also asked the Trump administration for help with communication about the role of National Guard troops.
But in the hours following Walz’s announcement as the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee on Monday, Republicans attacked his tenure as governor, with much of the criticism focusing on the timing of his decision to call up the National Guard. of State. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, told reporters earlier this week that Walz “allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in the summer of 2020.”
Walz “stood by and let Minneapolis burn,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote in X. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott echoed that charge. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton claimed that Walz “could have stopped” the riots “if he had wanted to,” while the Republican Party’s research arm accused Walz of fleeing “like a coward” as Minneapolis burned.
A spokesperson for Cotton’s Senate campaign said Walz “should have immediately sent in the National Guard, state police and restored order instead of letting violent criminals destroy a large portion of the city before being released from prison by Kamala Harris,” alluding to a tweet Harris posted in support of a bail fund in Minnesota.
“As Tim Walz admitted, his handling of the riots was an ‘absolute failure,’” Cotton’s spokesman said, referring to statements made by the governor about the city’s response to the riots. Spokespeople for Abbott and DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.
Even before Kamala chose Walz, Trump criticized the governor on the issue.
“Every voter in Minnesota needs to know that when the violent gangs of anarchists, looters and Marxists came to burn Minneapolis four years ago… Remember me? I couldn’t get your governor to act,” Trump told the audience at his rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, last month, before falsely claiming that he, not Walz, activated the National Guard in response to the riots.
“I sent the National Guard to save Minneapolis, while Kamala Harris lined up with the arsonists and rioters and raised money to free the criminals,” Trump said.
Walz, who activated the National Guard after peaceful protests had devolved into rioting, looting and violence, said in 2020 that he did so in response to requests from the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
During the June 2020 call, Trump said he directed Walz to call in the National Guard, before praising the way the officers performed.
“I said you have to use the National Guard,” Trump said, referring to Minneapolis. “They didn’t use it at first, then they used it, and I’ll tell you, it’s true, I don’t know what it was… those guys, on the third day, fourth day, they went through that situation like it was butter. They went straight through and there have been no more problems since.”
The governor has faced some bipartisan criticism over the timing of his order to activate the National Guard. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat who was facing scrutiny due to the chaos in his city, stated in August 2020 that he had verbally asked Walz on the night of May 27 to send the Guard, but that the governor hesitated. . Walz refuted Frey’s version at the time, saying that the request did not constitute an official request, which would have been made the following day. (Any tension between the two appears to have cooled.)
Some of the most notable episodes of violence in Minneapolis, including the looting and burning of a city police station, occurred on the night of May 28 – after Walz had already activated part of the Guard. Walz and Trump spoke on the same day. The governor activated the entire National Guard on May 30.
In the June 1 call with Walz and other governors, Trump seemed to acknowledge that he was pleased with how the State Guard responded to the protests: “Yesterday and the day before yesterday, compared to the first few days, it was just – I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump said. Walz replied: “Absolutely.”
“A lot of people don’t understand who the National Guard is and you need to go out there, from a public image and crisis management perspective, and make sure it’s not seen as an occupying force, but as your neighbors, teachers, business owners, stuff like that,” Walz said on the call.
Trump said he believed this was a good idea, although he added that he thought “people wouldn’t have cared about an occupying force.”
“I wish they had an occupying force there,” Trump added.
Later that day, federal police would force the removal of peaceful protesters from a park outside the White House so that Trump could cross the park and pose for a photo with a Bible outside St. John’s Church.
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