The hosts of the Fox News morning show \u201cFox & Friends\u201d welcomed Donald Trump by phone on Wednesday morning, offering the former president the opportunity to opine on his candidacy and his opponent\u2019s newly named vice-presidential pick without pushback.<\/p>\n
They wasted no time, prompting Trump at the outset to offer his opinion of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). Trump\u2019s response, though, was perhaps not what they expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know him a little bit,\u201d Trump began, before embarking on a riff about how he\u2019d helped Walz at one point in his presidency.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the riots,\u201d Trump said, Walz\u2019s house \u201cwas surrounded by people that were waving an American flag \u2014 doesn\u2019t sound like very bad people \u2014 and he called me and he was very concerned, very, very concerned that it was going to get out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walz, Trump said, asked Trump to \u201cput out the word that I\u2019m a good person.\u201d Trump did, he continued, telling the world that Walz is a good person. \u201cEverybody put down their flags and took their flags with them,\u201d Trump said. \u201cBut they took their American flags and their MAGA flags and they left.\u201d Walz then called back to thank the president, Trump continued, which was the \u201conly thing I ever had to do with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hosts didn\u2019t press him on the anecdote, eager to declare that Walz\u2019s nomination was \u201ca gift for you.\u201d But there are certainly elements of the story that don\u2019t make much sense.<\/p>\n
For example, one would assume that when Trump is referring to \u201cthe riots,\u201d he means the looting and vandalism that spun out of protests following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020. But why would there be people with MAGA \u2014 \u201cMake America great again\u201d \u2014 flags protesting outside the Minnesota governor\u2019s mansion at that point? Why would people protesting the killing of George Floyd be willing to disperse at Trump\u2019s request but not Walz\u2019s?<\/p>\n
Beyond that, it\u2019s not clear how Trump purportedly \u201cput out the word\u201d about how Walz was a good guy. The only public mention of Walz by Trump in that time period was an infamous post on Twitter that didn\u2019t offer an opinion of the governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way,\u201d Trump wrote on May 29, 2020. \u201cAny difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!\u201d<\/p>\n
A few hours later, new light was shed on the subject, courtesy of Politico. Two of its reporters interviewed Walz in 2021 as part of a book project, releasing more of the interview following his selection to join Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019s campaign. What Walz described then was not that he sought Trump\u2019s assistance with protesters during the unrest that followed Floyd\u2019s killing but, instead, that Trump had encouraged hostile protesters at two other points in that time period.<\/p>\n
The first was in April 2020, after Trump had briefly endorsed an effort to curtail the spread of the coronavirus by limiting person-to-person contact. He quickly backtracked from that endorsement, pivoting to criticisms of state leaders who weren\u2019t quickly lifting those restrictions.<\/p>\n
LIBERATE MINNESOTA!<\/p>\n
\u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The morning of April 17, Trump posted \u201cLIBERATE MINNESOTA!\u201d on Twitter. At about the same time, a planned protest at the governor\u2019s mansion got underway.<\/p>\n
Walz told Politico\u2019s Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin that the post \u201cbrought armed people to my house,\u201d including members of the Proud Boys. Given the timeline, it\u2019s not clear if the post drew armed protesters or if it simply encouraged them. Some of those involved offered their appreciation to Trump for his support.<\/p>\n
At some point, Walz, who the day prior had been part of a joint announcement about scaling back restrictions, reached out to Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called the White House, and left a message and I asked, kindly if not the president, someone could call,\u201d Walz said. \u201cAnd he tweeted two words: \u2018Liberate Minnesota.\u2019 \u2018 At another point in the interview, Walz suggested that the call came after the social-media post, that he called to ask for clarification about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said \u2018What does \u201cLiberate Minnesota\u201d mean?,\u2019 \u2018 Walz said. \u2018 \u2018What do you want me to do differently? What do you think that I\u2019m doing or not doing?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
He says he didn\u2019t get an answer.<\/p>\n
There was another point at which Trump supporters surrounded the governor\u2019s mansion: the day of the riot in Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201c[O]n Jan. 6, when the Capitol riot happened we had that too, and there were, of course, legislators as well as some of these elements that believe the election was stolen, marched on the residence, and that\u2019s the one where it got way out of hand,\u201d Walz said. \u201cThe state patrol had to evacuate my 14-year-old, find the dog, take him to an off-site location.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Walz requested that Trump call off his supporters on that day, he didn\u2019t mention it. Trump did not make a request that his supporters in Minnesota stand down; he was slow to even call for his supporters on Capitol Hill to do so.<\/p>\n
There were times during the protests over Floyd\u2019s killing that Walz said his security was increased but, again, it\u2019s clear from Trump\u2019s comments that he\u2019s talking about a protest driven by his supporters, like the ones in April 2020 or January 2021. It seems clear, too, that Trump\u2019s claim to have served as Walz\u2019s savior contradicts the available evidence.<\/p>\n
Assuming he\u2019s referring to the April events, the call from Walz (which the governor says didn\u2019t include a conversation) was not, as Trump said, the \u201conly thing I ever had to do with him.\u201d The two worked together at the time of the Floyd protests. In fact, Trump in one call released publicly said to Walz of the violence that \u201cI don\u2019t blame you, I blame the mayor\u201d of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s as close to \u201cWalz is a good person\u201d as Trump is likely to get any time soon.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The hosts of the Fox News morning show \u201cFox & Friends\u201d welcomed Donald Trump by phone on Wednesday morning, offering the former president the opportunity to opine on his candidacy and his opponent\u2019s newly named vice-presidential pick without pushback. They wasted no time, prompting Trump at the outset to offer his opinion of Minnesota Gov. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}