KARE-TV: Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) said he is accountable for fraud that occurred in state programs during his administration, even as state officials questioned federal prosecutors’ assertions about the level of fraud in the state. “This is on my watch. I am accountable for this,” Walz told reporters at a press conference Friday. “And more importantly, I am the one that will fix it.” “I expect to get accountability from the Republicans to help us out and fix this,” Walz said. “So if you’re sitting on information, you’re going to be part of the investigation very quickly if you’re not helping us. You need to get these things forward.”

REPORTER: Governor, can I just clarify something? You said, I’m accountable. Is that you taking blame for this? I just want to make sure, if not, who or what? GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): Look, whoever’s in charge, and I said, unlike the president, I’m the governor now, whether these programs happened before we got here or afterwards, it doesn’t matter, we’re here now. We’re the ones fixing it. You have my guarantee on this is that I certainly will have this thing fixed and you see that we’re on the front end of it. That’s how this works. And so, would I have wanted to stop this? Would I have gone out, you know, if you think the governor goes out and checks somebody on Medicaid and that they were there, no, but that’s somebody in government needed to do that. And if they didn’t do that, or if there were loopholes in this, and what we found is these are poorly written and it left openings and the goal was to get the money out. We’ll fix that. But yeah, I’ll take accountability for it, but what you’re seeing here is, is you’re seeing a weaponization. We’ll continue to fix it. They’re going to continue to come up with numbers that don’t have it there and it’s sensationalized. I don’t expect anything different from this administration. But the thing that I think that folks need to recognize, and I think they do as governor of Minnesota, I’m working on the healthcare side of things. We’re working on plowing the roads. We’re working on making sure we’re implementing the best paid family medical leave program. And look, the Republicans think they’re going to, but that’s it. You don’t ask to be governor of Minnesota just complaining about a problem that you did absolutely nothing to. And I will highlight at this point in time. If there are members of the legislature that have credible concerns, we have independent folks. We have numerous folks who you could get this to. But as James said on this, it took six months to arrest these people. We stopped it immediately once we had that authority. And so that’s happening across the board. We’re going to, I think at the end of the day, and even the CMS folks who are now showing up unannounced, unprecedented, showing up and doing their inspections are acknowledging that Minnesota is at this point in time probably tighter than any other state. And those are good things that we’re using the ability to try and fight this. But yeah, you’ll hear something from me that you don’t hear from them. Yes, I accept responsibility. I’ll expect responsibility to fix it. I again thank the Department of Justice, the Attorney General for doing the things necessary. I would also ask them to multitask. You’ve got some files you need to get out in D.C. You’ve got some other stuff you can work on. You can help us on fentanyl. You can make sure that our police are funded where we’re getting cutted. Our anti-terrorism dollars were taken away. So the big picture here is the focus is this. Yeah, and this is terrible. And as James said, one dollar is too many. But I’m not going to shy away from the great accomplishments we’ve made here, the things we’ve done, our ability to fix this, and I’ll take accountability for it. I expect to get accountability from the Republicans to help us out and fix this. So if you’re sitting on information, you’re going to be part of the investigation very quickly if you’re not helping us. You need to get these things forward.

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