Minnesota Democrat Gov. Tim Walz responded to criticism from President Trump about large-scale fraud in the Somali immigrant community and from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about the state’s standards for issuing commercial driving licenses to non-citizens during an unrelated event on Tuesday afternoon. “When the President of the United States sits up and tweets 150 times after midnight and targets certain people, it’s not a coincidence they’re targeting Minnesota,” Walz said. “Minnesotans know us and our team. We led us through COVID. We led us through George Floyd. We brought our economy to one of the best in the country.” “I don’t think anybody in here really believes their motive and their timing is about actually doing something about this,” he said.

GOV. TIM WALZ: I think everybody in this room is smart enough to understand: when the President of the United States sits up and tweets 150 times after midnight and targets certain people, it’s not a coincidence that they’re targeting Minnesota. We certainly welcome those investigations. They’ve been done by all of you, and they’ve been done here. We certainly want to know that. But it’s also the Transportation Secretary who has threatened to withhold our federal dollars. Look, that’s who they are. This is who they are. We welcome anybody who wants to help us. We’re fixing it. And as I said, Minnesotans know us and our team. We led us through COVID. We led us through George Floyd. We brought our economy to one of the best in the country, and we’ll tackle this. Other governors have dealt with fraud. I want to make sure I’m the last one that has to deal with it by putting these things in. If they want to help us, I welcome that. I think they should do an investigation and find out. But I don’t think anybody in here really believes their motive and their timing is about actually doing something about this. Much like the legislature-they had every opportunity to do investigations. They had every opportunity to do their oversight. They chose not to. The very legislators that are required to do an audit have not done their own audit. The very Republican legislators accusing other Republican legislators of fraud in the PPP program-the federal program. So again, my message is simple: you commit fraud in Minnesota, you’re going to prison. I don’t care what color you are, what religion you are. Anybody who wants to help us in that, we welcome that. But sitting on the sidelines and throwing out accusations-and let’s be very clear, demonizing an entire population and lying to people about the safety and security of the state-is beneath that. And I will just add, as a teacher and as a parent, the absolutely pathetic usage of a slur. Not to me-I don’t care what he calls me, he calls me many things. But don’t think that doesn’t hurt our children. Don’t think it doesn’t hurt people who are dealing with this. And this is not normal. It’s not both sides. We’re solving problems. We’re making life more affordable. We’re talking about bringing people in, and we’re getting this. As far as the DOT on commercial driver’s licenses-we follow the laws. We always have. No different than any other state. What a weird coincidence that the President goes on a rant at 2 a.m. and all of a sudden his Treasury Secretary- They need to focus on the war crimes that are coming up. They need to focus on making life more affordable. They need to focus on the issues they’re dealing with. Here in Minnesota, we’re announcing today one of the best programs in the country-one of the most popular programs in the country-one that has great state employees making it work, and one that’s going to benefit Martha and Nell and all these employees. And that’s what Minnesotans are asking for. REPORTER: Have any of the state agencies that you oversee ever identified any fraud and money being sent over? GOV. TIM WALZ: No, no. And look, that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t happen. I don’t know what criminals do with their money. You know, they buy drugs, buy houses, buy cars, or whatever. These are criminals. This is the same thing as if somebody broke into your house and stole your stuff, and I say, Why didn’t you have six locks on that door? Well, maybe you should have. And we’re saying, yeah, maybe we should have more locks. You’re absolutely right-we should do more on that. But these are folks that took advantage of the system. And again, in every one of these programs, the Republicans’ response is to Monday-morning quarterback it and then say, Cut the program. If that is happening, those people should go to prison. They should go to jail. I would just add: the money being funneled to folks who aren’t supportive of the United States-well, we just had a state dinner for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who is directly responsible for the murder of an American journalist. That seems to me to be something Republicans should be concerned about, because that is factual, researched, verified. That’s a little different than the speculation.

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