Another aspect of crime under Walz has been the massive fraud that his administration has allowed, notably in coronavirus spending. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced dozens of indictments over fraud in connection with a non-profit group called Feeding Our Future. The defendants stole $250 million from the state,
claiming
to be using money for meals for children, while spending on luxury goods, travel, and even foreign property.
Jim Geraghty of
National Review
noted
that Walz failed to prevent the fraud: “
[A] state legislative audit
concluded that the Minnesota Department of Education was asleep at the wheel and for years had ignored red flags concerning the nonprofit.” It was not the only example of abuse on Walz’s watch: there were others, including $29 million for opioid treatments that never happened.
“It’s not just that he’s a leftist. He’s an
incompetent
leftist,” Geraghty concluded.
In his first speech Tuesday as Kamala Harris’s running mate, Walz claimed that his philosophy on governance was “mind your own damn business,” at least when it comes to abortion. In 2023,
National Review
notes
, he signed laws to remove restrictions on abortion until birth — and repealed laws prohibiting coercing women into abortion. But he took a radically different approach during the coronavirus pandemic, with lockdowns and vaccination
mandates
.
Walz even set up a hotline encouraging neighbors to snitch on each other: “A hotline set up by Gov. Tim Walz’s administration to monitor compliance with his 2020 stay-at-home order generated thousands of reports from Minnesotans who snitched on their neighbors for things like playing basketball in a park, walking their dogs, and throwing small parties,” Alpha News
reported
. He tried to shut down worship in churches — until he was
sued
.
Minnesota is becoming known as a magnet for migration, particularly from Somalia. While most immigrants are law-abiding and hard-working, there have been problems with Islamic terror groups
recruiting
for
jihad
. The emergence of high-profile, radical leaders like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) — whom Walz
supported
— has created an impression that at least some people in Minnesota’s new immigrant communities may have values that are incompatible with the American mainstream.
Walz has accelerated immigration by turning Minnesota into a “sanctuary state,” shielding illegal aliens from federal law enforcement. Meanwhile, as the
New York Post
has
noted
, “Walz also has signed several pieces of legislation to provide state-funded health care, driver’s licenses and free college tuition to illegal migrants.”
Democrats are touting Walz’s career as a teacher. But education has also worsened since he became governor, in spite of higher spending, according to the Center for the American Experiment.
And Walz has infused left-wing obsessions into education — including transgenderism. He put
tampons
in boys’ school bathrooms and
signed
legislation to make Minnesota a “sanctuary state” for transgender surgeries for children, just like California. Parents could lose custody of their kids if they object.
Minnesotans are voting with their feet. The state
loses
net residents to other states every year, and the only reason that its population grows (modestly) overall is due to foreign immigration. Weather is partly a factor, as in much of the Midwest, but so are poor “progressive” governance, and the knowledge that there are better-run states elsewhere.
The conservative PowerLine blog, reviewing his time in office,
concludes
that Walz is “a far-left ideologue” whose record “is every bit as bad as Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’s, possibly worse.”
No doubt Democrats would disagree. But few Americans, right or left, think of Minnesota as a model for governance. That is why Walz is largely unknown.
It is also why Democrats don’t want to talk about Minnesota. As with Kamala Harris herself, policy is the problem.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of
Breitbart News Sunday
on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “
”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days
,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “
The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency
,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at
@joelpollak
.