The hosts of the Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends” welcomed Donald Trump by phone on Wednesday morning, offering the former president the opportunity to opine on his candidacy and his opponent’s newly named vice-presidential pick without pushback.
They wasted no time, prompting Trump at the outset to offer his opinion of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). Trump’s response, though, was perhaps not what they expected.
“I know him a little bit,” Trump began, before embarking on a riff about how he’d helped Walz at one point in his presidency.
“During the riots,” Trump said, Walz’s house “was surrounded by people that were waving an American flag — doesn’t sound like very bad people — and he called me and he was very concerned, very, very concerned that it was going to get out of control.”
Walz, Trump said, asked Trump to “put out the word that I’m a good person.” Trump did, he continued, telling the world that Walz is a good person. “Everybody put down their flags and took their flags with them,” Trump said. “But they took their American flags and their MAGA flags and they left.” Walz then called back to thank the president, Trump continued, which was the “only thing I ever had to do with him.”
The hosts didn’t press him on the anecdote, eager to declare that Walz’s nomination was “a gift for you.” But there are certainly elements of the story that don’t make much sense.
For example, one would assume that when Trump is referring to “the riots,” 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 — “Make America great again” — flags protesting outside the Minnesota governor’s mansion at that point? Why would people protesting the killing of George Floyd be willing to disperse at Trump’s request but not Walz’s?
Beyond that, it’s not clear how Trump purportedly “put out the word” 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’t offer an opinion of the governor.
“Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way,” Trump wrote on May 29, 2020. “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”
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’s campaign. What Walz described then was not that he sought Trump’s assistance with protesters during the unrest that followed Floyd’s killing but, instead, that Trump had encouraged hostile protesters at two other points in that time period.
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’t quickly lifting those restrictions.
LIBERATE MINNESOTA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020
The morning of April 17, Trump posted “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” on Twitter. At about the same time, a planned protest at the governor’s mansion got underway.
Walz told Politico’s Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin that the post “brought armed people to my house,” including members of the Proud Boys. Given the timeline, it’s 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.
At some point, Walz, who the day prior had been part of a joint announcement about scaling back restrictions, reached out to Trump.
“I called the White House, and left a message and I asked, kindly if not the president, someone could call,” Walz said. “And he tweeted two words: ‘Liberate Minnesota.’ ‘ 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.
“I said ‘What does “Liberate Minnesota” mean?,’ ‘ Walz said. ‘ ‘What do you want me to do differently? What do you think that I’m doing or not doing?’ ”
He says he didn’t get an answer.
There was another point at which Trump supporters surrounded the governor’s mansion: the day of the riot in Washington.
“[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’s the one where it got way out of hand,” Walz said. “The state patrol had to evacuate my 14-year-old, find the dog, take him to an off-site location.”
If Walz requested that Trump call off his supporters on that day, he didn’t 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.
There were times during the protests over Floyd’s killing that Walz said his security was increased but, again, it’s clear from Trump’s comments that he’s talking about a protest driven by his supporters, like the ones in April 2020 or January 2021. It seems clear, too, that Trump’s claim to have served as Walz’s savior contradicts the available evidence.
Assuming he’s referring to the April events, the call from Walz (which the governor says didn’t include a conversation) was not, as Trump said, the “only thing I ever had to do with him.” 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 “I don’t blame you, I blame the mayor” of Minneapolis.
That’s as close to “Walz is a good person” as Trump is likely to get any time soon.