Embattled Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz threw a temper tantrum and pointed the finger at Republicans as he hit back at increasing calls to resign following revelations of widespread human services fraud in his state.
“You can make all your requests for me to resign – over my dead body will that happen,” he ranted.
He then tried to turn the scandal back on President Trump.
“I will fight this thing ‘til the very end to make this state better. And the question I think they need to decide is when is the guy in the White House going to resign? When does he take accountability for what he did? Because it isn’t going to happen here in terms of us shying away from making the state better,” he said.
Walz, the failed 2024 vice presidential candidate, appeared to blame Republicans for the collapse of his political support and the scrutiny his state is facing.
“Republicans want to tell you it’s too dangerous to walk down the street. Republicans want to tell you there’s nothing good that comes out of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Republicans want to tell you everybody with brown skin is stealing money, or that they’re not welcome here,” he said.
“They want to do nothing to improve this state. Their idea of improving this state is being a parrot for Donald Trump agreeing to everything he agreed with,” he seethed, frantically waving his arms as he spoke.
The meltdown comes a day after Walz made the shocking announcement he would not seek reelection in the 2026 governor’s race, despite being the clear frontrunner and winning a second term in 2022 by eight points.
“Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences,” he said in a press conference Monday that ended without taking a single question from the media.
Walz has faced growing criticism for the fraud scheme involving housing, food aid and day cares in the state that happened under his watch, which First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said could ultimately amount to $18 billion or more.
The GOP-led House Oversight Committee announced last month it was probing his possible role in the “massive fraud” involving Somali Immigrants bilking more than $1 billion from taxpayers, indicating criminal referrals were possible.
Days before Walz announced was ending his bid for a third term, a group of House and Senate Republicans from the North Star State penned a statement calling for him to resign, including State Sens. Bill Lieske and Nathan Wesenberg, and State Reps. Marj Fogelman, Drew Roach and Mike Weiner.
“Minnesotans have been watching the fraud crisis get worse and worse for years. It has gone on long enough. This is not about politics or stunts, and we do not make a call like this lightly. The office of the governor deserves respect, and we have tried to give Gov. Walz time to act,” the lawmakers wrote.
“But leadership means doing the right thing even when it is difficult, which is why we are calling on Gov. Walz to resign. We are talking about billions of dollars in fraud that should have gone to vulnerable Minnesotans. The red flags were everywhere. Yet, year after year the fraud kept growing, and year after year, nothing changed.”
