Tim Walz | Anatomy of a political fall

Richard Hétu and Janie Gosselin write a newsletter on American politics every Tuesday. Their texts are then included in The Press+.

(New York) The most vicious blows rained down on Tim Walz.

Last Saturday, after celebrating the capture of Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump relayed a video on Truth Social accusing the governor of Minnesota of having ordered a murder. It was a conspiracy theory falsely implicating him in the assassination of a Democratic congresswoman from his state, Melissa Hortman, on June 14.

Kamala Harris’s running mate did not fail to denounce the president’s attack, calling his behavior “dangerous and depraved.” “By covering up a real serial killer, he will cause the deaths of even more innocent people,” he wrote on X, referring to Vance Boelter, who was accused of killing two people, including Melissa Hortman, and injuring two others.

However, two days after writing these words, Tim Walz indicated that he was tired of being the target of Donald Trump and his allies. He announced his decision not to seek a third term as governor next November.

At the same time, he implicitly turned his back on a presidential candidacy in 2028.

It was one of the most rapid and spectacular political downfalls in history. His suddenness suggests that he did not want to become a burden for the Democratic Party like Joe Biden was during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Social assistance fraud

“Every minute I spend defending my own political interests is a minute I cannot spend defending Minnesotans against the criminals who take advantage of our generosity and the cynics who seek to exploit our differences,” the governor argued in a written statement that he repeated to reporters Monday morning.

The criminals Tim Walz referred to have perpetrated staggering welfare frauds that continue to grow. As for the cynics he complains about, not all of them can be accused of racism, as he suggests.

The scandal that contributed to the fall of Tim Walz is not new. During Joe Biden’s presidency, federal investigators discovered that $250 million in fraudulent payments were made to a Minnesota nonprofit called Feeding Our Future. It was the most expensive COVID-19 relief scam at the time.

So far, 78 people have been arrested in connection with the case, most of them from Minnesota’s Somali community, which is the largest in the United States. However, the mastermind of the fraudulent operation was a white woman, Aimee Bock, who was convicted last year.

Donald Trump gave a national and racist dimension to this scandal during a meeting of his cabinet last December. He called Minneapolis’ approximately 84,000 people of Somali descent “trash” after accusing them of defrauding Minnesota of “several billions of dollars.”

“I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” he said, while calling Somalia a “rotten” country.¹.

“I must be held accountable”

The president seemed to have exaggerated by talking about fraud totaling “several billions of dollars”. But federal prosecutors announced Dec. 18 that their investigation into fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs had broadened significantly.

They are now looking into suspicious billing practices in 14 programs funded by Medicaid, public health insurance for the poor, practices that allegedly allowed their alleged perpetrators to steal $9 billion. Until then, their investigation had focused on only three welfare programs run by state agencies.

From the beginning, Tim Walz has repeated his determination to fight criminals who take advantage of generous social programs to defraud his state or the federal government. But the frauds occurred while he was in charge.

“I have to be held accountable,” he said last month while accusing those who condemn his state’s entire ethnic Somali population of racism for crimes committed by some of them.

But the blows did not stop raining on him. Between Christmas and New Year, Trumpist influencer Nick Shirley released a viral video he claims shows Minnesota daycares embezzling public money.

Although the video was largely misleading, it contributed to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to launch a “broad investigation into child care and other widespread fraud.”

And what’s next?

Donald Trump continued on Tuesday by announcing an investigation into “fraud” in California, a state “more corrupt than Minnesota”.

We will see how the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, another Democratic presidential candidate, will fare. In Minnesota, Tim Walz, who had won over many Democrats in 2024 with his Midwestern good nature, concluded that he would not succeed.

Popular figure in Minnesota, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar could be interested in winning the governor’s post. She would have more time than Kamala Harris to prepare for her race.

1. Read the text by Richard Hétu “Bad times for the Somalis of Minnesota”