President Donald Trump expressed zero interest in calling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after a Minnesota Democratic state lawmaker and her husband were gunned down by an assassin.
As the president was departing the G7 Summit in Canada, due to the current turmoil in the Middle East, he was asked on board Air Force One if he planned to dial Walz to express his condolences over the Saturday killings.
Walz had been Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate last year, losing the race to Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.
‘I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out, I’m not calling him,’ Trump said. ‘Why would I call him? I could call him and say “hey, how you doing?” The guy doesn’t have a clue, he’s a mess.’
‘So I could be nice and call him but why waste time?’ the president added.
Trump also pointed out that the Minnesota shooting suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, who was apprehended late Sunday, had been a Walz appointee.
The state’s former Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton had in 2016 appointed Boelter to the Minnesota Governor’s Workforce Development Board.
Walz later reappointed Boelter to the 41-member board.
President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t waste his time calling ‘whacked out’ Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband were assassinated over the weekend, with a Democratic state senator and his wife wounded by the same gunman
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a press conference over the weekend in the aftermath of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark being assassinated by a gunman, who left a state senator and his wife wounded
Boelter served on the board alongside one of his victims, State Sen. John Hoffman, who was wounded, along with his wife Yvette.
Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were killed.
Boelter pretended to be a police officer to gain access to the Democratic lawmakers’ properties.
Walz led a press conference with law enforcement on Saturday in the aftermath of Hortman’s assassination.
He said the shootings were politically motivated.
‘We must all in Minnesota and across the country, stand against all forms of political violence,’ Walz said. ‘Those responsible for this will be held accountable.’
In Minnesota, voters do not declare a political affiliation when they register to vote, but a friend of Boelter’s told The New York Times that he voted for Trump in the last election and was particularly passionate about his anti-abortion views.
Another Republican, Sen. Mike Lee, had speculated that Boelter was a member of the political far-left.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (right) was the running mate of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris (left) in last year’s election. They were beated by the Republicans – President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance
‘This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way,’ the Utah Republican posted to X, prompting criticism from Minnesota’s two Democratic senators.
Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith went so far as to find Lee on Capitol Hill and chide him publicly for his comments, as Smith was close friends with Hortman.
Smith told reporters that she confronted Lee for his ‘cruel’ post in the aftermath of Saturday’s shootings.
‘I wanted him to know how much pain that caused me and the other people in my state and I think around the country, who think that this was a brutal attack,’ Smith said, according to NBC News.
She added that the Utah Republican needed to hear from her ‘directly’ about the ‘impact his actions had.’
‘I don’t know whether Sen. Lee thought fully through what it was, you’d have to ask him, but I needed him to hear from me directly what impact I think his cruel statement had on me, his colleague,’ Smith said.
Lee has since deleted all three of the tweets from his personal account that fanned conspiracy theories about the murder of Hortman and her husband.
