Gov Tim Walz slams Trump for calling Minnesota Somali community ‘garbage’
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Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz criticized President Donald Trump on Thursday for calling the state’s Somali community “trash.”
Walz said Trump’s expressions of disdain for the state’s Somali community were “unprecedented for a U.S. president.”
“We have little kids going to school today and their president calls them garbage,” the blue state governor said.
Minnesota, of Somali origin, Minneapolis and St. Paul region has the largest Somali population in the country, with approximately 84,000 people. Approximately 60 percent of Somalis in the state were born in the United States, while 87 percent of foreign-born Somalis have become U.S. citizens.
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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz criticized President Donald Trump for calling the state’s Somali community “trash.” (Getty Images)
Trump’s comments about Somalis in the state intensified after City Journal, a conservative news outlet, alleged last month that taxpayer dollars from defrauded government programs were being sent to Al Shabaab, the Somali militant group affiliated with Al Qaeda.
The alleged ringleader of the fraud scheme is white, but dozens of people from the Somali community are reportedly involved.
On Thanksgiving, Trump said Minnesota was a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” and that he would end Somalis’ Temporary Protected Status in the state.
The president told a Cabinet meeting Tuesday that he does not want Somali immigrants to remain in the United States.
“We can go one way or another, but if we continue to bring garbage into our country, we will go down the wrong path,” he said.
Also at the meeting was Rep. D-Minn. He called Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar “garbage” and said Somalia was “dirty.”
Gov. Tim Walz said President Donald Trump’s dismissive comments toward the state’s Somali community were “unprecedented for a U.S. president.” (Christopher Mark Juhn/Anadolu via Getty Images)
On Wednesday, Trump said Minnesota had become a “hellhole” because of its Somali community.
“Somalis need to get out of here,” he told reporters. “They destroyed our country”
The Trump administration has launched immigration enforcement operations targeting immigrants living among Minnesota’s Somali community.
“Demonizing a whole group of people because of their race and ethnicity, a group of people who contribute to the economic and cultural vitality of this state, is something I hope we never have to see,” Walz told reporters during a briefing on the state’s budget. “This is on top of all the other vile comments.”
Republican legislative leaders have been reluctant to condemn Trump’s remarks, although some have argued that Trump has gone too far. They also argued that the dispute would not have occurred if Walz had acted more effectively to stop fraud in social service programs.
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Republican legislative leaders have been reluctant to condemn President Donald Trump’s remarks. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“I don’t believe in any way that any community is all bad. Just like I don’t believe any community is all good. What we need to do is hold crooks in any community accountable for their actions and stop this in the state of Minnesota,” Republican Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who is running for governor and hoping to win Trump’s endorsement, told reporters.
Republican Sen. Eric Pratt, who is running for the congressional seat vacated by Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, also did not defend the president’s comments.
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“It wasn’t said the way I would have said it,” Pratt said. “But what I will say is, I share the president’s frustration with the amount of fraud and corruption that’s effectively going on in the state. I mean, it’s really a disgrace to the state, and we’re in the national news for all the wrong reasons.”
Trump and Walz have repeatedly hurled insults at each other in the past; This included the president slamming the Minnesota Democrat as “grossly incompetent,” a “mess,” and a “re-edited,” and the governor calling Trump a “wannabe dictator,” a “cruel man,” and a “bad person” and calling ICE under his administration “a modern-day Gestapo.”
