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New details have come to light about a 2020 phone call between Tim Waltz and Donald Trump when armed Proud Boys showed up outside the Democratic vice presidential candidate’s home in what appeared to be a response to a tweet from the then-president.
When the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the US, Minnesota Governor Walz – like other state governors – implemented restrictions to try to combat the spread of the virus.
The restrictions prompted some protesters to come out in force and, on April 17 2020, Trump appeared to encourage them – with a cryptic post on Twitter, now X, specifically targeting Minnesota.
“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” he posted.
Following Trump’s tweet, members of the far-right group the Proud Boys – who months later were instrumental in the January 6 riot on the US Capitol – descended on Walz’s home armed with guns.
Walz was left stumped about the meaning behind Trump’s tweet and contacted him to find out, according to a 2021 interview Walz gave to Politico columnists Alexander Burns and Jonathan Marti for their bookThis Will Not Pass.
The interview was published for the first time on Wednesday, hours after Walz was unveiled as Kamala Harris’s vice presidential pick to take on Trump and his running mate JD Vance in November.
Walz was desperate to quell the unrest in his state and keep his family – and dog – safe, and wanted to understand what Trump meant by his tweet.
The Minnesota governor said that he called Trump for clarification.
“What does ‘Liberate Minnesota’ mean? What do you want me to do differently? What do you think that I’m doing or not doing?” Walz said he asked the president over the phone.
“I never got a response,” he admitted.
Walz said he told Trump that his language was unhelpful and would result in events that would leave his children “scared”.
“I just asked, and I said I just really, really wanted to clarify exactly what you mean. I did not jump to the conclusion on that. And it wasn’t facetious when I asked him — this was in April of 2020, it was pre-George Floyd,” he continued.
In the 2021 interview, Waltz noted the volatile nature of Trump’s language – and its potential to incite violence.
“Just to be very candid, the rhetoric that the president engaged in, and then was amplified by others, changed the whole dynamic especially in a state like Minnesota,” he said.
The new details were revealed the same day that Trump called into Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning, where he laid into Walz as the Democratic party’s new vice presidential candidate.
In the interview, Trump briefly mentioned one of his few interactions with Walz during the Black Lives Matter protests that spread through Minneapolis in May 2020 following the murder of George Floyd.
