There is a special kind of nerve required to lecture anyone about grifting when you presided over one of the largest taxpayer-fraud scandals in modern American history — and Tim Walz reached for it anyway. The Minnesota governor and failed 2024 vice-presidential nominee fired off a viral shot at President Trump this week, and within hours conservatives had turned his own record into the punchline.
The fight started over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which the White House says needs roughly $14 million in repairs that Trump blames on vandalism. The president announced arrests, promised a 10-year prison term for anyone who damages the monument, and made the whole episode a national talking point. Walz pounced, posting on X to his more than 3.5 million viewers: “Found an imaginary problem, said only they could fix it, didn’t listen to experts, hired buddies who grifted millions, failed miserably, bragged how great it went. The entire Trump presidency in a nutshell.”
Read that list again — “hired buddies who grifted millions” — and remember who wrote it. This is the governor who watched a sprawling pandemic fraud scheme metastasize on his watch, the one Minnesotans know by the cheerful names of the “learning centers” and child-nutrition programs that allegedly funneled public money to connected insiders while his administration looked the other way. Of all the people in American politics, Walz volunteering as the anti-grift spokesman is the comedy writing itself.
The replies did the rest. “I’m sorry, TIM WALZ is accusing someone else of enabling grifting?” journalist Mark Hemingway wrote. Fox Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino needled him over the scandal directly, while a watchdog account representing more than 480 Minnesota state staffers who have sounded the alarm on fraud cut to the bone: “Tim Walz: Are you describing yourself?” Conservative commentator Gunther Eagleman was blunter still — “Says the biggest fraudster in Minnesota.”
The line that stuck, though, came from Sal Nuzzo of Consumers Defense, who offered the governor four words of free advice: “Ya might want to sit this one out…” Former Trump White House spokesman Harrison Fields refused to even grant the “imaginary problem” premise, firing back: “Actually, the problems were very real: 9% inflation, an open border with 20M+ illegal crossings, fentanyl killing 100K Americans a year, factories shipped overseas, energy dependence… Voters didn’t imagine those — they lived them. That’s why you’re a retiring governor and failed VP nominee.”
And because no Walz pile-on is complete without it, Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden dredged up the governor’s habit of embellishment, jabbing at his disputed account of his military service: “Crazy, you found an imaginary war record.” Let that sink in. A man with documented credibility problems decided the smart play was to call the other guy a liar and a grifter.
This is what happens when a fading politician mistakes a viral dunk for a winning hand. Walz wanted a clean shot at Trump and instead handed his critics a free reminder of everything voters already remember about Minnesota under his watch. He swung at the president and hit himself — and the scoreboard, as usual, did not lie.
Source: foxnews.com