Former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka (R-Minn.) criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Governor Tim Walz (D-Minn.), as “weak in a crisis.”
In an interview with Fox News, Gazelka said: spoke Speaking about his experience working with Walz, he revealed that the governor’s “concerns” about being elected vice president were that Walz was “weak in a crisis” and bad at spending money.
“My concerns with him as a leader are, number one, how he handles crises terribly,” Gazelka told the outlet, “and then the way he spends money. It’s like he doesn’t know the value of a dollar. And they just spend money until they go into debt. So people need to be careful.”
Gazelka went on to speak about Governor Walz’s failure to respond to the riots that erupted in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.
“Mayor of Minneapolis, Mayor [Jacob] “Frey said to the governor, ‘We need help. We need the National Guard,'” Gazelka told the outlet. “And the governor just sat back and did nothing.”
In an interview Minneapolis Star Tribune August 2020, Frey Condemned Governor Walz’s failure to respond to calls for help regarding the riots:
Frey said in an interview Monday that Walz was hesitant to send in the National Guard to quell the escalating violence and then blamed the governor for allowing the city to burn.
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Frey said he immediately called Governor Walz at 6:29 p.m. to provide him with the information and ask him to send in the National Guard. “We communicated the seriousness of the situation. The urgency was clear,” Frey said.
“He didn’t say yes,” Frey said of Waltz, “he just said he’d consider it.”
Gazelka’s comments about Waltz came at a time when the governor has faced criticism and accusations of “defamation” after a resume posted on his website suggested he retired as an E-9, or master sergeant.
Breitbart News’ Christina Wong reports:
Waltz served in the Minnesota Army National Guard and retired at the rank of Sergeant (E-8). However, his biography on his official website lists a higher rank in which he served briefly, but which was ultimately revoked because he did not meet all of the requirements for that rank. However, his biography suggests he retired at the rank of Command Sergeant (E-9).
The statement that Waltz was a “retired master sergeant” was later removed by the Harris campaign, and Waltz updated his biography to say that he “formerly served at the rank of master sergeant.” Politico Reported.
Waltz has also faced criticism for a video shared by Kamala HQ on X in which he claimed to have served in the war despite not having seen combat.
I was in the Army for 25 years, I hunt, and I’ve voted for common sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks, we can do CDC checks, we can make sure that weapons of war that you take with you to war are the only place they’re kept.
Governor Tim WaltzI was in the Army for 25 years and I hunt. I’ve voted for common sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. We can study the impact of gun violence. We can do war weapons. pic.twitter.com/3IVaXi2RP2
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 6, 2024
The Harris campaign released a statement on Friday, claiming that Walz “made false statements.”
The Governor made the wrong statement in making his case for why weapons of war should not be on our streets or in our classrooms. The Governor has dealt with weapons of war and, unlike Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, who prioritize the gun lobby over children, he strongly believes that only military personnel trained to carry these lethal weapons should have access to them.
Waltz also Criticism Despite reports that Waltz left the military before his unit was deployed to Iraq, knowledge The National Guard Public Affairs Office warned that “approximately 2,000 Minnesota National Guard soldiers may be deployed.”
