Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Chicago, Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — While former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance sharply criticized Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for his response to the violence that erupted following the killing of George Floyd, Trump told the governor at the time that he fully agreed with Walz’s handling of the incident.
“What they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately,” Trump told Walz and other governors and officials in a phone call on June 1, 2020. The Associated Press obtained an audio recording of the conversation on Wednesday, which has taken on new significance now that Walz has been nominated as Kamala Harris’s vice presidential running mate against Trump and Vance.
Other government officials participating in the conference call included Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Attorney General William Barr.
ABC News reported on the call on Wednesday, a day after Harris introduced Walz as her vice presidential candidate. CNN published a transcript of the call in 2020.
Three days later, Walz mobilized the Minnesota National Guard to restore order in Minneapolis after riots that left a police station and numerous businesses burned. Trump offered Walz federal assistance later that day, but the governor declined his offer.
During a May 2024 fundraiser in St. Paul, Trump repeated a claim he has made repeatedly of late: that he was responsible for the deployment of the National Guard. “The whole city burned down. … If I wasn’t president, Minneapolis wouldn’t be here today,” Trump told a Republican crowd. Trump made similar claims last month at a rally in St. Cloud.
In fact, it was Walz who issued the mobilization order at the request of the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul. However, Walz was criticized at the time for not moving more quickly. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Walz blamed each other for the delays.
Trump described Walz as “an outstanding guy” in the June 1, 2020, phone call and later said, “I don’t blame you. I blame the mayor.” The president did not criticize the governor at the time.
“Tim, you called big numbers and those big numbers knocked them down so fast, it was like bowling,” Trump said.
But Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt gave the call a different meaning in a statement to AP on Wednesday.
“Governor Walz let Minneapolis burn for days, despite President Trump’s offer to deploy troops and despite pleas for help from Minneapolis’ liberal mayor,” Leavitt said. “In that daily briefing call with governors on June 1, days after the unrest began, President Trump thanked Governor Walz for FINALLY taking action and deploying the National Guard to end the violence in the city.”
In the phone call, Walz thanked Trump as well as Esper and Milley “for your strategic leadership, very helpful. … Yes, our city is grieving and suffering.”
