President Donald Trump has doubled down on his use of a slur to describe Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
In a post shared to X, the official @RapidResponse47 account reposted Trump’s Thanksgiving message in which Trump referred to Walz as “the seriously ret---ed Governor of Minnesota” in response to a post from Walz reacting to Trump’s claims of excessive fraud in his state.
In their post, the entire rant is blurred except for the offending sentence, “The seriously ret---ed Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both.”
Walz’s post came just as the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it was pausing all child care payments to Minnesota in an X post from Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill.
Since the president’s Thanksgiving message, Walz has been on the receiving end of increasing verbal abuse, with some people going so far as to drive past his home while shouting the slur. The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
In a press conference earlier this month, Walz called out Republicans for failing to condemn the president’s rhetoric, which included calling Somali-American residents of Minnesota “garbage.”
”And I’ll tell you what, in my time on this, I’ve never seen this before: people driving by my house and using the r-word in front of people. This is shameful, and I have yet to see a Republican elected official say, ‘You’re right, that’s shameful. He should not say it,’” Walz said.
In a since-deleted TikTok video, Walz’s daughter Hope also discussed the impact the president’s post has had on their family, including her brother Gus, who has a non-verbal learning disability.
“The president calling my dad what he did has unleashed a f---ing s--tstorm, regarding like, offensive language toward me, and my family, and specifically my brother,” the 24-year-old said.
The probe into alleged fraud in the Minnesota Department of Human Services is ongoing, with the Department of Homeland Security sending agents to the state to investigate. In addition, the Small Business Administration paused grants to the state on Monday.
Also on Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the Department of Justice has charged 98 people in connection with the probe.
In a piece for the Minnesota Star Tribune earlier this month, Walz outlined the things his administration has done to combat fraud in the state, adding that, “Any amount of fraud is too much and undermines the very programs that do so much to raise our quality of life.”
The changes made include replacing key leaders, securing criminal convictions, and hiring investigators and auditors.
Walz also criticized the president’s rhetoric, writing, “What is not helpful is the president of the United States demonizing an entire community or pardoning someone single-handedly responsible for $1.6 billion in fraud,” referring to former private equity executive David Gentile, who was pardoned by the president last month and will no longer be required to pay restitution to the investors he defrauded.
