Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced Monday he was dropping his reelection bid after a massive fraud scandal in his state became impossible to ignore. Federal investigators allege that billions in taxpayer funds were stolen through a vast welfare fraud scheme that operated for years under Walz’s watch.
There is no version of the story in which Walz escapes culpability. He was governor while the fraud flourished. Either his administration was grossly incompetent at best, or it deliberately looked the other way — but neither possibility jibes with the glowing national profile that Walz has enjoyed in recent years after being catapulted to the spotlight when then-Vice President Kamala Harris tapped him to be her running mate in 2024.
Democrats and their media allies treated Walz as a serious national political contender up until, well, now. The propaganda press spent months in 2024 telling voters Walz was competent, steady, and battle-tested, even as his state was being looted by Somalians.
This looting was further exposed after a 20-something-year-old YouTuber did the work that the propaganda press clearly didn’t — that is, simply investigate. But the legacy media didn’t miss the story because it was hard to find. They missed it because they weren’t looking, since they were too busy running puff pieces and fluff about Walz in order to present Walz as a viable vice president.
Politico is a prime example of this. When J.D. Vance destroyed Walz in the vice presidential debate, Politico enlisted the help of a “body language expert” to say Walz’s “eyes showed his passion.”
“Eye-popping can sometimes be a sign of surprise, but for Walz, it simply revealed his emotional intensity — like during an exchange about abortion. The dynamic and emphatic facial motion grabs the viewer’s attention. For Walz, it gave extra weight to his feelings and held our gaze.”
Bloomberg ran a column telling Americans that “Tim Walz’s Masculinity Is Terrifying to Republicans” because Walz is “not frightened of women, afraid of Black people or terrified of the future.”
Politico, upon Walz’s selection as vice presidential nominee, wrote an article describing 55 things about Walz people may not know, like that “his beverage of choice is Diet Mountain Dew.” In that same “fact,” Politico quietly noted that Walz “got a DWI in Nebraska in 1995 before he quit drinking.”
The article also pointed out that Walz “has custom license plates” and likes to take his dog on “daily morning visits to an off-leash Twin Cities dog park.” But with all this “reporting,” Politico didn’t manage to find — for one of its 55 facts on Walz — that his state was being defrauded.
The Los Angeles Times raved that “Tim Walz brings rural roots, Midwestern sensibility” to the ticket. The paper conveniently forgot to investigate and report that he also oversaw a massive welfare scheme that defrauded taxpayers en masse.
NPR, to its credit, devoted a line and a half to potential fraud abuse under Walz’s leadership, writing in 2024 that Walz “could also face questions about … widespread fraud during COVID-19 under a federal program intended to feed kids. Audits have suggested lapses in oversight by the state Department of Education.” Of course, NPR spent the rest of the article discussing Walz’s “dad jokes” and “folksy demeanor.”
CBS News dedicated an October 2024 piece to relating “What to know about Tim Walz’s views and policy record.” The Guardian published a piece entitled: “‘He has a proven track record’: behind Tim Walz’s appeal to workers.”
Zero mentions of any fraud.
This fraud scandal doesn’t just corrupt Walz’s legacy; it also ruins the credibility of the propaganda press that sold him as a viable and legitimate contender.
