It’s genuinely scary to think of how close Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz came to occupying the second-highest office in the U.S.
(Yes, President Donald Trump took every swing state in the 2024 general election, but the fact that Walz even made it onto then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ ticket say a lot — and nothing good.)
Walz may very well be the embodiment of “play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” and nothing exemplified that more than the rampant fraud he allowed to happen right under his nose in the Gopher State.
Whether Democrats want to admit it or not, the volume of fraud that Walz was either unable or unwilling to confront in his state was an abject failure of duty.
However, here’s the thing: Mistakes happen. Even the greatest leaders in the world have had a mishap or two in their respective reigns.
But one of the key differences between a good leader and a derelict one is that good leaders know how to take ownership when they do inevitably fail. Good leaders calm down, take an assessment of where they went wrong, and ultimately take accountability. Conversely, bad leaders tend to panic, point the finger elsewhere, and abdicate themselves from their duty.
Guess which way Walz has been going?
On Tuesday, Walz decided to accept some help from his establishment media allies at CNN, and whined about the surge of Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents that were entering his state:
Ridiculous. Nobody is fooled into thinking this bafoonery is a reasonable use of taxpayer dollars.
It should not take 50 ICE agents to arrest one guy in a library. https://t.co/ISJt7mBzO9 pic.twitter.com/4QJ1tVtKx0
— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) January 6, 2026
“Ridiculous,” Walz complained. “Nobody is fooled into thinking this bafoonery [sic] is a reasonable use of taxpayer dollars.”
“It should not take 50 ICE agents to arrest one guy in a library.”
Actually, it does, Timmy. Why? Because, not unlike those pesky laws of physics, rampant fraud rooted in unchecked immigration deserves an equal and opposite response.
And given the scale of the problems in Minnesota, how can you not require a massive ICE response? In fact, an historic level of fraud deserves an historic response.
“We have the largest immigration operation ever taking place right now. It is a great effort by ICE,” the organization’s Acting Director Todd Lyons told Newsmax.
“We have the largest immigration operation ever taking place right now. It is a great effort by @ICEgov.” – ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons
Under the leadership of @Sec_Noem, DHS law enforcement is surging to Minneapolis to root out fraud, arrest perpetrators and remove criminal… pic.twitter.com/T2vJqvfWFp
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) January 6, 2026
Leave it to Walz to take this very appropriate response to his failures as governor and use it to actually deflect from those very same failures:
Gov. Tim Walz is finally taking questions from reporters about the fraud that caused him to drop out of the governor’s race.
He immedieately deflected to the 2,000 DHS/ICE agents surging to his state and then the tried and true J6 line.
He has no capability of accepting… pic.twitter.com/Tj82v6xcxo
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) January 6, 2026
Rather than grappling with the documented reality of massive fraud that flourished on his watch, he’s opted for performative outrage over the very enforcement actions meant to clean up the mess.
Complaining about ICE agents doing their jobs may play well on the establishment news, but it doesn’t erase the fact that Minnesota became a national case study in what happens when ideology overrides basic governance. Walz utterly failed as governor, then acted shocked when the consequences arrived with badges and subpoenas.
That’s the real takeaway here. When confronted with failure, Walz panicked and refused to accept responsibility by reframing, distracting, and scolding.
Suddenly, fraud becomes “over-policing,” accountability becomes “political theater,” and his own administration’s collapse is blamed on everyone except the man who ran the state.
If this is how he governs under pressure — dodging, deflecting, and outsourcing blame — Americans didn’t just dodge a bullet in 2024. They avoided elevating a politician whose first instinct in crisis is not to fix the problem, but to complain that someone else is finally doing so.
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