Midwest
Former Minnesota lawmakers unload on Harris' 'partisan' VP pick Tim Walz: 'Very thin-skinned'
MINNEAPOLIS – A former Republican Minnesota lawmaker and the head of the state Republican party slammed Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, telling Fox News Digital he is a pure “partisan and abandoned the city during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, which was echoed by another former Walz colleague.
“It was absent,” Minnesota GOP Chair David Hann told Fox News Digital about Walz’s leadership as the city of Minneapolis was destroyed by Black Lives Matter rioters in 2020, resulting in hundreds of buildings being destroyed and an estimated $500 million in damage.
Walz has faced criticism for waiting several days to call in the National Guard, which Hann tells Fox News Digital was a decision made for political reasons.
“He didn’t do anything for three days, and I think it’s because he was fearful of alienating this left-wing base that is the Democratic Party,” Hann said. “They were talking about this as a protest against police violence,” Hann said. “I think that if he were to call in the National Guard when it started to get out of control, that would have been seen as, oppositional to their narrative of, we’re just out here protesting, you know, excessive police force.”
HARRIS VP PICK TIM WALZ’S TOP FIVE ‘WEIRD’ MOMENTS IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Gov. Tim Walz waited several days to call in the National Guard as riots destroyed Minneapolis in 2020. (Getty Images)
“So, he did nothing for three days until it got completely out of hand. And it was really unbelievable. We would see these things on the news, and I’ve lived here most of my life and know the city very well,” he said. “It was just hard to believe that this was going on and that the governor was doing literally nothing.”
Hann, who served as minority leader of the Minnesota Senate, told Fox News Digital that as the city was burning, he knew of multiple people, including the Republican majority leader at the time, who tried to urge Walz to call then President Trump for assistance.
“He wouldn’t do it,” Hann said. “It only took after about four days that he finally did that, when it was clear that this thing was not going to stop on its own. So he was completely absent. He has never acknowledged that it was his responsibility that he failed.“
Hann told Fox News Digital that four years later, the city has yet to fully recover from the destruction.
WHERE DOES TIM WALZ STAND ON ISRAEL?
MN GOP Chair David Hann speaks to Fox News Digital (Fox News Digital)
“It’s still, I call it a ghost town,” Hann said. “A few weeks ago, I had a meeting in downtown Minneapolis. I try to avoid going there as much as I can. This was on a Tuesday or Thursday morning, 10:00 in the morning. I drove down there. It was like 7:00 Sunday morning. There were no cars. There were no people. There was no activity. It was just dead.”
Hann continued, “There’s no places to eat. In the evening, people don’t want to be around. There are sports, you know, basketball games or baseball games with people that do not want to stay around the city after dark. And at one point, Minneapolis was a pretty good city for nightlife. Not anymore. People are fearful. The crime is out of hand and carjackings, shootings. We’re a high crime place now, which is unbelievable, and this is all under the watch of Governor Walz because he has failed to try to address the crime, and he has gotten himself aligned with this defund-the-police movement.”
Hann told Fox News Digital that he also believes that Walz is a far more partisan politician than the narrative is letting on.
“Partisan, divisive, very thin-skinned, mean-spirited,” Hann said. “He does not like to be challenged. He does not like people to differ with him, and he can get angry if he thinks that you’re not agreeing with him sufficiently.”
Building goes up in flames during the George Floyd riots. (Getty Images)
Hann added that Republicans he has spoken to called Walz the “most difficult guy to deal with they’ve ever had to deal with.”
A former Republican state senator in Minnesota who worked alongside Walz for several years, interviewed under anonymity in order to speak more freely, echoed Hann’s claim and shared with Fox News Digital that it was “very frustrating” and “difficult” to work with Walz.
“He doesn’t handle stress very well. He gets very, very angry and displays it,” they said.
“He’s very nice, very engaging. Comes off like everybody’s friend. But it’s very treacherous as far as what he’s done to the state and his vision,” the former lawmaker added. “He’s got a veneer of extreme liberalism that is quite obvious now.”
When it came to decision-making, the former state senator claimed that Walz listened to “the last person that got to him.”
The Minnesotan said they are “very concerned” about a potential Harris-Walz presidency, urging voters to “listen to what he’s saying, you can’t decipher it. He talks and talks and never really answers the questions.”
Fox News Digital asked Hann, now that Walz has become the vice presidential nominee and is being introduced to a brand new national audience, what is the most important thing people should know about Walz’s tenure as governor.
“I hope the word gets out that Governor Walz is partisan and he’s very much aligned left, left-wing politically, and he is far from a moderate and is unwilling to try to work with people who differ with him,” Hann said.
CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a campaign event on August 7, 2024, in Detroit, Michigan. Kamala Harris and her newly selected running mate are campaigning across the country this week. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“I think his record as governor has not been good for the people of the state. His allies are this, left-wing political base, public employee unions. That’s where his base is. That’s what he caters to. But for most of us who are just trying to, you know, live our lives, take care of our families, start businesses. It’s tough and he doesn’t seem to have much empathy for that.”
The Harris Walz campaign pointed Fox News Digital to a recent Fox op-ed from a Republican who worked with Walz that praised his bipartisanship along with other quotes from former colleagues calling him someone who works across the aisle.
The campaign also pointed to newly unearthed audio first reported by ABC News where Trump said he was “very happy” with Walz’s handling of the riot and calling him an “excellent guy.”
The Trump campaign told ABC News those comments were made after Walz sent in the National Guard.
Read the full article from Here
Detroit, MI
Trump falsely claims a crowd photo from Harris' campaign rally in Detroit was created using AI
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been spreading false claims that an image of thousands of people waiting at Detroit’s airport as Democrat Kamala Harris arrived for a campaign rally was fabricated with the help of artificial intelligence.
Reporters, photographers and video journalists representing The Associated Press and other news organizations who either traveled with Vice President Harris or were on the airport tarmac documented the crowd size last Wednesday as she arrived on Air Force Two. Harris’ campaign also denied the photo in question was manipulated and posted about it on social media.
Fifteen thousand people attended the Detroit airport rally, Harris’ campaign said. Harris and Walz spoke from inside a hangar where people were packed in. The crowd also spilled out onto the tarmac. The Wayne County Airport Authority, which oversees the airport, referred questions about the size of the crowd to Harris’ campaign.
Thousands of people have been showing up at her campaign rallies.
By the Harris campaign’s count, 12,000 people turned out for rallies in Philadelphia and Eau Claire, Wisconsin, last week, followed by 15,000 in Glendale, Arizona. In Las Vegas on Saturday, more than 12,000 people were inside a university arena when law enforcement halted admission because people were getting ill waiting outside in the extreme 109-degree heat. About 4,000 people were waiting in line when the doors were closed.
An Associated Press reporter who covered the Harris events in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, witnessed the throngs of people in attendance.
Trump pushed his false claims in back-to-back posts on his social media site on Sunday.
“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!.” he wrote. He included a post from another individual who made similar allegations about photo manipulation.
A minute later Trump posted, “Look, we caught her with a fake ‘crowd.’ There was nobody there!” He included a photo of the crowd that was partly shaded and partly exposed to the sun.
Harris’ campaign confirmed on Monday that the photo being questioned was taken by a staff member and was not in any way modified using AI.
Hany Farid, a University of California, Berkeley, professor who focuses on digital forensics and misinformation, analyzed the photo using two models trained to detect patterns of generative AI and found no evidence of manipulation. The models were developed by GetReal Labs, a company Farid co-founded.
Farid, responding Monday in an email, said he compared several versions of the photo and the only alteration he detected was some simple change to brightness or contrast, and perhaps sharpening. He said many other images and videos from the event last Wednesday show the same basic scene.
Trump started pushing false theories about the Harris campaign photo a few days after he held a news conference at his Florida estate on Thursday and was asked about the crowds at his Democratic rival’s rallies. Trump said no one draws crowds as big as he does.
“I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me,” Trump claimed at the news conference, his first since Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee.
He went on to falsely compare the crowd at his speech in front of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, to the crowd at Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial.
But King drew far more people. Approximately 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King gave his speech, according to the National Park Service. The Associated Press reported in 2021 that there were at least 10,000 people at Trump’s address.
Some of Trump’s top advisers and supporters have been urging the former president to focus his criticisms on Harris’ policies and talk more about the border and the economy.
“Stop questioning the size of her crowds,” was the advice former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., offered during a Fox News appearance on Monday.
The Harris campaign needled Trump on a variety of issues in an email Monday titled “9 Days Since Trump’s Last Swing State Event.” The note included a bullet point that said, “he’s very mad about crowd sizes, claiming it’s all fake and AI-generated. (Maybe if he campaigned he’d get crowds too?)”
Elderly Woman Dies After Being Hit By SUV: PM Patch RI
Gilber Edmond has seen Vandrevius Jacobs play more than anyone at South Carolina. Here's what he thinks
Obituary for Carol J. Donley at Miller Funeral Home & On-Site Crematory
WSMV4 Fact Check: Tennessee law does not allow use of deadly force to protect personal property
School choice, Christianity in Texas lessons debated as children return to class
See it: Tesla crashes into Columbus convention center at 70 mph
Colorado Rockies game no. 116 thread: Zac Gallen vs José Ureña
Fox News Politics: Georgia the whole day through
Death of missing Oregon girl found in stream ruled homicide
At least 2 dead as tornadoes hit Alabama, damage homes across Southeast
Despite Trump’s Claims, Footage Shows Large Crowd at Harris’s Detroit Rally
Fox News Politics: Kamala of Troy
Officials at UN Security Council push for a permanent seat for Africa
Costco says it's going to start cracking down on membership sharing
Trump claims 'nobody' cheered Harris outside Air Force Two despite video, images of crowds
-
Politics1 week agoWatchdog claims victory over Pentagon animal testing as lawmakers demand accounting of taxpayer funds
-
World1 week agoQassam Brigades local commander among 5 killed in Israel attack on Tulkarem
-
Politics1 week agoGeorgia activist steals the show after being introduced by Trump at Atlanta rally: 'Incredible'
-
Politics1 week agoBarack Obama's political career kicked off in the Illinois State Senate, evolved into a two-term presidency
-
World1 week agoHamas begins consultations to choose Ismail Haniyeh’s successor
-
Politics1 week agoHarris VP search comes down to the wire, with Dems divided over Shapiro, Walz, Kelly
-
World7 days agoVenezuela launches probe against opposition leaders Gonzalez, Machado
-
World1 week agoSeveral police officers injured in protests across the UK