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In May 2020, as Minneapolis burned and grieved after the police murder of George Floyd, Tim Walz seemed backed into a corner.

The Minnesota governor was facing a barrage of criticism for not moving faster to restore order after the torching of a police station and numerous businesses. When Walz mobilized the state National Guard three days after Floyd’s death, the move garnered praise from the most unlikely of supporters: then-President Trump.

In a call with Walz and other leaders about a week after Floyd’s death, Trump remarked that “what they did in Minneapolis was incredible.”

“They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately,” Trump said, according to an audio recording of the call obtained by ABC News and other outlets.

Those comments and Walz’s decision-making in the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s death have taken on new significance in recent days, since Vice President Kamala Harris named Walz as her running mate.

After a whirlwind week on the campaign trail with Harris, the until recently little-known Midwestern governor kicked off his first solo campaign stop as a vice presidential candidate with a speech at a labor convention in Los Angeles this week.

Walz was less than two years into his governorship and still grappling with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic when Floyd was killed. His death on May 25, 2020, was captured on a bystander’s livestream, which showed him writhing and pleading for air as a white officer knelt on his neck for nearly 9½ minutes. The incident forced a reckoning with police brutality and racism, with mass protests spreading around the world. Some turned violent.

“That is a delicate balance that I think he has managed: where he has supported the police and … supported community members simultaneously, and many state officials are not able to do that,” said Duchess Harris, a professor of American studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., whose research centers on race, law, politics and gender studies.

Among Democrats, Walz’s backers have highlighted the chaotic weeks that followed Floyd’s death to help show his willingness to set aside party differences to work toward a common goal, a trait that dates back to his days in Congress.

Republicans, meanwhile, have argued Walz’s actions showed he was a feckless leader who stood by, waiting to be summoned, while arson and vandalism spread through his state’s largest city.

But as president, Trump struck a decidedly different tone on a call with Walz and administration officials on June 1, 2020 — a week after Floyd’s death.

“Tim, you called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast, it was like bowling pins,” he said. Trump said he had been planning to send in federal troops “to get the job done right,” and singled out the city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, saying he’d shown a “total lack of leadership.” But he didn’t criticize Walz at the time.

In the call, Trump described Walz as “an excellent guy,” and later told him: “I don’t blame you. I blame the mayor.”

But that was then. Walz’s Republican vice presidential counterpart, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, is now publicly accusing Walz of letting “rioters burn down Minneapolis.” The sometimes misleading or false claims are being echoed in Republican attack ads and on social media.

On the social media platform X, the official account for the Trump campaign, Team Trump, posted: “Tim Walz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in 2020 and the few that got caught, Kamala bailed them out of jail” — in reference to Harris’ spoken support for a bail fund that was set up to help people who were arrested while protesting.

In the days after Floyd’s death, Walz called the city’s response an “abject failure,” setting off a frenzy of finger-pointing with Frey over who was to blame.

A series of follow-up reports pointed to significant breakdowns in communication and coordination that had led to a disjointed response from numerous law enforcement agencies.

A report commissioned by the city of Minneapolis suggested that local leaders’ unfamiliarity with the protocols for requesting National Guard assistance had “caused a delay in the approval and deployment of resources.”

A separate report by the state Senate — controlled by Republicans at the time — brought a more scathing critique, accusing both Walz and Frey of “failing to realize the seriousness of the riots” that caused roughly $500million in property damage, and of not acting “in a timely manner to confront rioters with necessary force due to an ill-conceived philosophical belief that such an action would exacerbate the rioting.”

Had Walz acted more decisively, the report’s authors said, “the riots would have been brought under control much faster.”

Walz’s backers have dismissed such criticism as an attempt to rewrite history.

The current president of the Democratic-controlled state Senate, Bobby Joe Champion, said Walz had “worked with a cross-section of people” to coordinate a response to the unprecedented mass demonstrations that rocked Minneapolis after Floyd’s death. Despite the criticism leveled at the governor, he did a “great job” balancing the right to free speech with the need for safety and order, Champion said.

“Hindsight being 20-20, there are those who are going to say what they coulda, woulda, shoulda done,” said Champion, who under the state constitution will become lieutenant governor if Harris and Walz win in November.

Any skeptics of Walz’s record need look only to the raft of “recent legislative victories” aimed at addressing “historic racial inequities” that will have a downstream impact on crime rates, Champion said.

Walz’s political record is that of “a centrist Democrat who happened to be in control of a state where the Democrats had moved to the left,” said Michelle Phelps, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota.

Walz has won respect from some in his party for his part in passing progressive legislation to expand free school lunches and protect transgender and abortion rights, she said, but has failed to push through any bills that “substantially challenged police powers in Minnesota.”

He also pushed for hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding for more police when violent crime surged after Floyd’s murder.

“If you look at him more holistically, what you get is this more centrist Democrat who is trying to thread this classic needle of how [to] rein in illegitimate police violence, while also promising a sense of security to the state’s residents,” said Phelps, who has written a book on police reform in Minneapolis. “And what that means is empowering police while also trying to make some tweaks along the edges.”

And just as Harris has had to answer for her past as a prosecutor in California, Walz’s record on criminal justice will probably come under intense scrutiny. In recent days, some have seized on the several times Walz intervened in high-profile criminal cases.

After Floyd’s death, the governor made the unusual move of reassigning the prosecution of the fired Minneapolis police officer who killed him to the state attorney general, Keith Ellison. More recently, he publicly questioned the top prosecutor in the county where Minneapolis is located over her handling of several cases, including one in which she charged a state trooper with the murder of a Black motorist.

The prosecutor, Mary Moriarty, later dropped murder and manslaughter charges against the trooper amid mounting pressure from law enforcement groups, and accused Walz of treating her differently than her male predecessor because she’s a queer woman.

Toussaint Morrison, a filmmaker and musician, said that although Walz faced a difficult challenge in responding to the unrest, his decision to deploy the National Guard escalated an already tense situation as numerous troops used force against protesters. The following year, Walz again used the Guard to respond to protests over the killing of a Black motorist in a Minneapolis suburb.

“What I saw is someone who targeted, brutalized and attempted to intimidate protesters. I understand people want public safety — they want to feel safe. On the other hand, people want to be able to access their 1st Amendment rights,” said Morrison, a longtime organizer in the Twin Cities who has supported families affected by police brutality. “And I’m saying this as someone who will likely vote for Harris-Walz.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Walz speaks at a May 29, 2020, news conference about the unrest in the Twin Cities.

(Glen Stubbe / Associated Press)

The whole world is watching.

They want to see what unfolds this week in Chicago as Democrats convene their quadrennial political convention and anoint Vice President Harris as their 2024 standard-bearer.

But, the mantra “the whole world is watching” is from 1968.

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That was a battle cry from demonstrators who descended on the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968. They brawled with delegates, reporters and police. The war in Vietnam raged. And anti-war protesters wanted the world to know how they felt. So what better opportunity to converge on the Democratic convention and air their grievances – often within the view finder of a television camera.

The 1968 Democratic convention was the most volatile in American history.

Democrats hope to avoid such controversies this year. But with raucous, anti-Israel protests raging on college campuses and across the nation all spring, that may be tough to avoid. Moreover, this highlights the schism in the Democratic Party over the Middle East.

As they said in 1968, the world is watching.

Long before the demonstrations, political observers were already making comparisons between 2024 and 1968. After all, Democrats announced plans to hold their convention in Chicago. Parallels between 1968 and 2024 intensified.

1968 was the year where American society changed. The year featured massive disintegrations in political order. Meantime, social disarray reigned in the streets. 1968 was a temporal storm. A set of months and days on a calendar – metamorphosed into indelible and at times horrific images for history.

2024 might not rival 1968 yet. But its tumult stands out – even against other recent years of bedlam and chaos.

Vietnam besieged President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1968. Republicans won three Senate seats and an attention-grabbing 47 House seats in the 1966 midterms. Johnson may have lost political support. But he never lost his political acumen. Johnson barely won the 1968 Democratic primary in New Hampshire and knew what to do.

Like President Biden in 2024, Johnson didn’t formally contest New Hampshire, Johnson ran as a write-in. Mr. Biden’s only true competition in the primary was Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. Much of the party upbraided Phillips for even challenging the President, lashing out at suggestions that the President wasn’t fit enough for another term.

In 1968, Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D-Minn., held Johnson to just under 50 percent of the vote in New Hampshire.

Flustered, but keen to the political stakes, Johnson bowed out in late March 1968.

“I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year,” declared Johnson in a legendary Oval Office address.

In fact, President Biden’s words echoed those of Johnson when he made the decision to drop out after his disastrous debate performance with former President Trump in late June.

“I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation,” said the President.

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Political violence was a hallmark of 1968. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. fueled riots across the nation.

Two months later, Robert F. Kennedy celebrated his victory at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California and South Dakota primaries.

“My thanks to all of you. And now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there,” presaged Kennedy – an ominous namecheck of what lurked ahead for Democrats.

Sirhan Sirhan – a pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist who popped out from behind an ice machine in the kitchen of the hotel – pumped multiple, point blank shots into Kennedy. Sirhan Sirhan opposed Kennedy over his support for Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

The current Middle East conflict rocks the country today – taking the place of the Vietnam conflict of the 1960s.

But there are other similarities.

In 1968, former Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D) ran as a third party candidate.

In 2024, Kennedy’s son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wages a challenge to Vice President Harris and former President Trump.

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump is rushed offstage during a rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

And there’s political violence in 2024, too. A gunman nearly killed Mr. Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last month.

Once President Biden abandoned his re-election bid, Democrats quickly pivoted to Harris.

This mirrors what Democrats did in 1968. Democrats switched their allegiances to another vice president to be their nominee: Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Democrats formally rally around Harris this week in Chicago – home of the most-ignominious convention on record.

“Unless they were looking for this comparison, the Democrats are going back to Chicago for what’s expected to be an unusually turbulent convention,” said Luke Nichter, a professor at Chapman University who has written about 1968.

While protesters scuffled with police outside the hall, reporters tangled with security guards inside. Guards roughed up CBS correspondent Dan Rather on the floor.

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Unflappable CBS anchor Walter Cronkite was none too pleased with how authorities manhandled his colleague.

“I think we’ve got a bunch of thugs here, Dan,” said Cronkite on the air.

Tension gurgled between Democratic delegates over Vietnam.

“With (Sen.) George McGovern, D-S.D., as President of the United States, we wouldn’t have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago,” said Sen. Abe Ribicoff, D-Conn., of the anti-war senator.

McGovern would have to wait until 1972 to secure the Democratic nomination.

The echoes of 1968 worry Democrats ahead of this year’s convention.

“You have to re-do the right things from the legal point of view. And also from a political point of view. We want everyone to be safe. And I’m holding my breath,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. “We have law enforcement at every level, local, state and federal, give me their assurance that they’re ready for this. And I pray that they are.”

But it’s unclear whether disturbances and civil unrest could supersede the convention narrative.

Former President Bill Clinton raises his hand to the crowd before giving his acceptance speech Thursday night at the 1996 Democratic National Convention at the United Center.  (Harry Hamburg/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

“As in 1968, a lot of it will depend on how the media covers the protesters,” said Nichter. “A lot of it, like ’68, is going to come down to (whether) the cameras glorify the violence and turn the protesters into the stars during the convention.”

However, 1968 wasn’t the last time Democrats convened in Chicago.

Democrats nominated former President Clinton for a second term in Chicago in 1996. And that isn’t even what most people remember.

In 1996, a pop cultural phenomenon consumed the convention.

Every night, the bopping, electronic tones of Los del Rio and the Bayside Boys would echo inside Chicago United Center. And within a few moments, tens of thousands of Democrats were gyrating to the unmistakable rhythm of the Macarena. On the floor. On the stage. In the aisles. The Democratic National Committee even published an animation on their official webpage, showing people the moves to do with the song.

The Macarena spent an astonishing three-and-a-half-months at number one on the Billboard chart. It was the number one song in the nation for 1996.

By the time the Macarena began to slip on the pop charts that fall, former President Clinton handily vanquished late Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., and returned to the White House.

In 1968, President Richard Nixon defeated Humphrey.

Democrats hope the end result of their 2024 convention is a lot more like 1996 than 1968.

But win or lose, they probably won’t perform the Macarena.