House Minority leader Kurt Daudt says you can blame one man for the violence we've seen across the country in the wake of George Floyd's death: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Appearing on The Chad Hartman Show on Thursday, Daudt didn't hold back while discussing how Walz has handled everything from the riots and civil unrest to the tearing down of the Christopher Columbus statue at the State Capitol yesterday.
"I'll be brutally honest with you, I think this makes the Governor look like a damn fool. Here's what I would suggest that he do specifically. If you say you're going to protect something protected because people listen to you. I was down on Lake Street last week visiting with, with business owners who for four nights had been out, protecting their businesses to make sure that it didn't get looted and it didn't get the windows broken out and it didn't get burned. And on Friday night, the governor said, Nope, you can't be out in the street. There's a curfew. You need to go home. The national guard will be here to protect your business. It will be safe. That morning, he said there will not be a lack of leadership tonight. And that night, the national guard did not show up. The governor did not follow through with his word. There was no leadership and those people, their businesses, and Friday night was the worst night of looting and burning of buildings."
Daudt continued his criticism of Governor Walz over the dismantling of the Christopher Columbus statue yesterday. While it was made clear by the Governor and Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety John Harrington that State Troopers would be at the site to talk the protesters out of tearing down the statue, the statue was still taken down by the group.
"Last night, the statue, you know, in the grand scheme of things who really cares? Christopher Columbus, was it insensitive to native Americans? Absolutely. Should it have been there? Maybe not, but that's a debate to have in the public sphere, not by protestors pulling a statue down. And if the governor stands 90 minutes, before that statute comes down and says, we will protect it. And he does nothing to protect it. And it's very obvious that he obviously ordered officers to stand down. It makes him look like a damn fool."
While Daudt was less concerned about the statue itself, he says the bigger problem is Governor Walz saying one thing and doing another.
"If you're not going to do something, don't say you are because Minnesotans listened to you and last night it was just a statue, right? It's just an inanimate object that sure, it's public property and sure, it's against the law to deface that and tear it down. And we have proper procedures to go through that, but nobody's life was lost and nobody was harmed."
The Minnesota House Minority leader also said this leadership happened during the riots on Lake Street.
"Lake street, the same thing happened to those businesses. When the governor said there will be, I remember it just as clear as day, there will be no failure of leadership tonight. He said that in that press conference. And what was there? Another night of failed leadership. He said the national guard was going to be there. We think he ordered the national guard to stand down as well. What happened that night is, those people who worked so hard, almost all of them minority business owners who worked so hard to build those businesses, listened to the Governor. They stayed in, they have, they obeyed the curfew and their businesses got burned that night because the governor didn't protect them. That's the problem."
Daudt thinks that something happened the night the National Guard was called in and it wasn't in good faith to the community.
"I think he's admitted to that. They said that they didn't get an order until 1230 in the morning and by then it was too late. The businesses had already been burned, but we knew they were there. Earlier in the night, I was watching the live television, which I'm sure you were as well Chad, as we watched businesses burn. And the only place we saw National Guard troops was escorting firetrucks to fires that were already burning. There was nobody protecting those businesses. There was nobody protecting Minnesotans. And the governor said, and I remember it, he said, there will be no failure of leadership. I was on briefings that day, where he said, we will have the national guard in the streets. He gave us the numbers of the National Guard. He gave us the numbers of the State Troopers. And somebody must have ordered those people to down or not engage or not to protect those businesses. But those business owners believed the same thing that I did, which is that the governor was going to show some leadership that night and he was going to protect their businesses and that did not happen."