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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) on Tuesday slammed President Trump for not speaking compassionately about slain state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D) after she and her husband, Mark, were gunned down in their home.
“There’s no compassion, there’s no empathy in this man, and there’s no sense of governing for the whole country,” Walz said during a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC’s “The Briefing.”
“We had a horrific act of political violence and the loss of an exceptional human being, a mom,” the governor said of Hortman’s death.
A gunman dressed as a police officer targeted Hortman’s home in June during a “politically motivated” attack.
On Monday, the president said he did not know who a reporter was referring to while being asked why he chose not to lower flags for the slain Minnesota lawmaker, while ordering flags to fly at half-staff following the shooting of Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA co-founder.
The question has been widely asked on social media amid questions surrounding the motivation of Kirk’s killing.
“Given all of the moving ways that this White House has paid tribute to Charlie Kirk, do you think it would have been fitting to lower the flags to half-staff when Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota House speaker, was gunned down by an assassin as well?” Nancy Cordes, the chief White House correspondent for CBS News, asked Trump.
“I’m not familiar. The who?” the president replied.
Months prior, the president publicly mourned the loss of Hortman.
“Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God Bless the great people of Minnesota, a truly great place!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social after being informed of the violent event.
However, the president refused to call Walz to discuss the matter via phone.
Instead Trump told reporters, there was no need to speak with the “whacked out” governor who was selected as the Democratic nominee for vice president during the 2024 presidential election.
At the time, a spokesperson for Walz responded with a statement that read, “It’s about the Hortman family, the Hoffman family, & the State of Minnesota, and the Governor remains focused on helping all three heal.”
Now, the Minnesota governor whose running for another term, said the goal remains the same.
He said Hortman was “just a decent person and probably one of the most skillful legislators I’ve ever worked with.”
“Minnesota’s a better state that got massive things done to improve people’s lives, and you just see, you know, the disrespect and how easy that rolled off his tongue,” he told host Jen Psaki.
“Yet we’re supposed to believe that they’re definitely concerned about political violence.”
