In his first interview since the 2024 presidential election, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz shared his disdain for Republicans who have remained silent and complicit amid President Donald Trump’s move to freeze federal funding – which a federal judge has now temporarily blocked.
“They’re never going to bring this the legal way because no Republican will vote for this, and the deafening silence of republican governors,” Walz told MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow during an appearance on “The Rachel Maddow Show.” “These are my colleagues, some of them are my friends, but shame on you. You know what this is doing — and look, I come from a wealthy state that has the lowest childhood poverty rates and we have a strong safety net — I guarantee you these republican states would pay the price far more than us, and they’re just silent on it.”
On Tuesday, the Trump administration put a freeze on all federal funding, grants and loans, citing an effort to review the government’s spending.
“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a memo about the decision.
The freeze impacted a myriad of government-issued funding, including Medicaid and programs for housing assistance, food stamps, child care, rape crisis centers and more. That same day, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s freeze while his camp proceeds with its review. On Wednesday, Trump rescinded his order following criticism.
“OK, there’s a court order — who believes Donald Trump’s going to care what the courts say? Who believes he’s not going to do this?” Walz said, alluding to the Trump’s history of not following the rules of the government and its traditional processes. He added that he believes Trump’s pause is merely part of a larger political plot.
“It was cruel, they planned it. Yes, it was somewhat bafoonish, but I’m not quite certain that we’re reading that right,” Walz explained. “I think this is the case of, this is a trial balloon to see how much tolerance we had. I make this analogy: it’s like you caught someone and they stole everything out of your house, you caught them and you told them to put it back, and when you start looking, some of it’s still gone. What they’re going to say is, ‘Oh, they don’t raise a stink about meteorologists or our folks who are monitoring PFASs in our waters, so let’s just go on with that or people that we don’t think have a voice people that we want to marginalize and demonize.’ So, they were going to get this.”
As it pertains to Republicans, Walz says it’s time for the party to show some backbone.
“So we’re going to need some courage. This is a long fight. This is, ideologically, everything you laid out, they want to destroy the federal government,” Walz said. “This buyout of employees, because now they’ve threatened them. It’s here, the game is here. We knew it was coming. I don’t know what people thought.”
