Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz said in 2020 that she kept the windows of the governor's mansion open amid a smell of burning tires during the riots that hit the city.
The wife of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' running mate set social media ablaze Tuesday after an unearthed clip of her describing her actions during the 2020 Minneapolis riots went viral.
Gwen Walz is Minnesota's first lady and the wife of Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was picked by Vice President Harris to be her running mate on the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket.
A pivotal part of Walz's gubernatorial record was his handling of the death of George Floyd in the state in 2020. Floyd's death sparked nationwide protests about race and police brutality.
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"Again we had more sleepless nights during the riots," Walz's wife told KSTP in July 2020. "I could smell the burning tires, and that was a very real thing. And I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening."
Conservative commentators expressed astonishment at Gwen Walz's remarks after the clip started going viral on social media.
"What might you call this? Bizarre? Abnormal? Peculiar? Eccentric? Offbeat? Quirky?" Noah Rothman, a senior writer at the National Review Online, said. "Gotta be a word that describes reveling in the catharsis represented by the torching of other people’s property."
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk described the comments as "weird."
"Profoundly disturbing," journalist Abigail Shrier said. "We're going to need to learn a lot more about the Walzes."
Dustin Grage, the president of a conservative Minnesota-based consulting firm, said the comments were "bizarre," adding, "Her daughter also coordinated with rioters to let them know that the National Guard would not be activated one night."
"Everything you need to know about leftist elites can be found in this short clip," Daily Wire host Matt Walsh said on X. "Tim Walz’s wife sat by the window enjoying the smell of poor neighborhoods burning during the Floyd riots. She did everything but pull out a fiddle."
Gov. Walz was criticized for his handling of the riots. Conservatives accused him of sitting on his hands as the state was engulfed by riots.
As a result of the delayed action, hundreds of businesses across Minneapolis and St. Paul were devastated by the destruction and had to ask their local government for help recovering on top of what they lost during pandemic-related closures.
First lady Walz said she was aware Minnesota was under national scrutiny at the time.
"With COVID-19, the entire state was watching what Tim did," Ms. Walz said. "But with Mr. Floyd’s death, it was the entire country and the whole world looking at and watching what we did here in Minnesota in response to that."
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That record is now again under scrutiny as Walz is catapulted into the national spotlight, with Republican critics taking aim at how both Walz and Harris handled the 2020 crisis.
"Minnesota was ground zero for the BLM riots of 2020," Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. "Harris egged it on, and Walz sat by and let Minneapolis burn."
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate and running mate of former President Trump, poked at Walz's 2020 record Tuesday, calling his addition to the Democratic ticket "an interesting tag team."
"If we remember the rioting in the summer of 2020, Tim Walz was the guy who let rioters burn down Minneapolis," he said of the riots that began in Minnesota in response to the death of Floyd while being arrested in Minneapolis. "And then Kamala Harris was the one who bailed the rioters out of jail."
