Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has unleashed one of his fiercest criticisms yet of President Donald Trump, blasting the White House for failing to lower flags in honor of slain Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Chris, after their shocking murder this summer.
Hortman, a longtime figure in Minnesota politics and a mother of two, was shot dead in June inside her Brooklyn Park home. Her husband was also killed. Authorities later revealed that the killer, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, had posed as a police officer to gain access to their residence. Investigators uncovered a chilling “kill list” of Democratic officials allegedly prepared by Boelter, a vocal Trump supporter. He now faces federal murder and terrorism charges.
Despite the clear political motivations behind the killings, the White House made no symbolic gesture of mourning. Reporters pressed Trump this week on why flags were not lowered in Minnesota, as they had been after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah just last week. Trump’s response stunned many.
“Well, if the governor had asked me to do that, I would have done that, but the governor of Minnesota didn’t ask me,” Trump said Tuesday in the Oval Office.
For Walz, the comment was more than tone-deaf—it was devastating. Appearing on MSNBC’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki, the Democratic governor said the president’s explanation showed a callous disregard for victims of political violence unless they fit his partisan narrative.
“It’s been pretty traumatic in Minnesota,” Walz said. “Nothing surprises me. There’s no compassion. There’s no empathy in this man, and there’s no sense of governing for the whole country. We had a horrific act of political violence and the loss of an exceptional human being, a mom. Just—it’s hard to explain to people. And it gets reduced to a footnote. This beautiful life, this big life.”
Walz added that the “disrespect rolled off” Trump’s tongue. “Yet we’re supposed to believe they’re concerned about political violence,” he continued. “And you see the vice president, you know, go on a podcast, it’s government by podcast, to just lie and to bring hate. They’re not interested in solving this.”
The governor was referring to Vice President JD Vance, who filled in as host of The Charlie Kirk Show following the conservative commentator’s assassination last week. During the program, Vance repeated his claim that “most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far left.”
That rhetoric, Walz argued, exemplifies the way Trump’s team exploits grief selectively. When Kirk was shot and killed at a Utah Valley University event on September 10, the White House responded swiftly with public mourning and symbolic acts. When Hortman and her husband were murdered under similarly political circumstances, no such recognition came.
“This isn’t about party labels,” Walz said. “It’s about recognizing lives lost to political hatred. It’s about compassion. And we’re not seeing it from this president.”
The governor further contrasted Trump’s silence with the grief still reverberating across Minnesota. He referenced the recent shooting deaths of two children—8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski—who were gunned down while praying at a Minneapolis church in August.
“Two weekends in a row. We’ve gone to memorial services for an 8- and 10-year-old, to hear about these beautiful lives,” Walz said. “And I guarantee you, Donald Trump doesn’t know their names—and he’s out there doing this. He doesn’t care.”
The White House, meanwhile, doubled down. Trump told reporters he had no plans to call Walz to offer condolences, dismissing the idea as a waste of time. “I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked-out. I’m not calling,” Trump said. “Why would I call him?”
The refusal underscored what Walz described as a dangerous pattern: the president’s tendency to divide rather than unify in moments of national pain. “We’re done with it in Minnesota,” Walz vowed. “We’re going to do something about it.”
Walz, who announced this week he will seek a third term as governor, framed his re-election campaign as part of that broader effort to restore empathy and decency to politics. His spokesperson Claire Lancaster reinforced the message, telling the Associated Press: “Governor Walz wishes that President Trump would be a president for all Americans.”
For grieving Minnesotans, however, Trump’s dismissive words have already deepened the wounds left by Hortman’s killing. What should have been a unifying moment of respect became, instead, another political fault line—one that Walz insists the country cannot afford to ignore.