This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
PALM BEACH, Florida – President Donald Trump, who on Thanksgiving Day called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz "seriously retarded," is now doubling down on that claim, saying there is "absolutely" something wrong with the Democrat governor who has allowed his state to be packed with Somalians.
Aboard Air Force One on a flight from Palm Beach to the nation's capital Sunday evening, a reporter asked the president: "You mentioned Tim Walz, and you called him what many Americans find an offensive word, retarded. Do you stand by that claim of calling Tim Walz retarded?"
Trump replied: "Yeah, I think there's something wrong with him. Absolutely. You have a problem with it? I think there's something wrong with him."
"Anybody who would do what he did, anybody that would allow those people into a state and pay billions of dollars out to Somalia, we give billions of dollars to Somalia. It's not even a country because it doesn't function like a country. It's got a name but it doesn't function like a country. Yeah, there's something wrong with Walz."
In a blistering late-night Truth Social post on Thanksgiving, Trump originally said: "The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both."
"Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for 'prey' as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone."
Walz responded Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," saying: "Look, Donald Trump insulting me is a badge of honor for me, but I think we all know both as an educator for a couple decades and as a parent using that term is just so damaging. It's hurtful."
As Fox News reported Nov. 21, "A new investigation found that Minnesota taxpayer dollars were going far beyond the North Star State's borders and ending up in the hands of Al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked terror group.
"Ryan Thorpe and Christopher F. Rufo of the Manhattan Institute uncovered a web of fraud involving Minnesota's Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program, Feeding Our Future and other organizations in a bombshell report. Thorpe and Rufo noted that, in many cases, members of Minnesota's Somali community were perpetrators of fraud. They added that federal counterterrorism sources confirmed that millions of dollars in stolen funds were sent back to Somalia, which is how Al-Shabaab got the cash.
"Thorpe and Rufo sought to answer a bigger question when looking into the schemes: 'Where did the money go?'"
"As it turned out, the Somali fraud rings sent money transfers from Minnesota to Somalia and, according to reports, approximately 40% of households in Somalia get remittances from abroad. Thorpe and Rufo state that in 2023, the Somali diaspora sent $1.7 billion to the country, which was higher than the Somali government's budget that same year."
