Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s daughter shared what led her father to drop out of the state’s 2026 re-election race, as he faced mounting national backlash over a massive Somali fraud scandal.
“We were kind of talking about it over the holidays and that’s the decision he came to, my family came to,” Hope Walz told “One Hour Detours” host John O’Sullivan just hours after her father announced he wouldn’t seek re-election.
The 25-year-old said her father began to reconsider running again “with things rapidly changing within the last month.”
“I don’t want to speak for him, but I think when things started getting really intense for me like on my social media and then people even saying things like to Gus and stuff, I think that’s when he was really like, ‘Okay, like, I need to evaluate what’s best for the state and then I need to evaluate what’s best for my family,’” she recalled.
“And then, I think it was just kind of a natural conclusion.”
Looming over Walz’s stunning decision to drop out of the 2026 Minnesota gubernatorial race is a growing scandal of massive fraud in the state’s generous social safety net.
“My dad would say, part of the decision he decided to step away from the race was to kind of get that target off of Minnesota,” Hope shared.
“’I think he believes if he’s not in the race, there’s nothing, they have nothing else.”
She also said that her father has taken the brunt of the blame because of his national profile, arguing that Trump “just hates him for some reason.”
“I think it’s because he’s everything Trump will never be,” Hope said.
“I think he was popular during the campaign last fall and he’s still in office and he’s running again, and so it’s just kind of an easy thing for them to pick up on.”
She said she believes there is “enough truth to the fraud claims” that Trump and his supporters were able to “twist and amplify it” and “frame it in a way that benefited them,” adding that the matter “is being dealt with.”
Hope’s interview comes a month after she launched into the tirade, claiming critics were targeting her younger brother Gus with insults in the wake of Trump criticizing Walz for his handling of the Somali food aid fraud scheme.
“I’m talking about this because while my family and I are always gonna be the bigger people, the president calling my dad what he did has unleashed a f–king s–t storm regarding offensive language towards me and my family and specifically my brother,” the 25-year-old said in the now-deleted TikTok video.
“You can call me whatever you want, you can call my dad, my mom, when it’s Gus, f–k to the no. He dealt with people calling him that last August and now there’s a resurgence? No.”
Start your day with all you need to know
Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.
Thanks for signing up!
Her comments came after Trump ripped the Minnesota governor as “seriously retarded” when he accused him of letting tens of thousands of Somali immigrants take over his “once great state” in a Thanksgiving message.
Scrutiny of former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 veep pick has only intensified over the past few weeks, after independent journalist Nick Shirley released a viral video that mainly showed empty taxpayer-funded day care centers.
Estimates vary, but the theft is thought to be at least $1 billion.
First Assistant US Attorney Joe Thompson claimed late last year that the fraud could be $9 billion or more.
The fraud was prevalent among Minnesota’s Somali population, where people set up bogus nonprofits to get state funding to provide services to the homeless, hungry and individuals in need of day care for their children.
Prosecutors have charged more than 90 people with fraud.
Up until his announcement on Monday, Walz had been widely seen as the frontrunner heading into November.
Democrats have won statewide elections in Minnesota consistently since 2006.
