(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Gwen Walz, wife of newly minted Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, claimed that throughout the 2020 race riots that ravaged the Twin Cities following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, she left the windows of her house open in order to take in the aroma, the Daily Caller reported.
“In those first days, when there were riots, I could smell the burning tires,” she said in an interview aired on KSTP-TV’s 5 Eyewitness News Nightcast. “That was a very real thing, and I kept the windows open for as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.”
The “fiery but mostly peaceful” protests lasted for three days.
The “this is fine” meme has come to life.
MSNBC reporter in Minneapolis: “I want to be clear on how I characterize this. This is mostly a protest. It is not generally speaking unruly."pic.twitter.com/SLUSXqg2R4
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 29, 2020
Many on the Left appeared to relish the destruction wrought by organizations like the Marxist Black Lives Matter, believing that the economic toll was justified if the civil unrest harmed then-President Donald Trump politically in the months leading up to the 2020 election.
As governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz delayed sending in the National Guard and instead allowed the city to burn, maintaining that armed forces would simply incite further rioting.
“I want to just be clear: There’s philosophically an argument to be made that an armed presence on the ground in the midst of where we just had a police killing is seen as a catalyst,” Walz said at the time, according to CNN.
He did not report his level of enjoyment of the scent of burning tires.
Critics on social media found his wife’s apparent enjoyment of the phenomenon to be “terrifying,” “demonic” and “grotesque.”
She's applauding this"
"$500 million of damages to 1,500 property locations, 604 arrests, 164 instances of arson, and 2 riot-related deaths"— Nick Jay (@Nick_Jay_D) August 6, 2024
Dustin Grage, a Minnesota-based campaign strategist, alleged that the Walzes’ daughter was coordinating with rioters and providing sensitive information to them, potentially jeopardizing the safety of law enforcement, while her father was ostensibly tasked with mitigating the damage.
“Her daughter also coordinated with rioters to let them know that the National Guard would not be activated one night,” Grage wrote.
Despite efforts to rebrand him as a centrist, Walz has earned a reputation for being radically leftist, even saying during a recent Zoom call in support of current Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democrat nominee for president, that “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”
