Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the almost-Vice-President of the United States of America, repeatedly refused during a Thursday congressional hearing to apologize for comparing ICE agents to the Gestapo.
“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Waltz said in a commencement speech at the University of Minnesota’s law school last month. “They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons.”
On Thursday, Walz testified in a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing alongside Governors Kathy Hochul of New York and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois. Lawmakers grilled the governors about cases of violent criminal illegal aliens allowed to “roam free” in their states. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn, highlighted how Walz signed several omnibus bills into law in 2023, granting illegal aliens “free healthcare, free college, and driver’s licenses.”
Multiple lawmakers specifically pressed Walz on his commencement speech remarks.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., asked Walz a series of yes-or-no questions about the Holocaust and the historical German Gestapo, including whether Walz knew that they “committed genocide against the Jews.”
“Did you know ICE has done none of that?” Mace asked.
Walz eventually said he knew ICE had “not committed genocide against anyone,” but nonetheless continued to suggest that the federal agency “operated as a secret police force.”
Mace then asked Walz whether he would apologize for his “disgusting comparison,” but Walz refused to answer the question, instead appearing to defend his comments.
When Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., asked Walz if he would like to recant his University of Minnesota statement, Walz tried to revise it, claiming he said Trump was merely “using” ICE agents as his personal Gestapo.
Emmer also grilled Walz about his commencement statement: “Gestapo, by the way, sir, was the official secret police of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. So, you’re calling ICE agents modern-day Nazis. Given the attacks on ICE agents that took place in Los Angeles over the weekend, don’t you regard your dangerous, inflammatory rhetoric as a problem?”
“Which of the questions do you want me to answer first?” Walz replied.
Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., noted how, “We’ve seen numerous videos of rioters obstructing and assaulting federal law enforcement after [Walz’s University of Minnesota] remarks, including in Los Angeles.”
“Governor, do you think comments like that, and rhetoric like that, put ICE officers and other law enforcement in greater danger?” Comer asked.
Walz again sidestepped the question, responding with the claim that “any attack on law enforcement is unacceptable.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported last week that ICE agents are facing a 413 percent increase in assaults, and that their families have been targeted as well. Walz is mentioned by name in the statement in a list of Democrat politicians who have “villainized and demonized ICE law enforcement.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is also on the list. “Every single ICE agent who is engaged in this aggressive overreach, and are trying to hide their identities from the American people, will be unsuccessful in doing that. This is America. This is not the Soviet Union … and every single one of them, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, will, of course, be identified,” Jeffries said last week.
Jacqueline Annis-Levings is a correspondent for the Federalist. She is a rising junior at Patrick Henry College, where she is majoring in English.
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