President Donald Trump isn’t backing down after using an ableist slur to describe Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Trump deemed the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee “seriously retarded” in a rambling post on his Truth Social platform Thursday, while also taking aim at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and former President Joe Biden.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One late Sunday, the president said he “absolutely” stood by his comments. Regarding Walz, he noted, “I think there’s something wrong with him.”
“Anybody that would do what he did, anybody that would allow those people into his state and pay billions of dollars out to Somalia,” he said, as seen in video shared by Mediaite and other outlets. “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.”
He then added, “Yeah, there’s something wrong with Walz.”
Trump’s attacks on migrants, such as those from Somalia referenced in his Truth Social post, follow last week’s close-range shooting of two young National Guard members in Washington, D.C. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, reportedly entered the U.S. in 2021 as part of the Biden-era Operation Allies Welcome after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, but was granted asylum under Trump.
Despite repeated backlash, Trump has made it a tradition to mark holidays with incendiary remarks, usually targeted at his opponents.
Last year, he dedicated his Thanksgiving message to “Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country” before praising his “landslide victory” over former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
His Father’s Day message that year featured similar language about “radical left degenerates.”
Walz, however, hasn’t seemed too vexed by Trump’s insult. Shortly after the president posted his Truth Social rant, the Minnesota governor fired back with a pointed message of his own.
“Release the MRI results,” Walz wrote on X, alluding to Trump’s head-scratching explanation of his October MRI exam, the latest in a series of incidents that have prompted speculation over the president’s health.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Walz suggested Trump’s “mental capacity” should be serious cause for concern.
“Here we got a guy on Thanksgiving where we spent time with our families, we ate, we played Yahtzee, we cheered for football or whatever,” he said. “This guy is apparently in a room ranting about everything else. This is not normal behavior. It’s not healthy.”
