Trump and cabinet officials cite Minneapolis riots, Walz’s response to justify troops in Los Angeles

President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet are citing the Minneapolis riots and Gov. Tim Walz’s response as they explain why they’ve deployed troops to quell protests in Los Angeles.

Trump has deployed about 700 Marines and federalized thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quash protests of immigration raids, despite objections from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has derided the move as an escalation by federal authorities.

The president told reporters Tuesday that in his first term, he waited for governors to call in the military for riot response and “they didn’t want to do it.”

“I watched Minneapolis and other places burn for a long time and I said, ‘When are you going to call? When are you going to call?’ And I said if I ever do this again, if they’re not responsive at the beginning …” Trump said.

He then turned his comments to Walz, saying, “I waited for this guy, the same guy who ran for vice president, who’s a very dumb person. He’s a low-IQ individual like many Democrats are.”

Teddy Tschann, a spokesman for Walz, said in a statement Wednesday that the governor “took action and deployed the National Guard to keep our city safe — Donald Trump did not.”

Trump and other top Republicans continue to use the riots that engulfed Minneapolis after the killing of George Floyd in 2020 as a line of attack against Walz and other Democrats, holding it up as an example that they’re too slow to respond to unrest.

In a post on his Truth Social account Sunday, Trump blasted Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass as “incompetent” and “unable to handle the task.”

Republicans have been more critical of Walz’s response to the 2020 riots since he ran for vice president last year and became a national leader in the Democratic Party.

Standing next to Trump in the Oval Office this week, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also criticized Walz as she defended sending troops to Los Angeles.

“In 2020, I was a governor of a neighboring state to Tim Walz and watched him let his city burn,” said Noem, a former South Dakota governor. “And the president and I have talked about this in the past, and he was not going to let that happen to another city and to another community where a bad governor made a bad decision.”

Walz activated the National Guard three days after Floyd’s death but was criticized for not deploying the troops sooner. However, Trump himself privately praised Walz in 2020 after the riots subsided, saying he “dominated” the situation.

“I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim,” Trump told Walz during a 2020 call with governors. “You called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast it was like bowling pins.”

Tschann, Walz’s spokesman, said, “Trump’s own Secretary of Defense praised Governor Walz’s response and told other Governors to follow his lead.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was questioned about the administration’s response in Los Angeles during a Tuesday congressional hearing on the defense budget. He, too, responded with criticism of Walz.

“President Trump recognizes a situation like that, improperly handled by a governor like it was by Gov. Walz, if it gets out of control, it’s a bad situation for the citizens of any location,” said Hegseth, a native Minnesotan.

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., was the one questioning Hegseth. She said she was in the Twin Cities during the riots and “at no point did we need … the Marines to be deployed.”

“This looks nothing like the George Floyd protest or the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992,” McCollum said of the current demonstrations in Los Angeles. “This is a deeply unfair position to put our Marines in.”

Christopher Vondracek of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.