Walz, sounding like a candidate, hammers Trump in state of the state address

Gov. Tim Walz on Wednesday night delivered his seventh state of the state address, cleverly using the state’s grim budget outlook to paint himself as the man in the middle, ready to bring lawmakers to a compromise in the fashion of his long-ago campaign slogan, One Minnesota.

Walz also used the address to hammer President Donald Trump and his sometimes sidekick Elon Musk, attacking what Walz called the “chaos and destruction” they’ve unleashed on the federal government. In the process, Walz continues to keep his name in the mix of national Democratic leaders who will stand up to the Trump administration and maybe take a shot at the White House in 2028. 

Walz, who says he’ll announce whether he’ll run for a third term after the legislative session, spoke for about 22 minutes in the well of the Minnesota House. 

Here are some key takeaways:

It’s good to have a foil

Walz spent four years as a good soldier defending the unpopular and infirm President Joe Biden and then as the vice presidential nominee on the losing Kamala Harris ticket.

Walz is now able to deflect criticism of his own tenure by launching broadsides against Trump, whom he pummeled for his tariffs, immigration policies and Musk’s shambolic gutting of critical federal services. Walz emphasized that the federal chaos has been done knowingly and on purpose.

Walz said Trump isn’t a leader.

“That isn’t servant leadership. It’s not any kind of leadership. It’s small, it’s weak and it’s petty. It takes the awesome power of the federal government and turns it into a crude weapon, wielded by a man who wants to be king,” Walz said.

Walz said Minnesota leaders will need to rebuild the government from the ashes after Trump leaves office, and “these small, petty men will disappear into the dustbin of history.”

Three simple words that can be the architecture of a 2028 run

Democrats have struggled for eons to explain to Americans who they are and the direction they want to take the country. Walz sought to boil it down with a message that he can take on the road to Iowa diners and New Hampshire barrooms. 

“Security. Opportunity. Freedom. I hear it everywhere I go. And every time I do, I find myself feeling proud of Minnesota,” Walz said.

He used the phrase to argue that Democrats delivered all three during their two years of trifecta rule: a child tax credit, enhanced labor rights, a tax cut on Social Security benefits for the majority of Minnesotans and a paid leave program that will launch in January.

Democrats loudly cheered and stood in support of their victory lap, but the line from Walz that got the biggest applause from Democrats was about freedom:

“If you say you love freedom, but you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom — it’s privilege,” Walz said.

Walz tempers state budget expectations

The governor has proposed slowing state spending on disability services to address Minnesota’s looming multi-billion dollar deficit. He defended his position, arguing that lawmakers of years past had “put us on a path of unsustainable growth.”

Numerous disability rights advocates have criticized Walz’s proposal to slow spending growth, arguing that services will be cut and workers harmed. Walz said those who need care will be served. 

“This budget was not written to please everyone. It was written to bring everyone to the table,” Walz said. 

The governor also touted his sales tax proposal, which would broaden the tax to include legal and financial services while lowering the rate.  

“I’m proposing an unprecedented tax cut for working people – a reduction in the statewide sales tax.”

Walz’s plan would cut the sales tax .075%, which would save Minnesotans 75 cents for every $1,000 they spend on taxable goods and services.

Co-opting an anti-fraud message

Republicans have spent the legislative session highlighting recent high-profile cases of fraud in public programs. Walz won the loudest — and most bipartisan — cheers of the night when he discussed combating fraud. 

“The truth is, as long as there have been programs aimed at helping people, there have been people looking to steal from those who need them most,” Walz said. “We’ve made strides in catching those bad actors, stopping their schemes. We’ve sent a lot of crooks to prison.”

(The federal government has done the bulk of the work holding fraudsters accountable in Minnesota.) 

At times, Walz’s own government was slow to respond to fraud. Even as the number of autism treatment providers and spending on the program exploded, Walz’s own Department of Human Services told the Reformer last year that this was no cause for alarm. The FBI late last year raided two autism treatment providers armed with search warrants.  

“Bottom line: I believe that when criminals try to steal public funding, you don’t cut the funding, you stop the criminals. And that’s exactly what we do,” Walz said.

‘An angry rant about Donald Trump’

Republican legislative leaders criticized the governor for focusing on problems in Washington, arguing Minnesota needs to address its own issues.

“Minnesota has to be our first priority,” said House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring.

Republican House Floor Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said that Walz’s speech played well for the Democratic base, but Walz failed to take responsibility for Minnesota’s grim budget outlook.

“It was really unfortunate that while there was not quite an olive branch, but maybe a few buds from an olive tree, given by the governor, most of it was overshadowed by (an) angry rant about Donald Trump, and I don’t think that that serves the state of Minnesota,” Niska said.

Republicans again criticized Democrats for spending the 2023-24 budget surplus — which arose from generous federal contributions to the states, and robust tax collections — and wreaking havoc on the medium-term fiscal outlook. 

If Walz was at times playing to a national Democratic audience with his hits on Trump, he’s right about the primacy of the federal government in Minnesota’s budget. In 2024, Minnesota spent $18.5 billion on Medicaid, of which $11 billion — 60% — was federal funding. Which means that depending on what happens in Washington — especially if Republicans follow through on plans to cut Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars — Walz and Minnesota lawmakers may find themselves back in St. Paul in an emergency special session to deal with the fallout later this year.