Tim Walz Ends Bid For Third Term After Trump Spends Weekend Accusing Him Of Murdering The Hortmans
Vance Boelter, the shooter, was a right-wing conspiracy theorist who attended Trump rallies, but okay.
In June of this past year, Democratic Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were murdered in their homes by Vance Boelter, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who attended Trump rallies, hated abortion and LGBTQ+ people, and who claimed he was doing a “citizen’s arrest” of the Hortmans related to COVID vaccines.
However, this weekend, while he wasn’t bombing sovereign nations for their oil, Donald Trump took a moment to share an absolutely batshit conspiracy theory video claiming that Boelter was actually acting as an agent of Governor Tim Walz, who wanted Hortman killed after she voted for a measure that would make undocumented immigrants unable to get healthcare through MinnesotaCare.
This has long been a very popular theory on the right, especially since they’ve decided to fully commit to the patently ridiculous narrative that all political violence (and all violence in general) comes from the Left. Sure, every actual statistic on earth shows that right-wing extremism has been responsible for the majority of terrorist incidents since 9/11, but the “Oh my god! We’re so afraid of the violent leftists! We are just gentle and noble creatures who would never harm anyone!” bit is far more important to them than facts could ever be.
Therefore, every incident that is very obviously the work of violent right-wing extremists must be put through the “If all political violence is left-wing, then …” syllogism generator and another story must be constructed to make it true. So, for this to be true, one has to ignore the fact that Boelter also shot Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman, who voted against taking healthcare away from undocumented immigrants, and his wife before going after the Hortmans. One also has to ignore his entire life history and beliefs and focus on the fact that Walz reappointed him to the bipartisan Governor's Workforce Development Board (GWDB), which he had been serving on for years before Walz became governor, that he reportedly had “No Kings” flyers in his car, and that he wrote an unhinged letter claiming that Walz made him do it. Because who ever heard of a serial killer lying before? What’s next? Are we just going to claim that David Berkowitz’s neighbor’s dog didn’t order him to kill anyone? Was Richard Chase not “really” a vampire who needed to consume blood in order to survive?
The conspiracy theory is absurd, of course, but like I said, they need to believe this, because the first half of that syllogism needs to be true.
The conspiracy theory has gotten a boost lately, with many claiming that maybe Walz also had Hortman offed because she was close to “exposing” the daycare fraud issue that Minnesota news has been covering since at least 2014 and that Walz himself had been working to investigate and set up guardrails against.
Indeed, this nonsense was the crux of Trump’s second Truth Social post accusing Walz of being a murderer.
In response to Trump’s posting, Hortman’s two children put out statements pleading with the president to not post insane conspiracy theories about their parents’ death.
Via NBC:
“I am asking President Trump to remove the video that he shared and apologize to me and my family for posting this misinformation and for using my mother’s own words to dishonor her memory,” Colin Hortman wrote.
Sophie Hortman echoed the sentiment, calling the video “a painful, false twisting of my mother’s final vote.”
“We must create a society in which we do not harbor hatred and violence toward our political opponents, and this video promotes a false narrative which fuels the flames of political division,” Sophie Hortman wrote.
There’s a certain bitter irony here, given that Boelter was motivated to murder the Hortmans by his own conspiratorial beliefs about the COVID vaccine — which Governor Walz nodded to in his own condemnation of Trump’s posting.
“Dangerous, depraved behavior from the sitting president of the United States. In covering for an actual serial killer, he is going to get more innocent people killed,” he wrote. “America is better than this.”
Sadly, America is not better than this. Many of us are, but if you go on over to Xitter or any right-wing message board, it is beyond clear that a very large chunk of the population thinks that this is entirely acceptable behavior for the president of the United States.
It’s worth noting that Trump refused to call Walz to offer condolences after the Hortmans were murdered, as doing so would be a waste of his time.
On Monday morning, Tim Walz announced that he would not be running for reelection, citing the need to focus on helping Minnesotans during this time of crisis over his own political ambitions.
In a statement, he wrote:
In September, I announced that I would run for a historic third term as Minnesota’s Governor. And I have every confidence that, if I gave it my all, I would succeed in that effort.
But as I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all.
Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences.
So l’ve decided to step out of the race and let others worry about the election while I focus on the work.
I know this news may come as a surprise. But I’m passing on the race with zero sadness and zero regret. After all, I didn’t run for this job so I could have this job.
I ran for this job so I could do this job. Minnesota faces an enormous challenge this year. And I refuse to spend even one minute of 2026 doing anything other than rising to meet the moment. Minnesota has to come first - always.
That’s what I believe servant leadership demands of me. And as an optimist, I will hold out some hope that my friends on the other side of the aisle will consider what servant leadership demands of them in this moment.
So weird for a politician to be a basically decent guy who just really wants to do a good job for people, instead of a lunatic posting random, unfounded videos about his ideological opponents!
I get why he’s doing it, but the timing is very unfortunate as it does give the impression to Trump, to people like the batshit YouTuber Nick Shirley whose “exposé” on the daycare fraud (which involved going to daycare centers around the city and screaming “fraud!” when they wouldn’t open their doors for a bunch of random men with cameras) took right-wing America by storm, that they can just bully people out of office by making up insane conspiracies about them.
It pains me to give them this victory.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Walz is just tired of the shit. His son, surely, has something to do with this. He needs to protect that young man from these jackals. Whoever takes his place will win.
They've spent the last two years dragging a decent man through the mud just because they could. I get why he just doesn't have it in him to keep fighting.