The ‘Affable’ Coach Walz Never Existed

By Becket Adams

Sunday, January 11, 2026

 

After an ICE agent fatally shot a Minneapolis woman during a confrontation last week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz responded about as irresponsibly as a state executive could: seeming to suggest that he might deploy the state National Guard against federal agents.

 

“I’ve issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard,” the Democratic governor told reporters. “These National Guard troops are our National Guard troops. Minnesota will not allow our community to be used as a prop in a national political fight.”

 

It bears repeating that we spent an entire election cycle with the whole of the Democratic apparatus and news and entertainment industries trying to sell American voters a version of this man that most definitely does not exist.

 

Tim Walz is not the corny “Midwestern dad” they claimed he is. He isn’t an “absolute balm” for a fractious country, nor is he the embodiment of personal responsibility and neighborly love. He isn’t “affable and approachable,” nor is he “plain-spoken,” “America’s youth football coach,” or a “vivid representative of the American heartland.”

 

Walz is a self-pitying, gutless, egotistical, and destructive political creature, nothing like the hearty “straight-talking teacher” they tried to pass off on everyone in the 2024 presidential race.

 

When asked Wednesday exactly how he intended to deploy the Guard, Walz’s response included a vaguely menacing note: “We’ve never been at war with our federal government,” he said. “The National Guard has a dual mission, state and federal, but right now their role is to protect Minnesota.”

 

Walz could have issued a statement to calm the obviously combustible situation, but he chose not to. That’s not who he is. He is guilty of every flaw he attributes to his enemies, not least the use of incendiary rhetoric, which he routinely condemns from President Trump.

 

The governor’s comments about the National Guard followed a separate address in which he claimed his state was “under assault” after a reported 2,000 federal immigration enforcement agents were deployed amid allegations of multibillion-dollar fraud involving mostly Somali scammers.

 

“I don’t think any governor in history has had to fight a war against the federal government every single day,” Walz said, claiming the Trump administration has refused to coordinate its federal response with state authorities. “We don’t even know who they are; they’ll be wearing masks. If you want to help us fix fraud, come and help us do that — they’re not interested in that.”

 

This fraught conflict with the feds comes amid the governor’s surprise announcement last week that he would not seek a third term. After the one-time vice-presidential hopeful announced his withdrawal, my colleague Charlie Cooke posed an intriguing question: “Has there ever been a bigger gap than the one between the Tim Walz they unsuccessfully tried to sell us and the Tim Walz that actually exists?”

 

Off the top of my head: with John Edwards? The former North Carolina senator went from a smooth-talking, “buoyant,” “rousing,” and “good-looking southern populist” presidential and vice-presidential hopeful with a $1,200-plus haircut to asking an aide to secretly swipe dirty diapers to paternity-test his mistress’s baby.

 

But even in that regard, the gap between Walz the man and Walz the myth might be even greater than the one revealed for the disgraced Edwards.

 

Consider that Walz can’t even take his beating like the homegrown, Rust Belt everyman they tried to sell us. His statements last week about withdrawing from the race amid the Somali fraud scandal were filled with petulance and finger-pointing.

 

“This is a concerted effort to try and destroy the president’s opponents, to destroy the rule of law,” Walz said of the federal government’s pursuit of the Minnesota fraud scandals, which, as of this writing, are expected to surpass $9 billion, according to federal prosecutors.

 

That’s “billion” with a “b,” all stolen in less than ten years.

 

“It became apparent to me that he was going to do that with me being there,” Walz continued. “And I just feel, along with my family, that it’s the best decision for Minnesota.”

 

A real man would have admitted that he failed his state after its welfare programs were looted on his watch, taken responsibility, and left it at that.

 

But not Tim Walz.