Fact Check: Minnesota Campaign Speech: Trump Again Claims He Sent National Guard to Minneapolis in 2020

CNN
—

Former President Donald Trump has revived his four-year-old false claim about how he and Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz handled the civil unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.

Walz is among Democrats who are reportedly considering Vice President Kamala Harris as a possible running mate. Trump, the Republican nominee, said during a campaign speech in Minnesota on Saturday: “Every voter in Minnesota should know that when the violent hordes of anarchists, looters and Marxists came and burned Minneapolis four years ago — remember? I couldn’t get your governor to do anything. He had to call in the National Guard or the military. And he didn’t. I couldn’t get your governor to do anything. So I sent in the National Guard to save Minneapolis.” (Trump subsequently criticized Harris for her own response to the unrest.)

CNN fact-checked Trump’s story in July 2020. But he has repeated the story several times since then, including a shortened version during his presidential debate with President Joe Biden in June 2024.

Facts first: Trump’s claims that he sent the National Guard to Minneapolis in 2020 and that Walz refused to do so are both false. Walz, not Trump, sent the National Guard to Minneapolis — and Walz sent the Guard more than seven hours before Trump publicly threatened to deploy the Guard himself.

The Minnesota National Guard, the entity Walz deployed, is under the command of the governor, not the president. The president has the power to federalize state guard troops under certain circumstances, but Trump never did so during Minnesota’s 2020 unrest.

After Trump began pushing this false narrative in June 2020, Walz spokesman Teddy Tschann provided a statement to CNN in the form of a Q&A sheet. It read, in part: “Did President Trump ‘call out’ the Guard? No.” “Did Governor Walz call out the Guard? Yes.” “Did Governor Walz call out the National Guard at the direction of the president? No. He activated the Minnesota National Guard at the request of the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul before he spoke to the White House.”

Evidence Shows Trump’s Claim is False

Public evidence confirms that Walz, who served in the Army National Guard from 1981 to 2005, deployed the Guard himself in May 2020.

Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020. On May 26, 2020, there were protests in Minneapolis, some of which involved violence. And on May 27, 2020, there was looting, violence, and arson, along with peaceful protest.

On May 28, 2020, just after 4:00 p.m. local time, Walz issued a press release announcing that he had signed an executive order activating the Minnesota National Guard. At 4:13 p.m. local time that day, the Minnesota National Guard announced on social media that Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Jon Jensen had said: “We are ready and prepared to comply with the governor’s request. We are currently in the process of assigning and preparing units to respond.”

At 10:41 p.m. local time that evening, after a Minneapolis police station was set on fire, the Minnesota National Guard was called out announced that “we have activated over 500 soldiers in St. Paul, Minneapolis and surrounding communities.”

Then, at 11:53 p.m. local time, Trump posted two messages on social media.

In a messageTrump threatened to deploy the Guard if Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey “didn’t get his act together and get the city under control.” In the other message, Trump wrote: “I just spoke with Governor Tim Walz and told him the military is with him all the way. If there’s trouble, we’ll take control, but if the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

In neither message did Trump claim to be the person who sent the Guard. He began making such claims publicly in June 2020.

Walz has been criticized by both Republicans and some Democrats for his handling of the unrest. Frey said in August 2020 that he had verbally asked Walz to deploy the Guard on the evening of May 27, 2020, but that Walz had hesitated; Walz disputed Frey’s account, saying that the mayor’s comments on the May 27, 2020, phone call did not constitute an official request, which was submitted in writing the next day.

Regardless of what happened in their conversation or the merits of Walz’s handling of the crisis, there is no question that Walz, not Trump, was the one who activated the Guard. Likewise, it is possible that Trump’s public pressure contributed to Walz’s May 30, 2020, decision to vastly increase the size of the deployment by mobilizing the entire Minnesota National Guard — though Walz’s office denied in 2020 that Trump had anything to do with it — this increase was also indisputably Walz’s action, not Trump’s.