Erin Haust, a digital marketing expert and former journalist who recently moved from Minnesota to Tennessee, is warning voters about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as the governor was tapped by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to be her running mate in the 2024 election.
Haust, who lived in Minnesota for 12 years before deciding to move to the Volunteer State, said Walz handled the COVID-19 pandemic by ordering excessive lockdowns and mismanaging funds.
“I thought at the time how odd it was that places like Michigan and California were getting so much attention for being shut down, and heavily masked, and businesses going out of business and all of that while at the same time in our little ‘Midwestern state of Minnesota,’ we were going through it very hard. People here in Tennessee don’t realize really how awful it was. Businesses were not allowed to be open, but not just for the short period of time that it happened around the country, I’m talking about two years later. We were still masking and not letting kids go to school and all those kinds of things. It was a really awful experience. A lot of people left. [The state] was at a net loss of Minnesotans who decided to leave and go to another state, most of them to red states like Florida, Tennessee,” Haust explained on Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Regarding Walz’s mismanagement of funds during the pandemic, Haust cited the state’s $6.9 million purchase of a COVID morgue meant to be used for the “temporary storage of human remains” as Minnesotans “fell victim” to the coronavirus.
“I can’t overstate how awful it was. The story that really sticks with me that I think most people forget is that he horribly mismanaged funds during that time also. We hear all the time about long term care facilities and the draconian measures that he took, but what is overlooked a lot of times is the money mismanagement. [Walz] bought…a refrigerated morgue thinking that there would be so many deaths in the state of Minnesota that we would need that,” Haust explained.
“It sat empty, and just recently the state sold it to a trucking company, or it will be sold to a trucking company at over a million dollar loss,” Haust added.
Haust cited another example of Walz’s mismanagement of funds: his administration’s handling of the Feeding Our Future fraud.
“The Feeding Our Future scandal was another [instance] where $250 million was squandered. Fraud, abuse, all kinds of things were used by criminals to buy luxury cars, homes, vacations…It was very heavily reported in Minnesota, but didn’t get a ton of media attention nationally, which is interesting because [Walz] is somebody who’s clearly been vetted to be a vice presidential candidate,” Haust said.
Aside from Walz’s mismanagement of funds, Haust also detailed the governor’s extreme measures during the pandemic, including encouraging Minnesotans to “snitch” on those who defied the state’s lockdown guidelines.
Haust—noting Walz’s comment on Tuesday, “In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and their personal choices that they make”—said, “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“That’s coming from a man who created a program where you could snitch on your neighbors. They promoted it, they used COVID funds to put it out there, advertise about it, and everything else. He wanted neighbors to tell on neighbors, to call the government and say, ‘Hey, they’ve got a party happening next door with more than six people,’” Haust explained.
Haust also noted how Walz seemed to have a “hatred for people who wouldn’t mask or who wanted to keep their businesses open,” citing an instance where the governor threatened to sue and throw a single African American mother of four in jail for keeping her small business open during the pandemic.
In regards to her personal decision to flee Minnesota, Haust said her decision was driven by the state’s high taxes, poor education system, and its catering to illegal immigrants.
“It was the high taxes. It’s an incredibly high tax state. Income taxes, everything you buy is taxed. Every county and city has additional taxes that are very high… The education system was not great. We were constantly fighting with how they wanted more money, but they had all of these kinds of liberal woke programs and policies that they were putting in place. Immigration was another big one. It was clear that the driver’s licenses for people who are living in Minnesota illegally, there’s like 80,000 of those people that are eligible for driver’s licenses in Minnesota. They were getting free health care, free college tuition on our dime,” Haust explained.
“These are things that Governor Walz put into place,” Haust said.
Despite the media branding Walz as a “folksy,” “middle of the road” governor, Haust warned that Walz is “outrageously radical.”
“I hesitate to call him far left. He is outrageously radical, and I think that has to be the narrative going forward so people truly understand how awful he is. He’s also dangerously inadequate. He mismanages money, he is a puppet, he’ll do whatever the Democrat overlords tell him to do and he really loves attention,” Haust said.
“When you really dig into who the man is, I think you’ll find that it’s far darker than the headline,” Haust further warned.
Going into the November 5 general election, Haust said she believes Harris’ pick of Walz as her running mate is unlikely to affect the Democratic Party’s results in Minnesota, which is “deep blue.”
“I think [Harris] would have won anyway. There’s all this talk about Minnesota being somewhat purple. I can tell you, as someone who lived there, it’s deep blue and it is deep blue for two major reasons. In my opinion, one is that the city’s highly concentrated. There is lots of money that flows into these cities and takes them over the edge when they need it in statewide and national elections. And the other part is the fraud. There is absolutely voter fraud in Minnesota. They don’t require an ID to vote, and there’s this vouching program where you can just go up to the precinct and vouch for 15 people [who want to vote],” Haust explained.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Tim Walz” by Tim Walz.
