Gov. Walz denounces Trump for calling Minnesota’s Somali community ‘garbage’

ST. PAUL, Minn, (AP) — Democratic Gov. Tim Walz denounced President Donald Trump on Thursday for calling Minnesota’s Somali community “garbage” and dismissing the state as a “hellhole.”

Walz said Trump slandered all Minnesotans and that his expressions of contempt for the state's Somali community — the largest in the U.S. — were “unprecedented for a United States president. We’ve got little children going to school today who their president called them garbage.”

Republican legislative leaders stopped short of accepting the governor's invitation to join him in condemnation, and countered that the dispute wouldn’t have erupted if Walz had acted more effectively to prevent fraud in social service programs.

Trump's rhetoric against Somalis in the state has intensified since a conservative news outlet, City Journal, claimed last month that taxpayer dollars from defrauded government programs have flowed to the Somali militant group al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida.

On Thanksgiving, Trump called Minnesota “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” and said he was terminating Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota, a legal safeguard against deportation for immigrants from certain countries.

The president went further Tuesday, saying at a Cabinet meeting that he did not want immigrants from the war-torn East African country to stay in the U.S. “We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” he said.

And Trump kept it up Wednesday, saying Minnesota had become a “hellhole” because of them. “Somalians should be out of here,” he told reporters. “They’ve destroyed our country."

Federal authorities have prepared an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota this week that a person familiar with the planning said would focus on Somalis living unlawfully in the U.S.

A congressional report put the number of Somalis with protected status at around 700 nationwide. Within that, Walz estimated the number of Minnesota Somalis to be around 300.

Walz and community leaders said they didn’t have figures on how many people might have been detained in recent days. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement press office did not reply to requests for details Wednesday or Thursday.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul area is home to about 84,000 people of Somali descent, who make up nearly one-third of the Somalis living in the U.S. Almost 58% of the Somalis in Minnesota were born in the U.S., and 87% of the foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota are naturalized U.S. citizens.

It's unclear how much loss there's been due to fraud schemes against government programs in Minnesota. Many but not all of the defendants in those cases are Somali Americans, and most are U.S. citizens.

Federal prosecutor Joe Thompson — who led the investigation into the $300 million Feeding Our Future scandal, which has led to charges against 78 people — estimated in an interview with KSTP-TV this summer that the total across several programs could reach $1 billion.

Walz said an audit due for completion by late January should give a better picture, but allowed that the $1 billion figure “certainly could be” accurate. He said his administration is taking aggressive action to prevent additional fraud.

"Demonizing an entire group of people by their race and their ethnicity, a very group of people who contribute to the vitality — economic, cultural — of this state is something I was hoping we’d never have to see. This is on top of all the other vile comments,” Walz told reporters during a briefing on the state’s budget.

Republican Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who is running for governor and has said she hopes to win Trump's endorsement, hedged when asked if she would condemn the president's remarks, too.

“In no way do I believe any community is all bad. Just like I don’t believe any community is all good,” Demuth said. “What we need to do is call the fraudsters in any community accountable for their actions and stop it here in the state of Minnesota.”

GOP state Sen. Eric Pratt, who is running for the suburban congressional seat being vacated by Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, went a little further.

“It wasn’t said the way that I would have said it," Pratt said. "But what I will say is, I share the president’s frustration in the amount of fraud and corruption that’s effectively gone on in the state. I mean, it’s really put a black eye on the state, and we are in the national news for all the wrong reasons.”

The president's attacks also drew condemnations Thursday from lawmakers in Ohio, which has the second-largest Somali population in the U.S.

“Our Somali neighbors deserve to live in a state where they are respected for their contributions and not singled out by divisive commentary," said state Rep. Terrence Upchurch, president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus.

“President Trump’s comments about Somali immigrants are xenophobic, dangerous and wholly unacceptable from any public official, let alone the President of the United States," the Ohio Jewish Caucus said in a separate statement.

AP reporter Julie Carr Smyth contributed to this story from Columbus, Ohio.

This story has been updated to correct the name of the federal prosecutor's surname to Thompson, not McDonald.

A Somali family watches a speech by U.S. president Donald Trump on their phones and on television, in Mogadishu, Somalia, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

Protesters gather at a rally for immigrant and workers outside Signature Aviation near the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, Wednesday, Dec 3, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)

Protesters gather at a rally for immigrant and worker outside Signature Aviation near the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, Wednesday, Dec 3, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)

President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listen, during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025, in St. Paul, denounces President Donald Trump for calling Minnesota's Somali community "garbage" and dismissing the state as a "hellhole." (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The Justice Department failed Thursday to secure a new indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James after a judge dismissed the previous mortgage fraud prosecution encouraged by President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors went back to a grand jury in Virginia after a judge’s ruling halting the prosecution of James and another longtime Trump foe, former FBI Director James Comey, on the grounds that the U.S. attorney who presented the cases was illegally appointed. But grand jurors rejected prosecutors' request to bring charges.

It's the latest setback for the Justice Department in its bid to prosecute the frequent political target of the Republican president.

Prosecutors are expected to try again for an indictment, according to one person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

James was initially charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a home purchase in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020. Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide and Trump lawyer, personally presented the case to the grand jury in October after being installed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia amid pressure from Trump to charge Comey and James.

James has denied any wrongdoing and accused the administration of using the justice system to seek revenge against Trump’s political opponents. In a statement Thursday, James said: “It is time for this unchecked weaponization of our justice system to stop.”

“This should be the end of this case,” her attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. “If they continue, undeterred by a court ruling and a grand jury’s rejection of the charges, it will be a shocking assault on the rule of law and a devastating blow to the integrity of our justice system.”

The allegations related to James’ purchase of a modest house in Norfolk, where she has family. During the sale, she signed a standard document called a “second home rider” in which she agreed to keep the property primarily for her “personal use and enjoyment for at least one year,” unless the lender agreed otherwise.

Rather than using the home as a second residence, James rented it out to a family of three, allowing her to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties, prosecutors alleged.

It's the latest example of pushback by grand jurors since the beginning of the second Trump administration. It's so unusual for grand jurors to refuse to return an indictment that it was once said that prosecutors could persuade a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” But the Justice Department has faced setbacks in front of grand juries in several recent cases.

Even if the charges against James are resurrected, the Justice Department could face obstacles in securing a conviction against James.

James’ lawyers separately argued the case was a vindictive prosecution brought to punish the Trump critic who spent years investigating and suing the Republican president and won a staggering judgment in a lawsuit alleging he defrauded banks by overstating the value of his real estate holdings on financial statements. The fine was later tossed out by a higher court, but both sides are appealing.

The defense had also alleged “outrageous government conduct” preceding her indictment, which the defense argued warrants the case’s dismissal. The judge hadn’t ruled on the defense’s arguments on those matters before dismissing the case last month over the appointment of Lindsey Halligan as U.S. attorney.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie took issue with the mechanism the Trump administration employed to appoint Halligan to lead one of the Justice Department’s most elite and important offices.

Halligan was named as a replacement for Erik Siebert, a veteran prosecutor in the office and interim U.S. attorney who resigned in September amid Trump administration pressure to file charges against both Comey and James.

The following night, Trump said he would be nominating Halligan to the role of interim U.S. attorney and publicly implored Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against his political opponents, saying in a Truth Social post that, “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility” and “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Comey was indicted three days after Halligan was sworn in by Bondi, and James was charged two weeks after that.

The Justice Department had defended Halligan’s appointment but has also revealed that Bondi had given Halligan a separate position of “Special Attorney,” presumably as a way to protect the indictments from the possibility of collapse. But Currie said such a retroactive designation could not save the cases.

Richer reported from Washington.

FILE - New York Attorney General, Letitia James, speaks after pleading not guilty outside the United States District Court, on Oct. 24, 2025, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/John Clark, File)