Walz calls on Jensen to apologize for comments on COVID, Nazi Germany

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz wants his Republican opponent Scott Jensen to apologize for comments likening COVID-19 mandates to measures during the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, calling the comparison "hurtful and dangerous."

Several Jewish groups and elected officials have criticized Jensen for the comments and asked him to stop making the comparison, saying it's insensitive to liken anything to the Holocaust.

"The community itself simply said stop, and a simple apology and moving on would have moved us on to other things," Walz said in a Friday campaign news conference. "But now it's apparent this is not a slip of the tongue. This is not a random issue. This an arrogance of dismissing people who know and understanding that the governor's rhetoric has immense impact on the citizens of Minnesota."

Jensen defended his comments this week, including in front of a crowd of Jewish Republicans, saying Democrats are trying to distract voters from their record on issues such as crime and the economy.

"Tim Walz should apologize for eroding our public safety, crushing our kids' educational outcomes, and suffocating working families with inflation," Jensen said in response to Walz. "I wish Governor Walz would stop using the media to communicate and have the courage to ask me directly during a debate."

Jensen made his initial remarks in April before an anti-mask mandate group, saying "the little things grew into something bigger. Then there was a night called Kristallnacht, the night of the breaking glass," Jensen said. "Then there was the book burning, and it kept growing and growing, and a guy named Hitler kept growing in power. … In a way, I think that's why you're here today, is you sense that something is happening, and it's growing little by little."

The comments were posted on Twitter this week by online media hub TC Jewfolk. In a video one day later, Jensen said he doesn't believe he was being insensitive about the Holocaust when he talked about "incremental change designed by government to effect sweeping societal changes."

"I think it's a legitimate comparison," he said, adding, "You don't get to be my thought police person."

Groups such as the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas and the Minnesota chapter of the American Jewish Committee said the comparison isn't legitimate and asked Jensen refrain from using the analogy.

"They were not attempting to be thought police, they were attempting to be experts and advise and if you're asking to be the governor of Minnesota, every single day you're going to have experts advise you and many times they may not align with your preconceived notions," Walz said.

Jensen defended his comments at an event Tuesday evening with the Republican Jewish Coalition. The coalition did not immediately return a request seeking comment on Jensen's appearance or remarks. Matt Birk, Jensen's running mate, defended Jensen at an event this week, saying it's the "age of outrage on Twitter."

Several Jewish DFL legislators joined Walz, including two whose relatives survived the Holocaust. Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, said his mother and father both escaped Nazi forced labor camps and were able to hide out until the end of the war. Both sets of his grandparents and many aunts and uncles were murdered during the Holocaust, he said.

"I never knew them," he said. "When my family's experience, and those of 6 million mostly Jewish people, are trivialized and minimalized, this desecrates their memory. This desecrates proper memorialization of one of the most heinous events in human history."