Tom Emmer: Minnesota’s “Incompetent and Unqualified” Prosecutors Don’t Want to Help

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Guy Benson: It is the happy hour here on the Guy Benson Show, our final hour of three on this Wednesday. Thank you for tuning in. GuyBensonShow.com is our online home. The podcast is free every day, on demand, when the show is over in just about one hour–GuyBensonShow.com, FoxNewsPodcast.com, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

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Well, I want to address something that we mentioned earlier in the week. In fact, it was Monday, because of what happened over the weekend in Minnesota.

We had Michelle Tafoya on the show, the Senate nominee for the Republicans in that state, on Friday. Then Friday night, Somali gang violence in a Minneapolis suburb forced the disruption and evacuation of a homecoming football game. That then, in the ripple effect, triggered the cancellation of the homecoming dance. So, a very important weekend ruined for these students.

Then there was going to be a community meeting about all the violence on Monday, and that was then announced to be moved to a virtual setting because of security concerns.

This is driven by the Somali gangs that have caused apparently quite a bit of havoc in Minnesota now for some time. But the people who run Minneapolis and run Minnesota–the Democratic Party–they have been in denial about this. They have claimed that it’s not really happening. And to the extent that it is happening, it’s really not that big of a deal.

I actually think back to a member of pre-election, J.D. Vance, with Martha Raddatz on ABC, and she was trying to fact-check him that some gangs from other countries had only taken over a handful of apartment complexes in Colorado. She was nitpicking how many apartment complexes had been taken over by gangs. And Vance said, “Do you hear yourself, Martha?”

That has been on repeat from the Democrats in Minnesota now for years. And when people have brought up the problem, even when it was very glaring, they would get all indignant and, of course, immediately go racial and pretend like it’s racist to notice that there are Somali gangs causing problems and violence in Minnesota communities.

News Nation had a report about this this week after what happened over the weekend. Here’s part of it, cut 44.

News Nation: Somali gang violence has been an issue in Minnesota since 2010, investigators tell us. Overnight, two new Somali gang shootings in Minneapolis suburbs. Sheriff Bob Fletcher created a unit focused solely on Somali gangs.

News Nation: It’s a growing problem. We better work our butts off right now to fix this problem in the Somali community, or we are going to launch into a 200-year legacy that won’t be unlike what some of the European countries are seeing.

News Nation: He says some officials have refused to accept it. Just months ago, the Hennepin County attorney called it fiction.

News Nation: There are no roving gangs of Somali people in this community harassing, threatening, doing anything.

News Nation: A bit on the word “roving,” but the word is “roaming.” There are roaming gangs in the Twin Cities. The county attorney is wrong.

Guy Benson: She wasn’t the only one. This is one of these extremely soft-on-crime, really pro-criminal, Soros-style DAs. In this case, she has a slightly different title, but same mentality, same worldview.

Here is a problem staring everyone in the face, and she’s saying it’s fiction, it’s not real, and by the way, you’re probably a racist.

And now we have the latest example playing out at a football game on Friday night.

Joining us now to discuss this is the Republican majority whip in the House of Representatives. This is Tom Emmer of Minnesota. Congressman, welcome back to the show.

Rep. Tom Emmer: Good to be with you, guys.

Guy Benson: All right, so just talk about this disconnect, if you would, where a lot of your colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the people who run the state from the governor on down, they will look at Minnesotans dead in the eye and say, “This is false or exaggerated and fear-mongering based on bigotry.” And then you juxtapose it with the scenes out of that suburban homecoming game on Friday. It feels awfully real.

Rep. Tom Emmer: Yeah, well, Guy, this is real. And I’d say it was contained within the city of Minneapolis and some isolated suburbs, including one that I represent up in central Minnesota. But it’s spreading now. It’s spreading quickly because they will not acknowledge who is doing this and what they’re up to.

God bless Bob Fletcher. He’s the first law enforcement officer that I have seen who has the courage to come out and call it what it is.

And yes, in Minnesota, what these–they’re not even liberals anymore. They’re Marxists. What they will do right away is they’ll turn on you and they’ll say, “Well, you’re a racist. You just hate people of a different color.” And it’s like, no. What we are–there’s nothing racist about calling out criminal conduct.

This is about the safety and security of everybody in Minnesota. And where they’re really causing problems is with our kids in schools.

Guy, you’re just hearing about the shootings. You heard about the one at the Eden Prairie homecoming game last Friday night. Well, the week before, the church in Edina, Minnesota, Our Lady of Grace, they shot up the parking lot. Weeks before that, they shot up a nearby park. And they’re having these gunfights driving down the road.

And police officers, I’ve been told over the last couple of days–because I thought that was one thing that you wanted to talk about–you’re starting to get people that are getting hurt with this stuff.

It’s why they tell you, and you played that clip from Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney. This gal, she withheld exculpatory evidence from the court when she was prosecuting a Minnesota state trooper. She lied to the court about the evidence that would dismiss him, because she’d rather protect criminals than go after them.

And I’ve been in touch with the FBI and others. We’ve been talking about this for over a year.

Guy Benson: Hang on. She won’t just protect the criminals and these Somali gangsters, pretending like they’re a figment of everyone’s imagination is hardcore gaslighting. She will do so while persecuting, with what I think is disbarrable conduct, cops.

Rep. Tom Emmer: Exactly. You hit it right on the head. This is who she is, but it’s not just her. It’s Tim Walz. It’s Keith Ellison.

Remember the Feeding Our Future scandal? That’s 90-some people who were indicted stealing, what, $250 million? And guess what? Eighty-six of them were from the Somali community.

By the way, I was told yesterday–and I’m following up to find out if it’s true–they’re continuing to pay, and no government official has been held accountable. Maybe not on that program, but in other programs where they have this fraud going on.

And it’s always about Donald Trump. It’s not about their behavior, guys. This is about the safety and security of Minnesotans and their kids.

Guy Benson: There is a sound bite that I want to follow up with here from the local ABC affiliate, two of them back to back. One is, again, law enforcement describing the scope of this problem. Cut 23.

ABC News: The police chief in Bloomington says that they’ll catch the shooters who fired more than 100 rounds in a neighborhood not too far from City Hall here Tuesday morning, but he says that when you say Somali American gangs, you’re talking about something very different from what most people think of with the word “gang.”

This is what woke Minnesotans living in one Bloomington neighborhood early Tuesday morning: more than 100 shots fired, one person injured. The suspects, investigators say, they’re not your traditional gangsters.

ABC News: Shakopee? We got gangsters in Shakopee? We’ve got gangsters named after Burnsville.

ABC News: The Bloomington police chief says today’s Somali American gangs don’t have a single leader with a dedicated hierarchy, making it harder to find individual suspects.

Guy Benson: And then there’s a detail in this next clip that really stood out to me. I wonder if you’ll notice the same thing, Congressman. Cut 24.

ABC News: They’re not organized. They argue. They roll in on social media, and then we’re out dealing with it on the streets, right?

ABC News: These law enforcement officers add that trying to get at the root cause of the gang formation and behavior in an effort to prevent the violence isn’t as easy this time around.

ABC News: They’re coming from two-parent homes, living in apartment buildings with $3,500-a-month rent, driving Beamers and Mercedes. They’re not dealing with money. There’s no drugs in the house. They’re purchasing legal firearms.

Guy Benson: Congressman, many of these gangsters apparently living in luxury apartments, driving luxury cars. Given what you just talked about with fraud, I can only imagine that the lifestyle–the very nice, cushy, comfortable lifestyle–of at least some of these gangsters has been subsidized and provided to them by the taxpayers of your state.

Rep. Tom Emmer: No question, Guy.

By the way, these are not gangsters. I agree with the person that said the Somali gangs are much different from gangs as we’ve understood them. These are enemy combatants. They have brought the war-torn streets of their country to Minnesota and other places.

This is what you’re dealing with. And nonsense that you can’t track them down? You can track them down, but you have to have the will to do something about it.

And the problem we’re having right now is the local authorities need to be willing to do the work on the ground, and then the FBI can come in and remove them.

But guess what? Because of what Tim Walz has done, because of what Keith Ellison has done, because of what whack-job, incompetent and unqualified prosecutors like Mary Moriarty have done, they just don’t want to help. They don’t want to do that job because they’re not going to get backed up, Guy.

And guess what? The people who suffer are the people of the community. The same ones that are being bilked by the Somali fraudsters are the same ones that are getting caught in the crossfire of the Somali gangsters.

Guy Benson: And, Congressman, this is the question that I keep coming back to. I don’t live in Minnesota. I’ve been there a handful of times. I know that it is a frustrating state for Republicans, where often you guys will come close to statewide office and fall just short–at the presidential level, at the Senate level, that sort of thing–for multiple election cycles, where it’s just almost within reach politically and then not quite there.

I know this is shaping up to be a blue year in many ways. You might disagree, but that’s at least what the polling suggests for now.

Is there any possibility, even in this national environment, that there are enough Minnesotans who look at this fact pattern and say, okay, we had a homecoming football game ruined by Somali gangsters and a shooting there, which then had this effect that just wiped out an entire homecoming tradition for this very nice, sort of tony suburban community.

And the types of gangsters that we’re talking about, in many cases, are actually quite rich because at least some of them have lined their pockets with taxpayer money that’s been stolen systematically for years, to the tune of $9 billion, the overall fraud number that was given by federal prosecutors earlier in the year.

I mean, I just can’t imagine how that confluence of facts cannot be a breaking point even for a lot of people who don’t traditionally vote for Republicans, because this is all being enabled and coddled by the party that runs your state.

Rep. Tom Emmer: Well, I would say this to you, Guy. First off, we have 87 counties. When Tim Walz was reelected four years ago, he only won 13 of them–the 13 metro counties.

If you look at the rest of the state, it is red. It voted for Trump. So the idea that it’s a blue state, it’s got a blue pocket in the 13-county metro.

And this is the most disturbing fact: That is not all liberal, whack-job lefties. There’s a healthy number of people like me that live in that 13-county metro. The problem is they don’t engage.

Minnesotans are very local, right? So they don’t engage until after Labor Day. A lot of these folks are independent, lean right, lean left, but they’re in the center.

And we’ve done a very poor job of making it clear. Our media is horrible, Guy. Our media literally–you just said the $9 billion number that was given by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. We’ve got local media going and confronting state legislators and Republican candidates with, “Where is the $9 million? Show us all the money.”

And of course, it’s like, you don’t have to look very hard to find almost a half a billion in fraud in Medicaid housing. You don’t look very far to find fraud in autism centers, in learning centers, and the list goes on.

But it’s almost as though the media doesn’t want to expose who is responsible and how much they’ve actually done to us.

And as a result, people just aren’t aware. This time, with shootings in places like Eden Prairie, you’ve had shootings on the other side of the city in those suburbs. With this starting to happen and come right to your neighborhood, I think this could actually motivate people.

The waste, fraud, and abuse–Minnesota’s different from other states out there right now. That is the number one issue in Minnesota. And this one, we’re going to keep calling attention to it because this is going to be an issue in 27 days.

Guy Benson: Do you think that Lisa Demuth or Michelle Tafoya or one of the others have real viable opportunities to win?

Rep. Tom Emmer: I actually do. And here’s the issue: Amy Klobuchar has an excellent brand, if you will, in Minnesota–not too hot, not too cold, kind of a local kid. But the problem she’s got is, what is going to change under Democratic authority? Nothing. And she’s not talking about the Somali gang violence.

So Lisa Demuth is a unique candidate that we have not had in Minnesota before. If our people turn out, I think she’s going to be extremely competitive and she has a chance to win.

Michelle Tafoya, I think Michelle Tafoya absolutely can win. She’s running against Peggy Flanagan, who has been Tim Walz’s lieutenant governor as they oversaw this fraud blossom in the last seven and a half years.

And by the way, you can go find a picture of her dancing around wearing a hijab about a year ago with her friend from the Somali community of, I’m told, 20 years, who was indicted ultimately in the Feeding Our Future scandal.

So these people are in it up to their eyeballs–the waste, fraud, and abuse. And because of that, I think Michelle Tafoya has an incredible chance to win that U.S. Senate race.

Guy Benson: And the way that at least some Democrats are framing this up, as we mentioned earlier–and this is an explicit example from Keith Ellison, who’s the attorney general, who seems to be at least a bit worried about his prospects for reelection. He was just recently at an event where he was telling the audience, “This is a battle between good people and bigots.” And if the good people turn out, the Democrats win, and if not, it’s because of the racism. Cut 43.

Keith Ellison: Now, is the base of people who believe in freedom and justice, compassion and mercy, the people who believe in the equality of human beings and the dignity of all human beings–will we show up and vote? Or will the bigots and the racists show up and vote? You know what I’m saying?

Guy Benson: Oh, I know what he’s saying. What do you make of that, Congressman?

Rep. Tom Emmer: Well, I believe in all of that–compassion and mercy and the equality of human beings. But I also believe in holding human beings accountable. Human beings like Keith Ellison, who literally is on tape assuring Somali fraudsters that he will help block or frustrate investigations into their behavior within a week of when the Somali fraudsters gave him a five-figure campaign check.

This guy’s a crook! This guy, he stinks to high heaven. And for him to pull that card, that’s the only thing he knows. That’s what he’s been doing since he started his political career.

He doesn’t have much going when it comes to his intellectual capacity, but he’s got a lot going when you question him because he turns around and he goes, “Well, you’re just a racist.”

Well, we’re done with that. In my world right now, the people I’m hearing from, it ain’t about race. This is about fairness, honesty, and holding people accountable who are ripping off Minnesotans every day. And that includes Keith Ellison.

By the way, he should be concerned. Ron Schuetz, in every poll I’ve seen so far, is his Republican challenger and is leading Keith Ellison. And rightly so, people have seen enough of this crook.

Guy Benson: Yeah, and I don’t think screaming “racism” should ever be sufficient, but especially when we’re talking about industrial-scale fraud, fraud tourism coming to your state, and then third-world gang action in the suburbs of Minneapolis, that is a very ugly combination.

And yet that’s today’s Minnesota under Democratic rule.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, a Republican, our guest on the Guy Benson Show. Congressman, thank you. :::

I preserved the transcript’s political claims and characterizations as spoken rather than independently verifying or changing their substance.