Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a brutal reality check to Democratic Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum during a House Appropriations Committee hearing, exposing the hypocrisy of her party’s handling of the 2020 riots. McCollum attempted to praise Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s response to the violent unrest while criticizing President Donald Trump’s decisive action in deploying the National Guard and Marines to quell riots in Los Angeles. But Hegseth, a Minnesota native, wasn’t having it—he swiftly reminded her of Walz’s disastrous leadership when rioters burned down the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct while the governor hesitated.
“Well congresswoman, thank you for the question. You are right, we are both originally from Minnesota and that’s why I recall 2020 quite well when Governor Walz abandoned a police precinct and allowed it to be burned to the ground,” Hegseth fired back. “And [he] also allowed five days of chaos to occur inside the streets of Minneapolis. The police precinct, ma’am, was abandoned and burned to the ground and because of that, the National Guard, was eventually, far too late, mobilized.”
The liberal media, of course, has conveniently forgotten the images of Minneapolis in flames—images that were broadcast live for days as Democrat leaders stood by and watched. While McCollum tried to paint Walz as a model of restraint, Hegseth exposed the truth: Walz’s inaction led to one of the most destructive riots in modern history, leaving Minnesota with an estimated $500 million in damages. Even Walz himself admitted failure, calling the city’s response an “abject failure” and acknowledging his delayed deployment of the National Guard—a move that came too late to prevent widespread destruction.
Meanwhile, President Trump took swift action in Los Angeles, deploying 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to stop rioters from burning the city to the ground. While CNN aired footage of violent mobs hurling Molotov cocktails and looting stores, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had the audacity to claim the city was “calm.” And instead of supporting law and order, California Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the Trump administration for stepping in to protect citizens.
Hegseth’s takedown of McCollum was a masterclass in holding Democrats accountable for their double standards. While they lecture conservatives on “public safety,” their own records prove they’re incapable of maintaining order when it matters most. The liberal media won’t highlight this, of course—they’d rather gaslight the public into believing that Trump’s strong leadership was “premature” while ignoring the left’s catastrophic failures.