Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison appeared stunned when protesters interrupted his speech for a far-left candidate for one of the state's seats in the U.S. Senate.
Ellison was trying to encourage Democrats to show up for Peggy Flanagan when protesters interrupted him and demanded that he answer for shutting down a program looking into wrongful convictions.
The contest will likely be seen as another battle between far-left elements of the Democratic Party trying to seize control.
Flanagan is trying to win the primary for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party from Rep. Angie Craig, a Democrat who has represented Minnesota since 2019.
Ellison seemed angered and rattled by the protesters, and he quickly finished his comments before rushing offstage.
The protesters were angry about Ellison shutting down the Conviction Review Unit, which he blamed on lack of funding from the Trump administration. In five years, the unit overturned three wrongful convictions.
Prior to getting heckled off the stage, Ellison described the contest between Flanagan and Craig as "truly a fight of the money versus the many."
He might have been referring to the significant cash advantage Craig has over Flanagan, as divulged in financial reports. Flanagan has only $1.56 million in cash on hand, while Craig has more than three times as much — $5 million, for the period ending June 30.
"We are the many, and we will beat the money, and we will prevail against them," Ellison said at the rally.
Videos of the interruption were widely circulated on YouTube and the X platform.
Craig was the first openly LGBTQ+ member in Congress from Minnesota and is also the first lesbian mother to serve in Congress.
RELATED: 'Dishonest garbage': Keith Ellison NAILED with ridicule after offering defense of socialism
She has been endorsed by establishment Democrats, including former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and U.S. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The contest will likely be seen as another battle between far-left elements of the Democratic Party trying to seize control.
The primaries for both parties will be conducted Aug. 11.
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Zohran Mamdani ran a brilliant campaign last year by promising to make New York City affordable through democratic socialism.
Now the bill is arriving.
Firefighters are good. Firefighters are socialism. Therefore, socialism is good. That is the intellectual caliber of the movement now ascending in American politics.
New York’s new pied-à-terre tax took effect this month. Almost immediately, the luxury real estate market tanked. Wealthy buyers, it turns out, are not livestock. They can delay purchases, move money, change residency, or simply decline to participate in Mamdani’s experiment.
This elementary fact appears to have surprised the people running America’s largest city.
That’s the trouble with democratic socialists. They are forever astonished when human beings refuse to behave like figures in a budget projection.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has a solution: Make the argument so stupid that nobody can discuss socialism seriously at all.
Appearing recently on “The Dean Obeidallah Show,” Ellison announced that police departments are socialist because taxpayers fund them.
“You call the cops; guess who pays them. Your tax dollars,” Ellison said. “Guess what that is. That’s socialism, pal!”
He threw in fire departments, water inspectors, and public works for good measure.
No, pal. That isn’t socialism. That’s just government.
Ellison wasn’t offering a forensic definition, of course. He was performing a cheap semantic trick for people he assumed would nod and applaud before thinking.
Police are socialism. Firefighters are socialism. Roads are socialism. Public schools are socialism. (Well, yes, kind of.) Once every government function becomes socialist, socialism no longer requires a defense. You already support it. You have no choice. Unless you plan to extinguish your own house fire, arrest your own burglar, and pave the road yourself, welcome to the revolution.
Joe Rogan has been repeating the same dumb line for years, I’m sorry to say. Last year, he again called the fire department socialist because everybody pays for it and everybody receives protection.
I like Rogan. He isn’t a malefactor like Ellison. He simply does not know what he is talking about. That is less wicked, but it is increasingly difficult to excuse in a man who has spent thousands of hours interviewing people who actually know things.
Millions hear Rogan and think: Well, gosh, that makes sense.
No, it doesn’t. It’s flat wrong.
Worse, Ellison and Rogan smuggle in the same fraudulent choice: socialism or chaos.
Either government employs police officers and firefighters, builds roads, and inspects drinking water, or every citizen must hire his own private constable, buy his own fire engine, and fill the pothole at the end of the driveway.
That is not the choice.
RELATED: The media’s Democratic cover-up is collapsing
Socialism concerns ownership and control of productive property. Government collects taxes, enforces laws, maintains courts, fields armies, and provides services. Governments did all of those things long before socialism acquired a name.
By the Ellison-Rogan standard, if we can call it that, every king who collected taxes was a socialist. Ancient Rome was socialist because it built aqueducts. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were socialists because the national government employed customs agents. Louis XIV was apparently waiting for the workers to seize Versailles.
The alternative to socialism is not anarchy. It is limited government.
Conservatives sometimes make the mistake of talking as though government itself were the enemy. It isn’t. Not necessarily. Bad government is the enemy. Unlimited government is the enemy. Government that exceeds its legitimate purposes, devours private institutions, and treats citizens as dependents is the enemy.
But we need government.
We need cops and firefighters. We need courts, armies, roads, and public works — the odd toll road notwithstanding. Somebody must enforce contracts, punish violence, defend the country, and preserve public order.
Ordered liberty requires order.
The American political tradition does not reject government. It recognizes that government is necessary and dangerous and therefore must be limited by law. That is a much older and more serious idea than the facile view that every tax-funded service is socialism and every objection to socialism is an argument for anarchy.
Ellison knows better. That’s what makes him a bad guy. He understands perfectly well that a police department is not socialism. He chooses to speak as though he does not because the confusion serves him.
If cops and firefighters are socialism, then socialism is already as American as apple pie. No need to defend rent controls, wealth taxes, government grocery stores, confiscatory tax schemes, or the steady expansion of public power on their merits. Just offer the child’s syllogism: Firefighters are good. Firefighters are socialism. Therefore, socialism is good.
That is the intellectual caliber of the movement now ascending in American cities.
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Ellison is dishonest about words because dishonesty serves his politics. Rogan is careless with ideas because being laughably wrong has never reduced his audience. Mamdani is careless with markets because he imagines moral righteousness repeals the law of supply and demand.
These are not serious people. But they are seriously dangerous.
They hold offices, microphones, audiences, and influence wildly disproportionate to their judgment. They confuse applause with vindication and slogans with thought. They speak with total confidence because none of them expects to pay for being wrong.
The people who do pay are homeowners, renters, workers, employers, customers, and taxpayers who cannot laugh, wave, and leave the consequences to somebody else.
Democratic socialism’s new champions are not merely wrong about economics. They are frivolous about power. They offer socialism or chaos because admitting the existence of limited government would ruin the con.
They are playing with cities and states they are not wise or disciplined enough to govern. Shine, perishing republic!
Rather than walk back his controversial defense of a convicted child rapist who stole into the homeland, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) bemoaned the pedophile's deportation by the Trump administration and emphasized the supposed need not to judge him by his "worst day."
Tou Lue Vang, a 42-year-old illegal alien from Laos, repeatedly raped a young girl over a two-year period, beginning when she was just 10, and in one instance, offered her $10 for her silence, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
'Child molesters are among the classes of criminals most likely to re-offend.'
When interviewed by police, the pedophile reportedly suggested that his child victim was as guilty as he was, and downplayed his horrific child sex crimes as "a cultural thing ... to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12."
Following Vang's conviction for first-degree criminal sexual assault, a Justice Department immigration judge issued the rapist a final order of removal in October 2006. Vang, however, having been given 30 years of probation and no prison time, remained in the country for another two decades. Seeking to rectify this matter, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and detained Vang on Dec. 10.
The Trump administration's efforts to give the child rapist the boot were frustrated, first when a judge ordered Vang's release in February, and then again on June 10 when — just a week before he was finally set to be deported — Walz joined leftist Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson in voting to pardon the child rapist.
Walz claimed during the pardon meeting that since his days as a child rapist, Vang "has started a family, he's become a critical member of the community, and he has lived a life without any serious criminal violations since that time."
RELATED: Marco Rubio takes action to END the threat from Tim Walz's illegal alien pedophile pardon
Ellison said that the decision was unanimous and made "after an exhaustive process, which included a statement of support for the pardon from the victim, a recommendation to grant the pardon from the Clemency Review Commission, and a large number of community support letters."
The pardon evidently wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last week both that he had revoked Vang's legal status and that the pedophile had been removed from the United States on Friday.
"This foreign criminal will never pose a threat to any American ever again," said Rubio.
Walz is evidently cut up about the child rapist's successful deportation.
"I guess the question I would ask is, did that make us any safer?" Walz said with regard to the child rapist's ouster. "Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable?"
"Did it improve the idea that we can't all be judged by our worst day?" continued the governor, who also acknowledged that Vang committed "horrific crimes."
This commentary by the self-identified "knucklehead" has prompted more disgust.
The Department of Homeland Security responded to Walz's remarks this week, stating, "For Tou Lue Vang this wasn’t just one 'worst day' — it was YEARS of repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl starting when she was 10. Just disgraceful."
"Tim Walz asked, 'How does this make us safer?' in response to Secretary Rubio stepping in to remove an illegal alien convicted of raping a 10-year-old girl," wrote Republican Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer. "Well, Tim, typically, communities are safer when convicted child predators aren’t just roaming the streets."
"I am very willing to judge this guy — and Tim Walz — by his worst day," tweeted Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R).
The White House's official rapid response account on X noted that "Walz is one seriously sick, depraved individual."
"Good grief," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (D) said of Walz's remarks. "Also, child molesters are among the classes of criminals most likely to re-offend, so it’s not just one day but probably a pattern of malicious conduct that creates a number of victims. Why would you not want an illegal alien that fits this profile to be deported?"
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State Sec. Marco Rubio said that the horrific pedophile pardoned by Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will no longer threaten U.S. citizens after he took action.
Tou Lue Vang of Laos admitted to committing horrible and disgusting sexual abuse of a 10-year-old in 2005 and accepted a sentence of 30 years probation to avoid prison time, as previously reported by Blaze News.
'Americans must never be forced by their elected leaders to live alongside foreign sex criminals who have no right to begin with to reside in our country.'
Vang was allowed to finish probation early, and then a commission that included Walz voted to pardon him in June. That would have possibly allowed Vang to stay in the country, until Rubio stepped in.
"Just days before this foreign sex offender was scheduled to be deported, Tim Walz the governor issued him a pardon, setting him free to once again endanger the children of America," said Rubio in a video on social media.
He then said he revoked Vang's legal status.
"As a result, federal agents took him into custody, and as of today, he has been removed from the United States," Rubio added. "Because of our actions, this foreign criminal will never pose a threat to any American ever again."
Far-left Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is also on the board of pardons, attempted to justify the pedophile pardon in a statement to KSTP-TV.
"The Minnesota Board of Pardons made a unanimous decision to grant Tou Vang this pardon after an exhaustive process, which included a statement of support for the pardon from the victim, a recommendation to grant the pardon from the Clemency Review Commission, and a large number of community support letters," he wrote.
He went on to accuse the Department of Homeland Security of "lying through their teeth" about the pardon shielding Vang from deportation.
The victim in the case did release a statement supporting the pardon.
"What happened to me was wrong, but I have had many years to think about this. I have made my peace with it. I forgive him," she wrote. "I want his family to stay together here. His children need their father. He and his wife have built a life. I believe that he has learned and grown since the abuse and that the family has suffered enough."
RELATED: Illegal alien coach who murdered boy committed sex crimes against 2 underage boys: Cops
A New York Times report said that the plea deal was offered because the victim had been pressured against testifying by her family members, according to the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office.
"Americans must never be forced by their elected leaders to live alongside foreign sex criminals who have no right to begin with to reside in our country," Rubio concluded. "This administration will always stand with the American people and defend them from violent criminals."
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Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison tried to make an argument in defense of socialism and was immediately mocked and ridiculed on social media for the effort.
Ellison was being interviewed by Dean Obeidallah, a CNN opinion writer, when the Democrat claimed that having a police force was a socialist policy.
'Equating cops paid by taxes to socialism is the dumbest, most dishonest garbage an Attorney General has ever spewed.'
"You know, there are elements of socialism that are part of our system today, including Medicare and Social Security," Obeidallah said.
"How about policing? How about, you call the cops — guess who pays them? Your tax dollars! Guess what that is? That's socialism, pal, sorry!" Ellison interrupted.
"You don't contract for your own private police department, or fire department, or water inspection, or public works!" he added.
Video of Ellison's bizarre argument was posted to social media by the Republican National Committee, where he was lambasted.
"This might be the DUMBEST statement I've heard from the leftists in Minnesota," Republican Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Minn.) responded. "Let me be clear: Keith Ellison would rather spend your hard-earned taxpayer dollars on FRAUD rather than public safety. INSANE!"
"He's parroting a stupid argument that Sophomores make when they think they are smart," another critic replied.
"You absolute clown, equating cops paid by taxes to socialism is the dumbest, most dishonest garbage an Attorney General has ever spewed," one detractor said. "Socialism is government stealing the means of production and dictating your life, NOT basic law enforcement to prevent savagery."
Others pointed out that Ellison's identification of the police as an element of socialism also contradicted his support for the police defunding movement.
"Yeah, that's why Keith Ellison advocated to Defund the Minneapolis Police Department. Because he hates Socialism," Townhall columnist Dustin Grage responded.
"Considering that Ellison thinks the police are irrevocably tainted by racism and colonialism, then I guess we see how socialism turns out," another X user replied.
Obeidallah is known for comparing the pro-life policies of Republicans in the U.S. to the brutal murder of women by Taliban extremists in Afghanistan.
Ellison has also previously expressed support for the left-wing extremist group Antifa.
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A man who was fined nearly $2 million for scamming the Medicare system was released from probation despite paying nearly none of the fine, and he's not the only one.
An investigative report found that many Minnesota fraudsters who are fined millions of dollars fail to pay back any significant amount but are allowed to get off probation.
'For the person who just doesn't care and is trying to get away with wrongdoing, I think we need stronger medicine.'
In 2023, a man named Tommie Johnson Sr. pleaded guilty to stealing health care funds through a personal care assistance scheme.
Prosecutors wanted to put Johnson in prison for 45 months, but a judge put him on probation instead so he could work to pay off the $1.7 million restitution.
For three years, Johnson paid the bare minimum of monthly payments, often $25 to $50 a month. Despite paying a tiny fraction of what he owed, Johnson was allowed to get off probation by Hennepin County District Court Judge Emily Froehle.
"The record at the time of sentencing reflects that it was unrealistic and not anticipated that [Johnson] would pay the full amount of the joint and some restitution," Froehle wrote in the order.
The case is not unusual, according to investigators with KMSP-TV.
The investigation found that convicted fraudsters paid only about $2.4 million out of $13.3 million in combined restitution ordered through the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at the office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (DFL). That comes to only about 18.8%.
Many of the fraudsters had their probation discharged despite paying little or nothing toward their restitution.
A spokesperson for the attorney general's office said the office is seeking to strengthen laws to make the fines stick.
RELATED: Top scammer of 'Feeding Our Future' fraud in Minnesota NAILED with painful sentence
"We will continue to urge courts to use all the tools at their disposal to ensure the fraudsters we convict pay back as much of the money they stole as possible," the spokesperson claimed.
"For the person who just doesn't care and is trying to get away with wrongdoing, I think we need stronger medicine for people like that," Ellison said.
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Minnesota House Republicans are locked in a fierce partisan clash with Democrats as GOP lawmakers call for accountability from Gov. Tim Walz (DFL) and his administration for their years of failure to stop widespread welfare fraud that robbed hardworking taxpayers.
It is estimated that the fraud in Minnesota connected to 14 “high-risk” Medicaid services could top $9 billion.
Swanson further claimed senior-level Minnesota DHS officials 'harassed and abused our unit for committing the sin of trying to expose a huge amount of fraud.'
The Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, led by Rep. Kristin Robbins (R), has held dozens of hearings, aiming to address these issues.
Robbins has slammed Walz for declining the committee’s invitation to testify before House lawmakers, despite being in the Capitol building for his State of the State address the same evening as the committee’s Apr. 28 hearing.
Robbins stated that his “decision-making over the last seven years … should be addressed,” pointing to a 2019 report from the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor, published early in Walz’s administration, that revealed issues in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program.
While Robbins’ committee has not heard testimony from Walz, it has questioned members of his administration. However, Robbins stated lawmakers “did not get satisfactory answers.”
Republicans have introduced a wave of legislation to address the core issues at the heart of the state’s fraud crisis. However, Democrat lawmakers have put up resistance.
Last year, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill to establish an independent Office of Inspector General to investigate. Currently, the OIG is under the Minnesota DHS, an executive branch agency. After weeks of party-line disagreements, a bipartisan OIG compromise advanced in late Apr. 2026.
The “Fraud Isn’t Free Act,” introduced in Feb. 2026, would have required state agencies to implement a corrective action plan in response to fraud in any program they administer. However, the proposal failed to pass a House committee.
GOP lawmakers are also pushing the “Take It Back Act,” introduced in April, which is still in play. If passed, it would impose a 100% tax on an individual or organization convicted of fraud in a state or federal court.
RELATED: Walz tries to take credit for raids on day cares in Minnesota — and Kash Patel humiliates him
As the state remains in the national spotlight for ignoring years of red flags, lawmakers are facing a tied House and are up against the clock, with the legislative session set to conclude in mid-May.
On Apr. 28, FBI Minneapolis and its federal partners raided 22 child-care and autism centers. The criminal search warrants included the infamous “Quality Learing Center,” which misspelled “learning” on the business sign posted outside its establishment, as featured in journalist Nick Shirley’s reporting that uncovered rampant fraud tied to the state’s Somali community.
That same day, Robbins’ fraud committee gathered for a hearing to discuss the state’s Child Care Assistance Program, during which Jay Swanson, a former Minnesota state trooper and a former manager of the Minnesota Department of Human Services child care provider investigation unit from 2014 to 2019, provided damning testimony.
Swanson explained that he was involved in an investigation that led to a federal indictment of the owner of the Salama Child Care Center in 2017. The owner ultimately pled guilty, was sentenced to two years in prison, and was ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution, Swanson said.
“The Salama Child Care Center was located at 1411 Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. That address might ring a bell for some of you because of a YouTube video taken last December at the Quality Learing Center, which was being operated at the same address,” Swanson told lawmakers, referring to Shirley’s reporting.
Swanson further claimed senior-level Minnesota DHS officials “harassed and abused our unit for committing the sin of trying to expose a huge amount of fraud in the CCAP program.” He noted that some of those individuals are still working at the state DHS.
He told lawmakers that by mid-2017, the leadership at the Minnesota DHS was not focused on stopping CCAP fraud, but “the focus was on stopping the people that are investigating CCAP fraud.”
Swanson stated that the state DHS unit he led was closed shortly after the special Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor report that flagged major weaknesses in the DHS’ fraud controls.
“Rather than INCREASING criminal investigations of childcare fraud after an OLA report came out early in his Administration, @GovTimWalz and DHS closed the unit,” Robbins wrote in a post on X. “They knew and they intentionally stopped criminal investigations.”
Robbins questioned Randy Keys, the inspector general of the Minnesota Department of Child, Youth, and Families, during the Apr. 28 hearing about whether he would want to “reinstate a criminal investigation unit” in the DCYF. This agency was established in 2024 to take over responsibility for child care-related programs from the DHS.
“No,” Keys replied. “It’s very important in our system to ensure that administrative investigations are kept separate from criminal investigations. … What we’re doing is protecting the integrity of the investigations and our ability to use that information.”
RELATED: FBI RAIDS 'Quality Learing Center' and nearly 2 dozen more in Minnesota FRAUD investigation
Less than two years ago, Walz was the darling of the national Democratic Party after Kamala Harris nominated him to join her on the 2024 presidential ticket.
Minnesota’s benefit fraud crisis, however, has damaged Walz’s political career, leading him to drop out of the re-election race. Walz’s prolonged failure to address the fraud prompted House Republicans to propose resolutions H.R. 6 and H.R. 7 in March that would move to impeach the governor and Attorney General Keith Ellison.
H.R. 6, which called for Walz’s removal, accused the governor of engaging “in corrupt conduct in office by violating his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the laws of this state.” It claimed he knowingly concealed or permitted others to conceal “widespread fraud … despite repeated warnings, audits, reports, and public indicators of systematic abuse.”
H.R. 7, which aimed to impeach Ellison, claimed that the attorney general “failed to discharge faithfully the duties of his office to the best of his judgment and ability, by engaging in corrupt conduct in office and committing crimes and misdemeanors.”
The criticism against Ellison stemmed from his alleged ties to those involved in the Feeding Our Future scandal. In 2021, Ellison met with criminal defendants involved with Feeding Our Future, 10 months before any indictments were filed. Shortly after their meeting, Ellison accepted over $10,000 in campaign donations from individuals tied to the group.
Ellison returned some of the campaign donations in 2022, soon after federal indictments were filed. Other campaign funds were returned in May and Dec. of 2025.
House Republican Floor Leader Harry Niska insisted that the only power the House has for accountability in the “multibillion-dollar fraud scandal that’s embarrassing our state” is impeachment.
Democrat lawmakers rejected the impeachment efforts. Rep. Sydney Jordan (DFL) called the attempt a “simple, stupid distraction” and a “political circus.”
Jordan accused Republicans of targeting Walz and Ellison because they “don’t like them,” and claimed GOP lawmakers should be focused on the “absolute solutions” that could prevent “scamming businesses” in the future.
“We actually have a fraud committee that could be doing this, but they haven’t heard any bills to actually crack down on fraud, so I don’t know what they’re doing either. This is exactly the kind of political stunt that has taken over our politics,” Jordan said. “This is an insane waste of time. I can’t believe this is what the Republican caucus is choosing to spend their limited committee time on.”
Walz similarly called the GOP’s effort “a waste of time.” He told Republicans to “just get over it and move on” because his term is coming to an end.
Ellison has insisted that his 2021 meeting with individuals involved in the Feeding Our Future scandal was “routine,” he wrote in a Minnesota Star Tribune op-ed in Apr. 2025.
“I took a meeting in good faith with people I didn’t know, and some turned out to have done bad things. I did nothing for them and took nothing from them,” Ellison wrote.
In Dec. 2025, a spokesperson for Ellison claimed that the AG did not receive donations from anyone who attended the 2021 meeting and that he had “returned every contribution from the handful of people associated with Feeding Our Future as soon as he was made aware of those connections.”
The procedural resolution to consider H.R. 6 and H.R. 7 was rejected along party lines on Apr. 15 in the Rules Committee.
Walz's office and Ellison's office did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News.
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