Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz put billionaire Elon Musk on blast on Friday as the former vice presidential candidate kicked off his nationwide town hall tour in Des Moines, Iowa.
“There’s nothing conservative about an unelected South African nepo baby firing people at the VA,” Walz said of the billionaire in his remarks to about 1,000 people at a high school auditorium.
He continued to lay into Musk’s closeness to President Donald Trump, “Could you image if President Barack Obama had brought his unelected African friend to cut? You know what I mean. How they think to cut the government, this is wrong.”
Walz spoke in a congressional district where Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) tightly won his reelection bid in November.
On Saturday, the ex-VP candidate is set to head to Nebraska, where Republican Rep. Don Bacon narrowly squeezed past his Democratic opponent in 2024.
The idea for the tour began to take shape after Walz, in an X post last week, toyed with meeting constituents of GOP-held districts himself as Republicans face fury at town halls over policies pushed by the Trump administration.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has advised GOP representatives to skip out on the events after lawmakers such as Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) attempted to tackle outraged voters’ questions.
Walz recently said he owns the “mess” Americans find themselves in following his and Kamala Harris’ loss last year.
On Friday, the Minnesota governor told the Iowa crowd that he wasn’t in the state to “personally attack” their member of Congress before stressing that the lawmaker needs to answer questions about siding with Trump.
“It’s very hard to find an elected official who doesn’t want to be in front of a crowd or a camera. When they don’t want to be, you know something’s up,” Walz argued.
“And the something that’s up is even people who voted for this didn’t vote for what they’re getting, they didn’t vote for the crap.”
Nunn, in a statement to Des Moines’ CBS affiliate KCCI, claimed he’s “held hundreds of listening sessions across all 21 counties” in his House district.
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“Iowans voted for change in November, and I’m delivering: securing the border, unleashing U.S. energy, and cutting taxes for working Americans. While out-of-state Democrats hold fundraisers disguised as forums, we’re focused on real results,” Nunn said.