Democrat vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was slammed as "depraved" and a "coward" for dodging a question about the six dead Israeli hostages who were executed by Hamas terrorists and found over the weekend.
The chorus of criticism began Sunday when, at the Minnesota State Fair in Saint Paul, Walz was asked by a reporter his thoughts about the six being found dead in Gaza.
"All right, thanks everybody!" Walz said in response as he waved to the crowd and walked off.
"Every time this man opens his mouth, I like him less," wrote Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Sen. John McCain.
Media critic Stephen L. Miller called Walz "depraved" for blowing off the question.
Walz's slippery exit didn't escape the Trump campaign.
"If it's too difficult for you to answer questions, you probably shouldn't be running the country," the campaign wrote in a post to X on Monday.
Two different conservatives had the same word for Walz: "coward."
"Tim Walz was asked his reaction to the 6 executed hostages being found in Gaza, including one American citizen. You know what he said? Nothing – he ran away. Which is exactly what he did when his troops were deployed to Iraq. This man is a Grade A coward," commentator Rogan O'Handley wrote on X in a post, according to the New York Post.
Wrote actress Patricia Heaton, "Tim Walz won't even acknowledge that an American hostage was murdered by Hamas. He's an even bigger loser and coward than Kamala."
Hours after ducking the question, Walz took to X to say "Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization," adding, "we condemn their continued atrocities against both Americans and Israelis in the strongest possible terms."
The bodies of the six were found by Israeli soldiers in a tunnel in Rafah ahead of a planned rescue mission, Israel said. Among the dead was American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23.
"Gwen and I send our deepest condolences to the Goldberg-Polin family, after Hamas' murder of their son Hersh," Walz wrote in his post to X, too late to escape the scrutiny from his sidestep at the fair.
"Play this clip over and over and over to remind everyone that the Democratic Party has a Hxmas (sic) faction they desperately want to appease," wrote Washington Examiner columnist Kimberly Ross.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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