Tim Walz Under Fire For Hosting Radical Cleric Who Celebrated Oct. 7

Politics makes strange bedfellows, but this is different.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is facing serious scrutiny after it was revealed that, before becoming Kamala Harris’ running mate, he hosted and funded a radical Muslim cleric on multiple occasions. This cleric, known for his extreme views, has publicly celebrated the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel and has promoted a website popular with Neo-Nazis and Adolf Hitler fanboys. Despite the gravity of these revelations, mainstream media coverage thus far has been notably absent.

However, the Washington Examiner is reporting on this concerning development, as Governor Walz’s association with such a controversial figure raises critical questions about his judgment and the values he supports:

The imam, Asad Zaman of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, joined other Muslim leaders in May 2023 for a meeting about mosque security with Walz’s gubernatorial office in Minnesota. Zaman also spoke at a May 2020 event to call for peaceful protests with the governor during the riots in Minnesota sparked after George Floyd’s death. In April 2019, the cleric delivered an invocation before Walz’s state address — just months after Zaman called for an end to a government shutdown at a press conference with Walz in January 2019.

Zaman, moreover, attended a May 2019 event that Walz hosted for Ramadan, social media posts show.

Walz’s ties to Zaman could serve as problematic baggage for the Minnesota governor as he campaigns with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. News of the ties also comes after a Washington Free Beacon report this week found Walz spoke at a 2019 event with an antisemitic scholar who has defended terrorism against Israel.

Zaman, who is from Bangladesh, said on Oct. 7 of last year that he “stands in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli attacks.” That day, which saw 1,200 Israelis murdered by Hamas terrorists, he also shared an image of a Palestinian flag on Facebook in response to a post by Yusuf Abdi Abdulle, director of the Islamic Association of North America, declaring that “Palestine has the right to defend itself.” The Biden-Harris administration, Abdulle wrote in the post, was “on the wrong side of history” in “supporting the extremist Zionist regime and its illegal settlements.”

On that fateful day, Hamas, a designated terrorist organization by many countries, including the United States, launched rocket barrages and sent militants into Israeli towns, targeting civilians. The attack was widely condemned by the international community, yet Zaman and Abdulle used the attack to reiterate their extreme and dangerous ideology.

Adolf Hitler, the infamous dictator of Nazi Germany, orchestrated the Holocaust, one of the most horrific genocides in human history. Under his regime, six million Jews and millions of others, including Romani people, disabled individuals, political dissidents and other “undesirables,” were systematically murdered. Zaman’s repeated favorable references to a pro-Hitler website only deepens concerns about his radicalism and the potential consequences of his influence.

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