Minnesota Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson is the latest state lawmaker to call for Gov. Tim Walz to resign as fraud investigations and allegations receive increasing attention.
“I think it would be best for him to resign,” Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, told Forum News Service earlier this week. “Will he do that? I don’t know. I mean, we haven’t seen any Democrats in either the House or the Senate call for his resignation. Which, to me, is a little bit disappointing as well, too, because they gotta recognize the issues that we’re facing here in Minnesota, and that’s a significant part of it.”
Johnson joins five lawmakers who on Monday sent out a joint call for Walz to resign: Sen. Bill Lieske, R-Lonsdale; Sen. Nathan Wesenberg, R-Little Falls; Rep. Marj Fogelman, R-Fulda; Rep. Drew Roach, R-Farmington, and Rep. Mike Wiener, R-Long Prairie.
Johnson said that in the private sector, any CEO or head of a company would be held accountable in a similar situation.
“You’re seeing the same thing here. If he’s going to be the executive of this branch — we see all the fraud that’s going on throughout that — I think it is time for the governor to really realize his role in that and take responsibility,” Johnson said of Walz.
Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, was less committal during a Monday news conference when asked about calls for Walz to resign.
“Taxpayers are fed up with this. They’re frustrated. We watched our state budget explode. We watched all of our taxes and fees go up, and Minnesota taxpayers across the state are done with funding fraud,” said Demuth, who is campaigning for the Republican nomination for governor. “That’s a frustration that we are hearing from across the state, and as you saw in the letter (from the five Republican lawmakers) today.”
It’s not the first time Minnesota Republicans have asked Walz to resign. After the 2020 murder of George Floyd sparked rioting and arson, they called for the governor and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to resign.
YouTube video
On Friday, Nick Shirley, a right-wing YouTuber, posted a video alleging millions of dollars of fraud at some of Minnesota’s day care centers. The video has received 2.2 million views on his YouTube channel and 128 million on X, and prompted responses from Vice President JD Vance and FBI Director Kash Patel.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said Tuesday that the federal government has frozen all child care payments to Minnesota as a result. Walz responded to that move on X on Tuesday and said President Donald Trump is “politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”
In response to the claims in the video, Tikki Brown, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families, said Monday her employees have conducted unannounced on-site visits and have seen children at the centers seen in the video.
Brown said several of the centers have been investigated and “none of those investigations uncovered findings of fraud.”
Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said Demuth’s recent statement that the state GOP directed Shirley to Minnesota indicates their party places political gain over solutions.
“Republicans are playing sick games and winning devastating prizes,” Murphy said, in a statement Wednesday. “Sending a YouTuber to drive around demanding that he gets to see children isn’t an investigation; it’s creepy. And now, tens of thousands of Minnesota families will pay the price as Donald’s Trump’s agents strip away crucial funding. Our daycare system is already stressed; this reckless decision could force a collapse that affects all of us.
Murphy also said Republican lawmakers with the House fraud committee are withholding whistler blower tips from investigators.
“They care more about viral tweets and being featured on Fox News than they do about Minnesotans. DFLers will continue to work to actually stop and prevent fraud, and protect the necessary services that Minnesotans rely on,” she said.
Walz spokesperson: ‘Governor has been combating fraud for years’
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Walz said “the governor has been combating this for years and, before the viral video, had already referred these cases to law enforcement.”
“He has asked the state Legislature for more authority to take aggressive action,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities. He has hired an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs, shut down the Housing Stabilization Services program entirely, announced a new statewide program integrity director, and supported criminal prosecutions.”
House Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, echoed Johnson’s comments but also did not directly call for a resignation.
“In any organization, any company, anyone who oversaw the kind of failure that the chief executive of the state has overseen — those in charge find a way to get rid of that leader,” Niska said.
“If Gov. Walz resigns, the next person up for the job is the person who has been by his side throughout this entire failed administration as well. So it may ultimately be up to the people of Minnesota to fire Gov. Walz at the ballot box in November of 2026,” he added.
In a December interview with Forum News Service, Sen. Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights, said she had “no comment” on whether Walz should resign or drop out of the campaign.
Johnson said the call for a resignation is not because there is evidence that the governor is criminally guilty of anything.
“What I think the problem is, is he’s allowed a system to develop that has almost encouraged or become so well known throughout the country and the world, that you come to Minnesota and you can walk out with bags of cash,” Johnson said. “Creating that atmosphere, that environment, is not something that we expect for good government. And so if that’s how he’s running it, I just don’t think that he should be.”
Steven Schier, a political science professor at Carleton College in Northfield, told Forum News Service in December he thinks a Walz resignation would not be “a good look” and would “lead to suspicions of culpability or guilt.”
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Schier also weighed in on whether Walz could drop out of the campaign.
“I think the future of Tim Walz, his political career, will be determined by his own party,” Schier said. “If they stand by him, he will be the candidate in November of 2026. If there is internal division and concern about whether he should continue, either in office or as a 2026 candidate, then he’s got serious problems, but Republicans calling for him to resign is not going to determine his electoral or governing fate.”
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