Fact Check: Tim Walz Claims to Have Fed Kids — After $250 Million ‘Feeding Our Future’ Fraud

CLAIM: “So while other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours.”

VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE. Other states were not “banning books,” and Minnesota suffered massive fraud in school feeding.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz delivered his acceptance speech as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running made on Wednesday evening, and claimed that his state was “banishing hunger” while others were “banning books.”

The claim about “banning books” is false. Some conservative school districts and states removed pornographic and racial material from school libraries and curricula. Curating a curriculum appropriate for children is not “banning.”

But the bigger problem in Walz’s claim is that his state suffered the worst fraud of any state during the coronavirus spending spree, and it involved the theft of $250 million that was meant to go towards children who needed meals.

As Breitbart News reported earlier this month:

Democrat vice-presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-MN) lax oversight of a federal food aid program led to dozens of Somali migrants stealing $250 million meant for children in need.

In September 2022, the Justice Department charged 47 Somali immigrants in Minnesota with stealing $250 million from a coronavirus relief program meant to feed needy children. Only $50 million has been recovered as of June.

…

An audit from the nonpartisan Office of the Legislative Auditor found that Walz’s Department of Education “failed to act on warning signs known to the department prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and prior to the start of the alleged fraud, did not effectively exercise its authority to hold Feeding Our Future accountable to program requirements, and was ill-prepared to respond to the issues it encountered with Feeding Our Future.”

It was not the only fraud that Walz’s administration endured. As National Review‘s Jim Geraghty noted: “On his watch, the Minnesota government has endured one embarrassing scandal after another entailing mismanagement, fraud, waste, and abuse.”

Some children in Minnesota schools benefited from state and federal spending on food. But $250 million disappeared on Walz’s watch.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.