Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a town hall at Roosevelt High School on Friday, March 14, 2025, in Des Moines.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz condemned President Donald Trump for his use of a slur in a social media post on Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, and for his characterization of the state's Somali immigrant and diaspora community.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Nov. 30, Walz said Trump's use of the r-word, which the president used to insult to the Democratic governor and 2024 vice presidential hopeful, was "damaging."

"This is what Donald Trump has done. He has normalized this type of hateful behavior and this type of language," Walz said of Trump's social media post. "At first, I think it’s just because he’s not a good human being. But secondly, (it’s) to distract from his incompetency."

While the word was introduced as a medical term in 1961, it has evolved over the decades to become a slur used to demean people with and without disabilities. Disability advocates seek to end its use, and the president's post has ignited backlash.

Walz told NBC that "kids know better" than to use the word, and criticized attempts to brush off outrage as "woke" language policing.

"Many times, it’s just about being decent to people and making them feel included," Walz said of efforts to avoid slurs and other discriminatory types of language. "You can use that word. Sure, you can use that language. But you shouldn’t. And that's something Donald Trump fails to realize.”

Walz also accused Trump's Thanksgiving social media posts of demonizing the state's Somali community − the United States' largest. The president falsely said "hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota," along with other comments about the Somali population.

“They bring the diversity and the energy to a place like Minnesota and for him to just randomly decide to do this, it makes no sense," Walz said of the series of posts. "Do your job. Get the criminals out, secure our border, but do it with dignity and respect to the American tradition of respecting immigrants and refugees as a beacon of hope.”

Trump ordered federal immigration officials to reexamine green cards issued to people from 19 countries considered “high-risk," including Somalia. The move widened the administration's contentious crackdown on immigration, and comes a few days after the deadly shooting of two National Guard members by a suspected gunman who is an Afghan national.

Kathryn Palmer is a politics reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tim Walz slams Donald Trump's posts on Somali community, use of slur

Reporting by Kathryn Palmer, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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