President Donald Trump was confronted by CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Friday about why his administration blocked Minnesota from being part of the federal investigation into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement shooting of a 37-year-old mom of three in Minneapolis — and his resulting answer, which meandered into attacks on Somali-Americans and false claims that he would have won the state without voter fraud, left observers stunned.
"State officials there have said that the FBI isn't sharing evidence with them," said Collins. "Typically they would conduct a joint investigation, as you know. Do you believe that the FBI should be sharing evidence with state officials in Minnesota?"
"Well, normally I would, but they're crooked officials," said Trump. "I mean, Minneapolis and Minnesota, what a beautiful place, but it's being destroyed. It's got an incompetent governor, fool, I mean, he's a stupid person. And it looks like the number could be $19 billion stolen from a lot of people, but largely people from Somalia, they buy their vote, they vote in a group, they buy their vote. They sell more Mercedes-Benzes in that area than almost, can you imagine you come over with no money and then shortly thereafter you're driving a Mercedes-Benz? The whole thing is ridiculous. So they're very corrupt people. It's a very corrupt state."
"I feel that I won Minnesota, I think I won it all three times," he continued. "Nobody's won it since Richard Nixon won it many, many years ago. I won it all three times in my opinion, and it's a corrupt state, a corrupt voting state, and the Republicans ought to get smart and demand voter ID. They ought to demand, maybe, same-day voting and all of the other things you have to have to safe election. But I won Minnesota three times and I didn't get credit for it. I did so well in that state every time. The people were, they were crying every time after. That's a crooked state, California is a crooked state, many crooked states. We have a very, very dishonest voting system."
Commenters on social media were left stupefied by this rant.
"Finally, the reason for Trump’s obsessive interest with Minnesota is clear: 'I feel that I won Minnesota. I think I won it all three times.' But that's not true," wrote CNN's Jeff Zeleny. "He lost to Clinton by 1.5, Biden by 7 and Harris by 4. It may be the reddest blue state in America, but Trump lost 3 times."
"If a relative talked like this, you would have a family meeting about how to get them the care they needed," wrote podcaster and former presidential adviser Dan Pfeiffer.