EXCLUSIVE — As he campaigned to be Minnesota’s next governor, Tim Walz called a Muslim cleric who promoted a pro-Adolf Hitler film a “master teacher” who offered Walz lessons over the time they “spent together,” according to footage at a 2018 event unearthed by the Washington Examiner.
News of the footage comes after a spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign said in a Friday statement that Walz does not “have a personal relationship” with Asad Zaman of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. That claim was in response to a Washington Examiner report on how Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, repeatedly hosted the imam at events as the governor of Minnesota. At several of those events, Zaman also spoke before Walz.
“I would like to first of all say thank you to imam,” Walz said at the unearthed 2018 event, which was hosted by Minnesota’s Muslim American Society on Feb. 16, 2018, at the South Metro Islamic Center in Rosemount, Minnesota. Standing next to Walz as he spoke was Peggy Flanagan, now the lieutenant governor in the Gopher State.
“I am a teacher, so when I see a master teacher, I know it. Over the time we’ve spent together, one of the things I’ve had the privilege of is seeing the things in life through the eye of a master teacher, to try and get the understanding,” Walz said of Zaman at the event, before discussing a prior attack at the Dar al Farooq Islamic Center in Minnesota. “It was imam talking [saying that] ‘in those times is where we find who we are, in those times is where we really see.’
“That brings me to the second lesson that imam taught me,” Walz said, describing how Congress “feeds on fear more than hope” and “division.”
“It was a lesson when imam told me to go speak to people,” Walz also said at the event. “I have pushed back through my whole career on the demonization of Islam, on the demonization of immigrants. … In this space, Imam Zaman is right on this, there is Islamophobia, there is a hatred that is being stirred.”
Zaman, who is the director of Minnesota’s Muslim American Society, asserted on Oct. 7, 2023, that he “stands in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli attacks” after 1,200 Israelis were killed by Hamas terrorists. His organization, which has a related chapter that once came under fire following children at a 2019 event it hosted calling for murdering Jews, said on Oct. 7 that it “reaffirms its unwavering support for the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Israeli occupation.”
Zaman’s social media history includes sharing a link to an article on a website in 2015 for a pro-Hitler film called The Greatest Story Never Told and, in one 2016 example, an official press release issued by Hamas. The press release mourned the death of an Islamist leader in South Asia who was executed after being convicted of war crimes.
In a Friday statement, the Anti-Defamation League said Zaman “has a troubling history of playing into classic anti-Jewish themes and justifying violence against Israel.”
“Given his hurtful remarks post-Oct. 7, and absent any recognition of the pain he has caused the Jewish community, we urge all public officials and leaders to avoid meeting with him in the future,” the Anti-Defamation League told the Washington Examiner. “Those who have met with Imam Zaman should clarify that they don’t agree with his toxic views about Jews and the Jewish state.”
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Under Walz, Minnesota has awarded over $100,000 in funding to Zaman’s organization, records show.
Spokespeople for Walz and Harris did not reply to requests for comment.