The race for Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seat took a combative turn Tuesday morning as Republican candidate David Hann appeared on Fox & Friends to unload on his opponent, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, accusing her of political theater amid a sprawling state fraud investigation.
Hann, looking to flip the seat for the GOP, seized on a recent controversy involving Flanagan’s outreach to the Somali community. During the segment, host Steve Doocy noted that Flanagan—a “devout Catholic”—had recently appeared in a video wearing a hijab, reportedly to apologize to Somali residents regarding the ongoing fraud inquiries.
Hann wasted no time characterizing the move as performative absurdity.
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“We used to be the land of 10,000 lakes, now we’ve become the land of 10,000 frauds,” Hann told the hosts. “It looks like we’re now in the land of make-believe. The lieutenant governor… is out pretending to be a Somali which makes absolutely no sense at all.”
The segment comes against the backdrop of an intensifying investigation by the Department of Homeland Security into alleged misuse of taxpayer funds in Minnesota. Doocy introduced the interview by citing “massive fraud” involving nearly 100 charges, with Attorney General Pam Bondi warning of more arrests to come.
While Flanagan declined an invitation to appear on the program, the show aired a statement from her office. The Lieutenant Governor’s team pushed back, calling the theft of taxpayer money “unconscionable” and asserting that perpetrators should be prosecuted “to the full extent of the law.” Her statement also pivoted the focus to Washington, criticizing “fraud and corruption… under Trump where guardrails have been dismantled.”
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Hann dismissed the defense, laying the blame for the missing funds squarely at the feet of the Walz-Flanagan administration. He argued that state leadership failed to oversee the distribution of federal aid, allowing money to vanish without accountability.
“They’ve been focused on handing out money is what they’ve been focused on,” Hann said, adding that no one in the administration has been fired despite the scale of the allegations.
Governor Tim Walz also came under fire during the broadcast. When asked about Walz’s “hodgepodge” response—which the hosts described as shifting between downplaying the dollar amounts and labeling GOP attacks as racist—Hann was blunt. He claimed the administration had a duty to administer laws correctly but instead allowed federal relief dollars to disappear.
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With the Senate election on the horizon, Hann framed the contest as a choice between effective governance and “radical leftist politicians,” specifically naming Flanagan and Rep. Angie Craig. His closing pitch focused on stabilizing the state’s legal oversight and aligning with the Trump administration, stating that Minnesota voters “expect” allies in Washington rather than obstruction.
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