Did Tim Walz say that people should cause good trouble in protesting and not admonish violent protestors?
Executive summary
Tim Walz did publicly invoke the phrase “good trouble” when addressing protesters in Minnesota and repeatedly urged protests be peaceful and conducted “with Minnesota decency,” tying his language to the nonviolent civil-rights tradition of John Lewis [1] [2] [3]. There is no reporting in the provided sources that Walz told people they should not admonish violent protestors; instead critics and partisan outlets have characterized his remarks as permissive or alarmist, a framing at odds with Walz’s explicit calls for nonviolence [4] [5] [6].
1. Walz used “good trouble” but anchored it in nonviolent tradition
In multiple accounts of his remarks to protesters outside the governor’s mansion and at other events, Walz invoked John Lewis’s “good trouble” as a shorthand for disruptive but nonviolent civil disobedience, saying he “spent a lot of time with John Lewis on nonviolent resistance” and urging Minnesotans to act with “Minnesota grit, Minnesota humor, Minnesota decency” [1] [2] [3]. Those sources report he framed the urgency of protest in moral terms—warning about children hiding and referencing visits to the Anne Frank House—while linking the idea of “good trouble” to lawful, nonviolent resistance [1] [2].
2. He repeatedly urged peace and discouraged violence, per reporting
Contemporaneous coverage documents Walz issuing statements urging protesters to remain peaceful and warning against violence; in a state address he told Minnesotans to protest “loudly, urgently, but also peacefully,” and news reports note he has publicly emphasized nonviolence as part of his response to the crisis [7] [1]. The Moving Mountains and GoodGoodGood pieces explicitly note Walz’s appeals for peaceful protest and his linkage of “good trouble” to nonviolent civil-rights tactics [2] [1].
3. Critics portrayed the remarks as permissive or dangerous, but that is disputed
Right-leaning and partisan outlets framed Walz’s words as encouraging lawlessness—one site labeled protests “anti-ICE” anarchists and said Walz urged people to “cause good trouble” amid alleged chaos, and other outlets described activists as “agitators” and accused Walz of failing to stop violence [4] [5]. National commentators and political opponents amplified Walz’s broader warnings about a national rupture or “Fort Sumter” moment, which opponents used to paint him as alarmist or irresponsible [8] [6]. Those framings emphasize consequence and sensationalize tension, but do not supply a direct quote in which Walz tells people not to admonish violent protestors.
4. What the record does and does not show
The contemporary reporting available documents Walz urging “good trouble” in the John Lewis sense and repeatedly calling for peaceful resistance and Minnesota decency [1] [2] [3] [7]. The record contains criticisms that cast the governor’s comments as permissive or insufficiently tough, but none of the supplied sources show Walz instructing people to refrain from admonishing violent actors or explicitly defending violent protest [4] [5] [6]. If a claim exists that Walz told people not to admonish violent protestors, it is not supported by the material provided here.
5. Bottom line and competing narratives
Bottom line: Walz did tell protesters to “cause good trouble,” but he qualified that with references to John Lewis and nonviolent resistance and multiple statements urging peaceful protest and decency [1] [2] [7]. The competing narrative—that he endorsed violence or told people not to admonish violent protestors—appears to arise from partisan readings and headlines that emphasize unrest rather than his explicit calls for nonviolence; the supplied sources do not substantiate the stronger allegation [4] [5]. Sources explicitly link his language to nonviolent civil-rights tradition, while critics and opponents repurposed the phrase to criticize his leadership or stoke political outrage [1] [8] [6].