Episode 433, The Andrew Parker Show - Minnesota in Decline: Crime, Education & the Walz Report Card, a discussion with businessman Tom Rosen

Businessman Tom Rosen joins Andrew Parker for a candid discussion on the state of Minnesota—its politics, economy, and the consequences of Governor Tim Walz’s leadership. Together, they examine the issues shaping the upcoming Minneapolis election, from skyrocketing crime rates and failing education standards to the anti-business climate driving residents and companies out of the state.

What happened to “the land of the good life”? Andrew and Tom explore how decades of liberal policies have eroded Minnesota’s prosperity—and what it will take to restore safety, accountability, and fiscal responsibility.

Transcript

Episode 433 Transcript

Andrew Parker (00:02)

Welcome to another episode of the Andrew Parker show. And today on this episode, we're going to discuss politics. Politics in the state of Minnesota. Yes, indeed. ⁓ One week from tomorrow, from the day we're recording this episode, there is an election in the city of Minneapolis, the largest

city, the city that some say ⁓ really drives the state of Minnesota from an economic perspective and many other perspectives as well. It is one of the most liberal electorates anywhere in the country and they're going to the polls to elect a mayor, all 13 council members, as well as the park board.

And ⁓ is it going to be something that we want to give a standing ovation to? ⁓ I don't think so. We'll see what happens on Monday. It might be the better of two evils. I dare say that liberal policy in the city of Minneapolis has not resulted in good outcomes.

And we're joined by someone today. I repeat, coming back guest to the Andrew Parker show, and I'm very proud to have him. Tom Rosen, Rosen diversified a, ⁓ well, let's just say one of the important companies who provides food to this country. and nothing more important than.

what Rose and Diversify does. Tom's father and uncle started the company. Tom has greatly expanded it. A great businessman here in the state of Minnesota. And we're gonna ask him today about how Tim Walz is doing and his report card. But first, welcome to the show, Thomas. Andy, it's always good to see you, buddy. Thank you so much. ⁓

I find this time in politics to be a bit humorous. The Democratic Party does not know its way. Unfortunately, we no longer have a liberal party ⁓ in the United States. It has become much more of a leftist party. They use the term progressive, of course. ⁓ And if progressive means throwing

our Judeo-Christian values out the window and implementing policies that time and time again have failed, certainly in terms of economic policies, then I guess that is what it means to be a progressive. But what do we do?

with a democratic party that has lost its way. I am a firm believer in we need a strong liberal party in this country. We need a strong conservative party in this country. We need ideas to be bandied about and argued in the public square, in the marketplace of ideas in order for that crucible to leave when we...

are said and gone, done and gone, to leave in it ⁓ the essence, the ⁓ fundamental mineral of good policy. And we just haven't been doing that. We've been getting bad policy from our liberal friends. One of them is Tim Walz, governor of the state of Minnesota. Thomas, how do you think? ⁓

Tim walls is doing now that we've given him eight years of leadership nearly as we're coming up to an election in 2026. And he's running for a third term. How do you think he's done in his first two terms? Well, things are in really good shape. What he took over. We had big surpluses and everything like that. And all of them are gone. I don't know some of it.

There's a big fraud scandal going on some of that Extra money, I think is involved in that deal. You know, yeah, I mean the fraud is Second to none in the experience of the state of Minnesota. I've talked about this on the show before and and those of our age Tom certainly remember the cover of Time magazine with

Wendy Anderson holding a huge musky here caught in the, might've been a walleye caught here in the state. It was a big, it was a big fish. And you know, the good life that was ⁓ the fundamental, well, the foundation of the story. And right here in Minnesota, you could come and find the good life. And nowadays, what do we have? We have crime.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, those were the good days. Now what do we have? We've got crime rates that are through the roof, violent crime rates, worse than, ⁓ worse than ever, particularly here in the city of Minneapolis. Just to give you a few statistics here. ⁓

Just in 2023, the crime index was two more than two and a half times greater than the US average here in the Twin Cities. And the the national average had what's called a index, a crime index.

The national average was 240 crime index. Minneapolis has a crime index of 645. There were only 1.1 % of all US cities that were worse than Minneapolis. 1%, that's how bad the crime rate has gotten in the city of Minneapolis with these socialists who wanna be

return to office who are ⁓ governing here in the city. And violent crime is worse yet.

I mean, you live here in the city, Tom. Do ever hear any sirens? It's funny you ask. I 10 days ago, somebody broke into my garage when I was sleeping there. Really, really got into a car. My girlfriend's car stole all the clothes out of there stole a bunch of credit cards. And this was right.

This was on a Sunday morning or something like that. And, ⁓ kind of the sad part of it all. ⁓ they don't, you can't report a theft like that. Yeah. Well, nothing's going to be done. No, they don't. Unless it's a burger or tempted burger, they really don't want to hear about it. So yeah. And if your house is vandalized, you got property, they don't even show up. They don't care. No.

And well, you know, they may, I think the police department probably does care, but they are so woefully understaffed ⁓ because of the defund, defund the police movement that what are you gonna do? Of course, you defund the police, you're gonna have more crime and in particular, more violent crime. So crime is up.

The argument that it isn't ignores ⁓ violent crime, property damage crime, or property crime is up as well. you know, while trends go up and down, up and down, since Tim Walz has been governor, since the Democratic Socialists of America have taken over the city council in terms of their votes and how they vote,

⁓ Crime has gone through the roof. What about the next issue? We've still got a few minutes here Tom. I want your ⁓ Judgment on what about education in Minnesota? You know keep them all stupid because they'll march in the streets waving Hamas flags I mean that's the result of Keeping them all stupid and our education system which used to be the beacon

for the entire nation is now, I remember back to the Palente years and even before. The education system here in Minnesota mattered. Nowadays, and since Tim Walz has taken over as governor in 2019, the math scores and the reading scores for Minnesota have fallen precipitously despite the fact

that the amount of money per pupil that has been thrown into our education system has greatly expanded and increased. What do we do on education? Well, I'll tell you this, that there's been a lot of private schools started and they are totally full. Charter schools? Yeah. But charter. Yeah. They're totally people are actually.

the education system as it is. Yeah. And there's no doubt if they have choice, they are going to move with that choice. ⁓ but, the bottom line is math and reading scores since 2019 have dropped in Minnesota like never before. And more than that, at least as it relates to reading scores,

They have dropped below the national average. mean, Minnesota is now down around Mississippi and Louisiana in terms of our education system. It's crazy and nothing short of crazy. Lastly, the average individual economic loss.

That is an individual's average income, their economic gain or loss by state in terms of loss puts Minnesota near the very bottom in the lowest 10 of the entire United States. In fact, what is it? Eighth from the bottom. Eighth from the bottom.

It's not good, folks. It's not good. But you saw the clown jumping around on stage running for vice president and and he's now running ⁓ again. I had the great opportunity, Tom, to ⁓ probably seven or eight times out in D.C. sit with Tim Walz when he was a congressman and we talked about the Middle East. And it wasn't really a discussion. We'd open up the topic.

And he would then talk for about 30 minutes and just continuously just hot air. I mean, you had to get out of the room. It was, it was, it was, ⁓ it was crazy. ⁓ he was generally pretty good for Israel. ⁓ but toward the end, when things got difficult in the democratic party, he bailed.

He bailed on the Jewish state. He bailed on Judeo-Christian values. Well, you know, what do they call them on Fox News? Tampon. Tampon, right?

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, he's running for governor again. And God willing, folks will go to the polls. They'll remember him jumping around on stage. Go. We don't want that for another four years. Let's bring back in sound. Middle right down the middle, a little bit conservative fiscal policy for Minnesota.

and bring back

the Time magazine cover. We can do it. Let's bring it back. We're going to have to make changes. starting at governor is a good way to do it. Tom, thanks so much for being here today. One thing. Yeah. There this for the first in the last few years years in Minnesota, we have been losing population. That is yes.

Yes, of course. ⁓ Crime rate is up. Education is down. Economic loss is is through the roof. Who's going to stay? It's a terrible time for business. Yeah. And it's the most anti-business attitude ever in this state. People are not only going to South Dakota, they're now going to North Dakota. mean, who would ever have thought?

You'd leave Minnesota to go to North Dakota. Right. I love North Dakota. But, you know, that's what people are doing. Tom Rosen, our special guest today on the Andrew Parker show, go to the Andrew Parker show dot com. Subscribe, follow us, do the other things you do on those ⁓ social media platforms. And, you know, you'll never miss an episode. Text us at nine five to five to two.

2818 and until next time be kind to your neighbor