Less than two years into his first term as governor, Tim Walz faced two unprecedented crises. First, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic that hit home in March 2020, with the first reported cases in Minnesota. Then, in May of 2020, the riots after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police.

His decision making has been fodder for both praise and criticism for years, including on the campaign trail as he’s running for vice president as Kamala Harris’ running mate.

Some of that criticism came in real-time from then-Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, who frequently sparred with Walz over his response to COVID and the riots.

“I kept the text strings between us and I almost put them in the book, but I just felt like they were better kept as private,” Gazelka told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS in an interview on Monday about his new book, “Behind the Veil: A Stand Against Governor Tim Walz.”

In a release announcing the book, Gazelka says, “Now that Governor Walz has been elevated to the national ticket, I believe I have a duty to inform the nation’s voters about Walz’s failed leadership record. For that reason, I moved up the release of my book that chronicles Walz’s missteps handling the pandemic, freezing under pressure during the George Floyd riots, mishandling the state budget and more.” 

In one passage in the book, Gazelka writes about the worst night of rioting after the George Floyd murder when Walz didn’t make any public appearances on television or elsewhere to denounce the violence or say what he was doing in response.

Gazelka says he texted Walz simply asking, “Where are you?”

In our interview, we asked about Walz’s response to that text. “Very defensive,” Gazelka said. “Very, very defensive. I don’t want to give the word-for-word, but I can tell you that he was just defensive at the fact that I was pushing him and challenging the decisions he was making.”

Walz was re-elected in 2022 and said during a gubernatorial debate that year that he was proud of the state’s response to the riots. “There will be stories written, and again, this will be written about for quite some time,” he said. “I’m proud of Minnesota’s response.”

Gazelka, who was the highest-ranking Republican in state government in 2020, also tangled with Walz many times after the governor declared “emergency powers” during the pandemic and wouldn’t relinquish them for well over a year. He says it allowed Walz to make major decisions impacting every Minnesotan without any legislative input.

This includes the slow lifting of “stay at home” orders that gradually allowed businesses and churches to reopen. “Bars you can have 50 people, churches you get ten. It was just like all this arbitrary decision-making,” Gazelka said.

Gazelka says he initially wrote the book as a way to document his service in state government during such tumultuous times and wasn’t sure if he’d ever seek to have it published. He says he decided to speed up publication after Harris picked Walz as her running mate.

A spokesperson for Walz declined to comment on the book.

The audiobook is available on Amazon, and hard copies will be out later this week.

A timeline of Gov. Walz’s response to COVID and the civil unrest in 2020 can be viewed below.