'Excellent guy': Audio reveals Trump praising Tim Walz’s handling of George Floyd protests

Former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) have been busy labeling Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz as a radical leftist since he was announced as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate on Tuesday. But in 2020, Trump was one of Walz's biggest fans.

ABC News obtained an audio snippet of the 45th president of the United States heaping praise on Walz — who was in his first term as governor of Minnesota — in the summer of 2020, when protests following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police were gripping the country. In the call, Trump called Walz an "excellent guy" and said that the way he responded to the protests should be followed by other states across the country.

"I know Gov. Walz is on the phone, and we spoke, and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days," Trump said on a June 1, 2020 call with multiple governors, in reference to Walz's decision to deploy the Gopher State's national guard to quell protests.

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"I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim," Trump added. "You called up big numbers [of guardsmen] and the big numbers knocked them out so fast it was like bowling pins."

However, the Trump campaign responded on Wednesday that the former president only praised Walz because he heeded the ex-president's advice to call up the National Guard. In an official statement to ABC, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said "Governor Walz allowed Minneapolis to burn for days, despite President Trump's offer to deploy soldiers and cries for help from the liberal Mayor of Minneapolis."

"In this daily briefing phone call with Governors on June 1, days after the riots began, President Trump acknowledged Governor Walz for FINALLY taking action to deploy the National Guard to end the violence in the city," she said.

In ABC's recounting of the timeline surrounding the deploying of approximately 7,000 National Guardsmen, Walz officially sent troops into Minneapolis roughly 18 hours after Mayor Jacob Frey's request. Hours after they were deployed, the protests were largely quelled after three people died and nearly 1,500 buildings had been set ablaze, amounting to approximately $500 million in property damage.

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By the end of the first week of protests, Walz told reporters that Trump "pledged his support in terms of anything we need in terms of supplies to get to us." He suggested that other governors on the call considering deploying the National Guard consider them as "not an occupying force," but rather as "neighbors, teachers [and] business owners," calling it a "really effective method."

Trump agreed with Walz, but with one notable exception: He said, "It got so bad [in Washington, D.C.] a few nights ago that the people wouldn't have minded an occupying force." The ex-president added that he "wish[ed] we had an occupying force in there."

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Click here to read ABC's report in full.