U.S. Congressman Brad Finstad, R-Minn., joined Liz Collin on her podcast for a wide-ranging conversation.
Congressman Finstad is a Republican who represents Minnesota’s First Congressional District. He’s also a fourth generation farmer from the New Ulm area—and joined Collin from his combine for the interview.
Rep. Finstad weighed in on the government shutdown; the Minneapolis mayoral race; his calls for a Mankato professor to resign in the wake of abhorrent posts on social media; and legislation he introduced that would block foreign aid to governments that protect fraudsters.
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The government shutdown
In speaking about the government shutdown, Rep. Finstad said, “it’s exactly why people are frustrated with Washington.”
“I think this is just exactly what people get so sick of politicians and government for. This is a classic example of the Democrats in the United States Senate deciding to put their hate for President Trump above their love of country. That’s simply what this is.”
Rep. Finstad also explained how the shutdown was tied to a fairly routine resolution.
“We’ve done it 20, 30 times in the last 10 years—13 times alone under President Joe Biden and the Democrats had zero problem voting for it then. There is no politics in the continuing resolution. It is a 24-page bill, continuing to fund the government at the current levels,” he explained.
“Real people are feeling the effects and that’s the frustrating part that they’re using their politics over their people that they represent,” Finstad added.
Fraud in Minnesota
With fraud in Minnesota exceeding more than a billion dollars by some estimates, Rep. Finstad introduced what’s called the Fraud Accountability and Recovery Act, or FAR Act.
“This is just the farmer, simple, common sense person that I am: essentially, the bill says if you’re a foreign country and we know that some of these countries where these fraudsters are hiding their money, their governments aren’t cooperating with us as we try to seize back our tax dollars,” Finstad said.
He said his bill was necessary because “you have the U.S. Attorney show evidence where there’s bags full of cash in apartment buildings and land in Kenya and Somalia and their governments aren’t cooperating with us to get that money back, our money back—the taxpayers of Minnesota—the taxpayers of this country.”
“My bill is just common sense. It says if you’re not gonna cooperate and help us get these dollars back, then we’re stopping our foreign aid to your countries until you get your corrupt government under control,” he said.
“We have an incompetent governor that has done zero to claw back those dollars. He’s done zero to stop the continuation of this fraud and abuse. As of now, I don’t know a single state employee that’s been reprimanded or terminated based on this fraud. And so we clearly have a CEO of our state government in Gov. Walz that’s doing nothing. So we have to have the federal government come in.”
Calling for a Minnesota State University professor to resign
Congressman Finstad also spoke with Collin about how he once again called for a professor at Minnesota State University Mankato to resign.
For years, professor Kevin Parsneau has made vile social media posts. Most recently, after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Professor Parsneau called Kirk “a POS who died of the violence he promoted happening to others.” Parsneau also said, “ignoring that racist POS is the only thing the Vikings did right Sunday.”
In calling for the professor’s resignation, Rep. Finstad said, “I want to make sure your viewers understand this … I’m not spending my slow hours of the day searching through social media to see what crazy people are saying. Former students of this professor contacted our office and said, you gotta see what this guy is posting.”
Finstad mentioned how Professor Parsneau’s social media posts became difficult to ignore after a post about the assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. Parsneau wrote, “It’s going to be disappointing if he’s a one-off killer instead of a serial killer.”
“Fast forward to the horrible Charlie Kirk assassination and our phone started ringing off the hook again saying this guy’s back at it. And so he clearly is unhinged. His political views are very well known in the countryside. His hate of Republicans, his hate of, quite frankly, conservatives of all stripes is very public,” Rep. Finstad explained.
“But yet he sits in a classroom teaching political science to our young people on the taxpayer dime. That freedom of speech, I’m 100 % for it. You can say whatever crazy thing you want to say, but we also have responsibilities as stewards of our tax dollars, as institutions of higher education. This should be the place where we have high standards and clearly those standards aren’t being met with this guy,” he continued.
The race for the next mayor of Minneapolis
“It’s easy to live in our bubbles and think what happens in Minneapolis doesn’t matter in New Ulm, it doesn’t matter in Rochester, it doesn’t matter in Mankato, but it does,” Rep. Finstad told Collin.
Finstad pointed out a few reasons why the mayoral race matters to Minnesotans beyond the city limits.
“I hear stories all the time of families that have made decisions with their kids to not go to the University of Minnesota because it’s not safe there. Or, you know, my son or daughter took a job in the cities and they’re living in Minneapolis and their car was stolen or their windows were broken. I don’t feel safe having my children move to the metro area,” Rep. Finstad recalled about some of the conversations that he’s had with Minnesotans.
“And more and more, I’m hearing people saying, no, I’m not interested in that. I have had so many folks in southern Minnesota tell me that Sioux Falls is the place to go if you want that big city life. It’s not Minneapolis anymore,” Finstad said.
“As a fourth-generation Minnesotan, as someone that loves our state through and through, that stinks, quite frankly. We can’t have the largest city in our state be completely unsafe in certain parts,” he added.
In talking about the politics and some of the key issues involved, Rep. Finstad said that public safety and reducing crime “should be just something a Republican and a Democrat should be able to agree on. Quite frankly this move to the left—and it’s not even the left, it’s the far left, the socialist left—that says, ‘heck we don’t even need police.’”
As an example of that kind of political maneuvering, Rep. Finstad pointed out, “we have a county attorney that says if you’re speeding, or doing some crazy stuff, we’re not even going to arrest you anymore.”
“That is not the Minnesota that I grew up in—that’s not the Minnesota I would say 90-plus percent of Minnesotans want,” Finstad said. “So, this election does matter to all of us.”
Liz Collin
Liz Collin is a multi-Emmy-Award-winning investigative reporter, news anchor, and producer who cares about Minnesota. She is the producer of The Fall of Minneapolis and Minnesota v We the People documentary films, and author of the Amazon best-selling book, They’re Lying: The Media, the Left, and The Death of George Floyd. Her work has prompted important state laws. Yet perhaps most of all, Liz has been giving a voice to the truth—and helping others tell their stories—for more than 20 years.
Dr. JC Chaix
Dr. JC Chaix is an editor, educator, and an expert in media studies. He wrote and directed the Alpha News documentary "The Fall of Minneapolis" and "Minnesota v We the People."
