WATCH: Tim Walz Strongly Praises Muslim Cleric Who Promoted Hilter

(VINnews) — Shocking new video footage has surfaced, showing Tim Walz effusively praising a radical Muslim pro-Hamas cleric at an event, after the Harris-Walz campaign claimed he did not have a “personal relationship” with the man. Equally disturbing, the Democrat VP nominee met and appeared with the Imam on multiple occasions, and the state of Minnesota has awarded his organization $100,000.

While campaigning to be Minnesota’s governor, Walz called Asad Zaman of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, who praised the October 7 massacre and promoted a pro-Hitler film, a “master teacher” who offered Walz lessons over the time they “spent together,” according to footage at a 2018 event.

This comes after a spokesperson for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign said in a statement that Walz does not “have a personal relationship” with Zaman. That claim was in response to a Washington Examiner report on how Walz repeatedly hosted the imam as the governor of Minnesota..

“I would like to first of all say thank you to imam,” Walz said in the video, at an event hosted by Minnesota’s Muslim American Society.

“I am a teacher, so when I see a master teacher, I know it. Over the time we’ve spent together, one of the things I’ve had the privilege of is seeing the things in life through the eye of a master teacher, to try and get the understanding,” Walz said of Zaman at the event, before discussing a prior attack at the Dar al Farooq Islamic Center in Minnesota. “It was imam talking [saying that] ‘in those times is where we find who we are, in those times is where we really see.’

“That brings me to the second lesson that imam taught me,” Walz said, describing how Congress “feeds on fear more than hope” and “division.”

“It was a lesson when imam told me to go speak to people,” Walz also said. “I have pushed back through my whole career on the demonization of Islam, on the demonization of immigrants. … In this space, Imam Zaman is right on this, there is Islamophobia, there is a hatred that is being stirred.”

Zaman said on Oct. 7 that he “stands in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli attacks”. His organization, which has a related chapter that once came under fire following children at a 2019 event it hosted calling for murdering Jews, said on Oct. 7 that it “reaffirms its unwavering support for the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Israeli occupation.”

Zaman’s social media history includes sharing a link to an article on a website in 2015 for a pro-Hitler film called The Greatest Story Never Told and, in one 2016 example, an official press release issued by Hamas. The press release mourned the death of an Islamist leader in South Asia who was executed after being convicted of war crimes.

The ADL said Zaman “has a troubling history of playing into classic anti-Jewish themes and justifying violence against Israel.”

“Given his hurtful remarks post-Oct. 7, and absent any recognition of the pain he has caused the Jewish community, we urge all public officials and leaders to avoid meeting with him in the future,” the Anti-Defamation League told the Washington Examiner. “Those who have met with Imam Zaman should clarify that they don’t agree with his toxic views about Jews and the Jewish state.”

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