Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have spent the last several days attacking Minnesota governor Tim Walz, a.k.a. Kamala Harris’s pick for VP. Those attacks have included:

• Going after his military record
• Declaring that it was “insulting to Jewish people” for Harris to select him
• Claiming that he “allowed rioters to burn Minneapolis” during the 2020 George Floyd protests
• Labeling him a “dangerously liberal”
• Claiming he’ll “unleash HELL ON EARTH and open our borders to the worst criminals imaginable”
• Warning he wants this country to “go communist immediately, if not sooner”

None of this is surprising, of course, particularly when it comes to the claim that Walz is basically the second coming of Karl Marx—which Republicans say about anyone who believes, for example, that climate change is real and children should not go hungry. But what you may be surprised to hear is that not too long ago, Donald Trump had extremely complimentary things to say about the governor of Minnesota—specifically about his handling of the racial justice protests of 2020.

In a recording of a phone call obtained by ABC News, Trump praised Walz’s leadership to a group of governors, saying, “I know governor Walz is on the phone, and we spoke, and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days,” adding, “I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim.” He also called Walz an “excellent guy.”

The Trump campaign has naturally insisted people should not believe their lying ears, with a spokesperson claiming Trump only had nice things to say about Walz because he called in the National Guard at the then president’s urging. “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,” the campaign said in a statement to ABC News. “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."

Trump and his allies have struggled to come up with effective criticism of both Walz and Harris. This has led to, in the case of the former, deeply cringeworthy insults like the nickname “Tampon Tim,” and in the case of the latter, purposely misspelling Kamala Harris’s name, and claiming she only recently became Black. And unfortunately for Team Trump, the ineffectiveness of these attacks appears to be reflected in new polls.