Royce White, the GOP's controversial challenger to Klobuchar, came to Zumbro Falls Wednesday

Jun. 20—ZUMBRO FALLS — Royce White, the GOP's endorsed candidate to run against DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar, was running late for a townhall-style meeting at Zumbro Community Church by about an hour. But he didn't stint on his campaign speech, though.

During a two-hour talk, White, a former Gopher and NBA basketball player, gave an extended tour of his political views.

He proudly described himself as an election- and vaccine-denier, characterized the LGBTQ lifestyle as morally sinful, imagined himself annexing Mexico if he were president to deal with the drug crisis, warned of the rise of tyrannical government ("when the police state rises, I guarantee you you will be first") and predicted his assassination if he were elected to the Senate.

"Remember this speech," White told an audience of about 60 people at the church. "If I win and I go to D.C. and I spend the first four months filibustering the rise of the debt ceiling and they shoot me, I told you. Don't let them say I suicided myself."

White also suggested that American involvement in World War II in defeating Nazi fascism (in which 416,000 Americans died) was misbegotten because it made Americans defenders of other country's borders and not their own.

"A lot of people have an emotional connection to World War II," White said. "Liberal Democrats, Republicans, right, leftist, Rinos used Adolf Hitler's fascism to make their case that the only way to have America a country is to defend everybody else's borders. That's their pitch. Defend everybody else's borders more than we defend our own."

Last month, White emerged as the surprise winner of the GOP Party's endorsement, but controversy has dogged the early stages of his campaign. He has referred to women as "mouthy" and, at one time, identified himself as "an antisemite" on social media.

He is accused of making questionable campaign expenditures in 2022 when he ran for Congress. The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center alleges White misappropriated $157,000 in campaign contributions, including $1,200 at a strip club and thousands in unexplained wire transfers.

His patronage at a strip club became recent fodder for a comic bit on the Daily Show, when comedian Ronny Chieng played a video of White saying the expenditures were not for the strippers but on the food at the strip club.

"Talk about Red Flag Bingo," Chieng said.

Despite White's strong showing at the endorsement convention in which he won two-thirds of the delegates, his candidacy has generated a backlash among the party's old guard.

Former senators Rudy Boschwitz and Norm Coleman and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty — three of the last Republicans to win a statewide race — signed a letter endorsing another potential challenger to Klobuchar, Navy veteran Joe Fraser. The move was viewed as uncharacteristic for party that regards party endorsements as sacrosanct.

White and Fraser will compete for the party's nomination in the Aug. 13 Republican primary.

White also inveighed against the scientific method, democracy ("we do not live in a democracy. We live in a constitutional republic"), computer technology and A.I intelligence, calling them "heresies." The crowd appeared sympathetic to White's views, as they applauded his speech a number of times.

White claimed the government delegitimizes dissent by labeling people who think differently as domestic terrorists.

"The point being is three descriptions — white, vaccine denier, election denier. That tells you everything you need to know," White said.

"Their description of what they believe is domestic terrorism tells you everything you need to know about what you should be proud to stand for. I guess I fit all three. I didn't take a vaccine. I deny the results of the election. And I guess I'm a white nationalist, too," White continued, evoking laughter because White is African-American.