WASHINGTON — An ally of Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) has denied the accusation that he sought an endorsement on Craig’s behalf from Minnesota Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman while the senator was in the ICU recovering from an assassination attempt.

In a Monday interview, Dave Wellstone, the son of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) and a friend to both Craig and Hoffman, said he’d never been a surrogate for Craig’s campaign. Although he did talk to Hoffman about supporting Craig, he said it was not in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, and it was on his own volition, not at Craig’s request.

“This seems like a mix-up of timing and conflating stuff,” Wellstone told HuffPost. “I’m assuming people were heavily sedated at the time… I would never ask for someone’s endorsement when they’re hooked up to a machine and maybe dying.”

Wellstone called it “super frustrating” that he was being accused of something he says he didn’t do, and said it’s unclear to him if somebody else did this or if Hoffman is misremembering his visits. Wellstone said he visited the senator a few times during his recovery, initially to bring him his favorite meal, a popular Italian dish with peppers and onions from Cossetta, a restaurant in St. Paul.

“I didn’t talk to him in the ICU. Period,” Wellstone said. “I care about him as a friend.”

It’s been a confusing situation since Hoffman first made his claims at a Friday event for Craig’s Senate opponent, Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.

Hoffman said a stark difference between the two candidates was how they reached out to him after his family was attacked in June 2025. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot multiple times by Vance Luther Boelter, who was sentenced last Thursday to two consecutive life terms plus a consecutive 40-year term for attempting to kill the Hoffmans, and for killing the late Minnesota Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark.

“When her opponent would check on our family, she asked for my — she asked that I endorse her campaign,” Hoffman said. “She sent a dear friend out twice, once when I was in the ICU and once at our home. Honest to God, true story. And I’m being public about it because it really hurt.”

Over the weekend, Minnesota Democratic state Sen. Erin Maye Quade backed up Hoffman’s allegations, saying he told her about this when she visited him in rehab after he’d left the ICU.

“He told me about it in real time,” Maye Quade told HuffPost. “He was telling me about baskets people had sent, or people who had come to see him at the hospital, and he mentioned, ‘Yeah, so and so came and saw me and was talking about endorsing Angie Craig.’”

Craig has called these claims “categorically false,” and said that while she did reach out to Hoffman to talk about her Senate bid, it wasn’t until nearly two months after the assassination attempt, when she said he appeared to be making political endorsements again.

Craig and Flanagan were both asked about Hoffman’s allegations on Monday during a debate hosted by MPR. Craig reiterated that she “did not” and “would never” ask for the senator’s political support while he was recovering in the ICU.

This was a conversation between Craig and the Hoffman family, Flanagan said.

The situation is even more confusing with Wellstone now weighing in, saying he did so only because the Minnesota Star-Tribune identified him.

“It’s icky,” he told HuffPost. “They’re all my friends…. I’m just disappointed I’m even mentioned as a possibility. This is not who I am.”

Yvette Hoffman is now calling Wellstone a liar.

“We have certainly learned who true friends are and who are liars,” she wrote Monday on social media. “I am so sad that David Wellstone lied.”

She also took aim at Craig: “I found it to be classic gaslighting that Angie Craig said we were questioning her integrity, but she’s definitely saying we have none by claiming we’re lying.... She’s the one who’s blown this up.”

In another post, Yvette Hoffman responded to someone who called Craig “vile” by saying, “We don’t lie.”

Wellstone’s father died in a plane crash shortly before the 2002 midterm elections and is a hero to many liberals in Minnesota. Dave Wellstone, who founded a tech company and has been an advocate for mental health and addiction issues, said it’s situations like this that have kept him out of politics.

“This is the very kind of stuff I can’t stand,” he said. “I’m not running for office because I don’t do this shit.”

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