"I've dealt with Bullies": Gov. Tim Walz Gains Momentum as Harris’ Potential Running Mate

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Transcript

00:00A few months ago in Atlantis, you saw Vice President Harris use a word to describe her

00:03opponents that our next guest was, we believe, the first to deploy.

00:07The word is weird.

00:08Here's the funny thing about that.

00:09So he won't debate.

00:10But he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me.

00:11And by the way, don't you find some of their stuff to just be plain weird?

00:27Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is the one who started the whole weird ball rolling.

00:31And just last night, he said this about the former president on a Zoom call with the group

00:34White Dudes for Harris.

00:38Keep hammering on these guys.

00:39This idea of calling them out for who they are, shrink them.

00:42Is he a danger to society?

00:44Yes.

00:45Is he a danger to women's health?

00:46Yes.

00:47Is he a danger to world peace?

00:48Yes.

00:49But don't give him more credit than he needs.

00:50He's just a strange, weird dude.

00:52And Governor Tim Walz joins us now.

00:54Governor, good to have you on the program.

00:55So you started, we believe, that term weird.

00:58Democrats are certainly running with it.

01:00Tom Friedman with the New York Times said in a column recently, he said, I cannot think

01:03of a sillier, more playground, more foolish, and more counterproductive political taunt

01:06for Democrats to seize on than calling Trump and his supporters weird.

01:10He went on to say that nobody beats the former president in the arena of name calling.

01:15What do you say to Friedman?

01:17Do you worry that this is somehow playing into Trump's hands, like what Marco Rubio

01:20tried to do?

01:22Yeah.

01:23No.

01:24It's not a name calling or tagging him with it.

01:27It's an observation.

01:28And I didn't come up with it.

01:29People around, you know, that I'm with, around Southern Minnesota, relatives and Republicans.

01:34Look, Donald Trump is a threat to all those things.

01:37But we somehow put it in there that he had this power that there wasn't anything we could

01:41do about.

01:42This is a tool.

01:43I'm a teacher.

01:44And you're trying to get things in.

01:45This is the emperor's wearing no clothes.

01:47And once you take that away from him, it opens up the space to start asking the questions.

01:52Who's asking to take away reproductive rights and birth control?

01:55Who's asking to raise the price of insulin?

01:58Who's asking to have tax cuts for the wealthy?

02:01Why we take away veterans benefits?

02:03These are all things that are in Trump's proposal.

02:05You don't get that space if people feel like they're intimidated or this guy has this going

02:10on.

02:11So I disagree with Tom.

02:12It's not about that.

02:13I look, I've dealt with bullies.

02:14I had 20 years in the classroom.

02:17This is about making sure you take away this perceived power he has.

02:19And in most cases with bullies, he doesn't have that.

02:22And so this opened up the space for what you're seeing in Atlanta, a politics of joy that

02:28many of our younger people have not seen, an optimism.

02:31He doesn't scare Vice President Harris, but he opens up this idea that your previous guests

02:37were asking about, where's the plan?

02:39He doesn't have one.

02:40And these weird ideas, and I'll stay to that.

02:43I still say this.

02:45People can feel this.

02:46Why does a guy never laugh, like laugh with people, but laughing at people?

02:50And why are you talking about Hannibal Lecker?

02:52You've got Vice President Harris down there talking about making child care more affordable,

02:56things that really impact families.

02:57So I disagree with Tom.

02:59It does seem what's interesting to me about it when I first started to notice it is it's

03:04it's a way of dealing with the former president, which no one else kind of figured out before.

03:09And a lot of people tried, which is I mean, it's just it's like it's sort of discounting

03:15him in a way, like sort of brushing him aside in a way that he doesn't really know how to

03:21respond to because he is humorless.

03:23He doesn't you know, he doesn't have a sense of poking fun at himself.

03:29It does not play to he doesn't know how to respond to this.

03:33He doesn't classroom bully.

03:35I'm sorry I did that too long.

03:36And I and this guy, he's not offering anything.

03:40And I want to be very clear.

03:41I'm not speaking about the people at his rallies.

03:44Those are my relatives.

03:45Those are folks that are there.

03:46And look, he would be entertaining because that's what Republicans are saying.

03:49They're saying, oh, you're calling you're calling Trump and all his supporters weird.

03:54That is exactly the last thing I'm saying.

03:56I'm saying these are folks, like I said, these are my neighbors.

03:58They're there.

03:59These are good people.

04:00They're going there because, yeah, they're disenfranchised.

04:02Not why J.D. Vance thinks he gets that all wrong.

04:04I grew up in a town of 400 and graduated with 24 classmates, 12 cousins.

04:08I know these people there.

04:10This isn't what this is about.

04:11I'm talking about those people there that we need to make the case to them.

04:14These are people that Democrats, they felt like Democrats have spoken down to them, that

04:18we've not gotten and reached where they're at, that they're trying to be who they are.

04:21That's what J.D. Vance's stick is talking about guns.

04:23I guarantee you he can't shoot pheasants like I can.

04:26And that's a part of saying, but you know what, I guarantee I don't want weapons of

04:29war in classrooms.

04:30And there's no reason that you can't have reasonable restrictions around that without

04:34infringing on your Second Amendment.

04:35He's going in there throwing these things around that makes a difference.

04:38Democrats need to go into these places.

04:39I'm going to go in every Legion Hall I can go into and say, Vice President Harris will

04:43not cut your benefits.

04:45I said in the VA committee for 12 years to increase those benefits with Republicans like

04:49Jeff Miller from Florida.

04:50This guy wants to cut him because it's in the 2025.

04:53We need to be bolder on that.

04:55We need to go out and say that I'm not talking to those people at all other than we got a

04:59better plan for you.

05:00The former president was in your home state, Minnesota, on Saturday.

05:02I just want to play a little bit of what he had to say.

05:04If they don't cheat, we win this state easily.

05:10They cheat.

05:11They have no shame.

05:12They cheat.

05:13Do you understand that?

05:14You crooked people.

05:15They're the most crooked.

05:16They cheat.

05:17They cheated in the last election and they're going to cheat in this election, but we're

05:21going to get them.

05:22I wish you know, the former president lost Minnesota in 2020.

05:26Do you think he could win Minnesota in 2024?

05:29And obviously, if you want to respond to the allegations of fraud, which they always could.

05:33Yeah.

05:34Yeah.

05:35They're not true.

05:36I think he thinks he's in Venezuela or something.

05:37Look, he's trying to complete his state of hockey.

05:40He lost in 16.

05:41He lost in 20.

05:42He'll lose in 24.

05:43Hat trick.

05:44That's what he's going to get.

05:45But that's what he does.

05:46This is dangerous stuff.

05:47Don't normalize this.

05:48But what I say is, is do the work.

05:49We're going to have more people on the ground.

05:50I just came from a brewery over in St. Paul.

05:52A group of folks got together, about a hundred.

05:54They were going to try and raise $40,000.

05:56Hundreds and hundreds.

05:57They raised $150,000 in three days.

05:59Signs all over.

06:00People are out.

06:01We're going to do the work.

06:02Yes.

06:03Could he win Minnesota?

06:04Yes.

06:05But you know what you have to do with Minnesota?

06:06You have to have a plan.

06:07You have to have ground game to get out there.

06:09We vote at a higher rate than anybody else does.

06:12And I will tell you this.

06:13There are Republicans that are insulted.

06:16Minnesota's elections.

06:17We have a higher voting rate.

06:18We vote and our elections are secure.

06:21He's dismissing those people.

06:22Many of them Republicans.

06:24Republican election judges.

06:25But that's who he is.

06:26He's got nothing to offer.

06:27So yeah, he thinks he can.

06:29But look, he's endorsed Canada against me in three or four races.

06:32He said he'd win Minnesota.

06:33He will lose again.

06:34And that's that.

06:35This is where it ends.

06:36This is the wall.

06:37So what it's going to be.

06:39You know, it seems like the Trump team is coalescing around this, you know, obviously this idea

06:45of going after Harris on as the most liberal, you know, trying to saddle her with all the

06:51criticisms that they were using for the Biden administration.

06:54We have not seen.

06:55I mean, she started to do that.

06:57She pushed back today on that in her address.

07:01She she very quickly pivoted to the deal, which the former president, you know, the

07:06bipartisan deal, which he told his his members, his Republicans in the Senate not to follow

07:12through on and killed that deal.

07:14That seems to be what her response is going to be.

07:16Is that enough?

07:17I mean, clearly she has a record of, you know, statements she made the last time she ran

07:21for president that is going to be used against her.

07:24Yeah, well, they're going to say whatever they're going to say, we just need to have

07:28good proposals.

07:29There's things that we can do.

07:31We need to acknowledge to folks that every nation in the United States needs to control

07:33its border.

07:34And I will add the northern border, which Minnesota is on.

07:37But you can do that using the right tools.

07:39And the Langford cinema bill that he did kill would have done that.

07:42The Border Patrol agents endorsed it.

07:44These are folks who know what needs to be done.

07:46But he's not interested in solving the problem.

07:48What Democrats need to do is acknowledge and he has ginned up fear.

07:51But our border can work better.

07:53It doesn't.

07:54There's no reason someone seeking asylum, which we will always be a guiding light for,

07:58shouldn't have to wait seven years to have that adjudicated.

08:00That's why this bill would have made it 90 days and people either got it or they were

08:03removed.

08:04And I think seeing a plan that's out there talking about it with folks, knowing that

08:09he's not going to do anything, he talks about this wall.

08:12I always say, let me know how high it is.

08:14If it's 25 feet, then I'll invest in the 30 foot ladder factory.

08:17That's not how you stop this.

08:18You stop this using electronics.

08:19You stop it using more border control agents.

08:21And you stop it by having a legal system that allows for that tradition of allowing folks

08:26to come here just like my relatives did to come here, be able to work and establish the

08:31American dream.

08:32He's not interested in that.

08:33He wants to demonize.

08:34Look, we produce most of the turkeys that you're going to eat in Thanksgiving.

08:37Those are immigrants working hard, establishing themselves here.

08:40What's he going to do?

08:41Is he going to take them all out?

08:42And how is the economy going to work?

08:44These people, my neighbors, whether they're Republican or Democrats, don't want to demonize

08:48their neighbors.

08:49They just want a safe border.

08:50She's got a plan.

08:51The Lankford cinema bill was a big key to it.

08:53And Donald Trump doesn't want it.

08:55He thrives on chaos.

08:56He thrives on this idea that it's only him.

08:59Governor Tim Walz, I appreciate your time tonight.

09:00Thank you.

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