Relatable Walz shines at Democractic convention

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00:00We can now bring in our international affairs editor Philip Turrell. Philip, good afternoon,

00:03great to see you. Three weeks ago, four weeks ago, Tim Walz, we didn't know who he was. How did he

00:10do in terms of introducing himself to the American public?

00:13Well, you know, it's a funny thing because you can see politicians and candidates for election

00:19and you can go away saying, well, I've got nothing in common with that person at all,

00:22and I don't really find them particularly sympathetic. But looking at this performance

00:28last night of Tim Walz, you get the feeling he's a nice guy, someone you could go down and have a

00:32drink with, someone who you could chat to, someone you will probably get on with. And I think that's

00:36part of the message that the Democrats are trying to push forward with Tim Walz. He's not part of

00:41the Ivy League. He's not part of the high middle class lawyers or career politicians. He's like an

00:48ordinary guy and he's out there to try to appeal to middle class, midwestern male voters to bring

00:55them in to vote for Kamala Harris. And I think last night we saw a man who was visibly very

01:01humbled to take on the job of potential vice president, saying he hadn't made a lot of speech,

01:06he didn't have a lot of practice in this kind of situation. He'd been practicing on a teleprompter

01:12for quite a while before going onto the stage and then talking about his own family. We saw his son

01:18in tears there, his daughter making this heart sign when they talked about the special fertility

01:24drugs that his wife had had to take to be able to give birth to the daughter. So I mean, all of

01:29this is like going down a very emotional, personal level to try to make people believe that, yes,

01:36I'm like you. I'm a man of the public. I'm not up there like J.D. Vance, for example, or Donald

01:42Trump, who's a billionaire. I'm someone who comes from a working class background from Nebraska.

01:47I've had it hard like you have. I understand the real problems that the people of America have.

01:52That's why you should vote for Kamala Harris. So I think that was the message that went through

01:57yesterday. He did land one or two punches on Donald Trump and on the Republican Party. He attacked the

02:03Project 2025 agenda, this very far right project to take away some of the freedoms of the United

02:12States and expand presidential powers. But it was really, I think, as you were saying,

02:18a getting to know you speech by someone who's pretty well unknown by most people in the United

02:22States. And will that appearance convince undecided voters? Well, that's the question

02:30that's very hard to answer. The million dollar question. Yeah, exactly. I think that's exactly

02:34the right term that we don't know. I think if someone's going to do it, he's pretty well placed

02:40to be able to do that. As I said, putting in the Midwest voters, people like him, you know,

02:46Kamala Harris, she's got it for women voters who I think turned off by Donald Trump and his

02:51pronouncements. She's got it for for black voters and black women voters. I think where the problem

02:56is, is in the swing states, the undecided voters amongst white middle class, blue collar workers

03:03who are reluctant to vote for Kamala Harris. I think that he's been sent out there as like

03:08a missile to try to bring them in. Will it work or not? Well, we'll have to see. But I think what

03:13we're going to see now is even more important. That's the closing speech tonight by Kamala

03:17Harris, who's going to accept the nomination as presidential candidate for the Democrats.

03:22What is she going to say? How is she going to organize this speech that she's going to make

03:28tonight? How is she going to convince those still undecided voters? If you look at the opinion polls,

03:34Delano, you've got a lead for Kamala Harris nationally, 47 percent voting potentially for

03:41Kamala Harris, 43.7 percent for Donald Trump. That's a swing round compared to what it was

03:47if Joe Biden were going to run for president. But that doesn't mean that Kamala Harris is

03:50necessarily going to win the election in November because she's still dependent on

03:54the swing states on this 4 percent of American voters who don't know exactly who they're

03:58going to vote for now. Will they be seduced by Kamala Harris and by Tim Waltz? That we don't

04:05know. So it's up to her tonight to add that final brick to the wall she's building, if you'd like

04:10to put it that way around, to try to convince those who are still a bit unsure about whether

04:15or not they really want to vote for Kamala Harris that, yeah, okay, she's the person we'd like to

04:19see as president of the United States. Still a big challenge for her in the weeks to come.

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