MUST WATCH: Tim Walz Asked Point Blank About Dems 'Gaslighting The Country' On Biden's Competence

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On CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) was asked about the Democrats 'gaslighting the country' on inflation, immigration, and President Biden's ability to seek re-election.

Transcript

00:00So, we heard your former running mate, Kamala Harris, say she's not here to say, I told

00:04you so.

00:05Although, obviously, that's what she was saying about all the Trump chaos.

00:08We're seeing, I have to say, though, what does I told you so really mean here?

00:11I mean, people heard her message.

00:13They did not vote for her.

00:14She lost every battleground state.

00:16You yourself have criticized the Harris-Walls campaign for being too cautious.

00:20She may have told the American people, you know, she may have warned the American people,

00:24but she didn't do it compellingly enough to win.

00:30That is the absolute point.

00:31And look, when I criticize, I'm criticizing myself.

00:33I own this.

00:34I'm part of the ticket.

00:35And somebody has to come up with a strategy.

00:37I think this is exactly right.

00:39This is the thing.

00:40Look, Democrats, it was a good night in Wisconsin.

00:42I was over there.

00:43We saw that happen.

00:44Donald Trump's doing this.

00:45Just to be clear, nobody on the Democratic side is celebrating this, and those folks

00:49in the street are not celebrating that Donald Trump's making all these errors.

00:52I think what the vice president's saying is, that was pretty self-evident that he was going

00:56to do that.

00:57But I do think the challenge for Democrats, and this is, I think, a structural problem

01:01that's going to take a lot more thinking, why, with all of that out there, did they

01:05not think we were any better than that?

01:08And they didn't.

01:09And I'm very concerned with the folks who stayed home.

01:11And these are folks that I'll say once again, Donald Trump has identified their angst.

01:16They can't buy a house.

01:17They can't afford to get a good education.

01:19They're concerned that their economic future is so precarious it could slip out from under

01:24them.

01:25And half of Americans have $1,000 in savings.

01:28And I think, why was it not so compelling?

01:31It should have been a slam dunk for us to say, we're the party that cares about that.

01:35We're the party that's going to protect Social Security and Medicare.

01:38We're the party that thinks the ACA is a good start, but we need to do more on health care.

01:42And we didn't do that.

01:43So I'm concerned.

01:45Democrats do well in special elections and off-year elections.

01:48But the electorate that comes in presidential election years is different.

01:51When I was young, it was easy to know what a Democrat was.

01:53You stood with the working class in labor, Republicans were country club and for the

01:57rich.

01:58Today, you ask people, they don't.

02:00We have a 29% approval rating.

02:03It doesn't help us any that Donald Trump ends up with a 25% approval rating.

02:07We have to get back to the core issues that this is about making America prosperous and

02:12stable and innovative for everybody.

02:15Well, what do you make of the criticism that one of the reasons why your party was so resoundingly

02:18rejected last November is because Democrats were gaslighting the country, saying that

02:23inflation was not a big deal, heralding Bidenomics.

02:28Not only Biden, but Kamala Harris was heralding Bidenomics, pretending that there wasn't a

02:32problem at the border.

02:33And then fundamentally, this idea that President Biden was up for another four years of the

02:38job while Americans in poll after poll for year after year were saying he's too old to

02:44do the job.

02:45Your party stood against all of those things.

02:50Look, Joe Biden coming in and doing COVID and being a governor through COVID did a hell

02:56of a job.

02:57But I think one of the things that we didn't do was is we assume that we said, and it was

03:01true that we were going to have a soft landing in our economy was better than the rest of

03:05the world.

03:06Better for who?

03:07Better for the working class who was saying groceries were too expensive, as they are

03:11now and going up.

03:12They got to see us talk about things.

03:15Again, I go back to this.

03:16Don't talk about food insecurity or housing type of issues.

03:20Talk about people being hungry and wondering where they're going to live or about their

03:23children's future, about real security.

03:26And so I think your question is spot on.

03:28I think we got intellectualized on this.

03:31I think the fact of the matter is Joe Biden did soft land the economy.

03:34He did usher us through COVID.

03:37None of us are saying we should be soft on the border, but we allow a vacuum and Donald

03:42Trump fills it, the 800 pound gorilla, and their narrative starts to stick.

03:47And we look weak.

03:48We look weak like we don't care.

03:49We look like we could look, Jake, I'm not going to say, you know, we need to do is we

03:53need to just arrest people and ship them to El Salvador.

03:55No, we need to do invest the money on border.

03:57We need to make sure that we have the judges necessary to adjudicate things faster.

04:01We need to make sure if you're going to be in this country, you're legal and when you

04:04are, you're going to be uplifted, celebrated and part of this great American tapestry.

04:08We didn't do that.

04:09And then they, it fills them.

04:11They'll find the example that is horrific, where you have someone who's not here legally

04:15and they commit a crime that is horrific, but we don't do a good job of telling that.

04:19Don't you think your party needs to acknowledge that President Biden was not up for the job

04:24of running for reelection and that this was a major mistake?

04:28He made that decision.

04:30I know, but you all went along with the idea that he was up for it and he wasn't and everybody

04:34saw it and the country rejected it.

04:37Yeah.

04:38Yeah.

04:39Well, I look, history will tell us to go back on that.

04:42That very well could be the case, Jake.

04:44What I'm concerned about is learning from those lessons.

04:46I would hope we would never do it again, make a mistake, make sure we go through, get someone,

04:51but I don't know where it helps us going forward.

04:54I certainly am deeply concerned that Donald Trump is going to lead us down a horrific

04:57look.

04:58Thank God it's tariffs that he said, Donald Trump listens to no one.

05:01Remember Donald Trump has statements about, I don't think nuclear war would be that bad.

05:05I guess we're lucky that he went after tariffs instead of that route.

05:09We have an issue in this country that is going to impact us.

05:13And if there is not a loyal opposition, if there's not some soul searching on our side,

05:17if there's not.

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