Pod Save America - Tim Walz Keeps the Good Vibes Going

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

VP Kamala Harris hits the road with her new running mate, Tim Walz, who lands his first official couch joke of the campaign against his GOP counterpart, JD Vance. Meanwhile, Trump tries to brand Walz as a communist. Then, Dan and guest host Melissa Murray break down Biden’s Supreme Court reforms, Trump’s January 6th case and the infinite shadiness of Justice Clarence Thomas’s flight schedule. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pots of America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. And I'm Melissa Murray. On today's show, Kamala Harris and her newly minted VP pick Tim Walz did the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Republicans began their disjointed efforts to define Walz, and Trump's crimes are back in the news. With me to go through all of it is the excellent Melissa Murray, co-host of the amazing Strict Scrutiny podcast. Melissa, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having me back.

I mean, it feels like we have been on a roller coaster for weeks now, just nonstop news. And this is a very exciting news. I'm glad you're here to go through all of this with me. Well, I am very excited because I actually like this roller coaster. This roller coaster is preferable to the other roller coaster we were on. Yes, yes. There was a month or three weeks of a really nauseating roller coaster. Now we're on a very exciting one for the last two and a half weeks. That's good. This is the better roller coaster, for sure.

Yes, for sure. So let's start with the Walls Pick itself. Where were you when you found out, and have you been fully Walls Pilled yet? So I first heard about this while I was sitting in the NBCDC bureau waiting to do hair and makeup. And the energy was so electric. Everyone is waiting. The AP started buzzing about it. And then NBC started reporting on some of its sources. And when people started hearing that it seemed pretty clear it was going to be Walls, they were really excited. And so that was interesting to see. I mean, there were a lot of really good candidates being floated. I think it sort of suggests the depth and quality of the bench. But people really seemed excited about Walls. And I have to say, I think I am a little fully Walls-pilled because this man is just so adorable.

He thinks turkey is a vegetarian option. He rides on the slingshot with his kids. He's so uncool that he is actually really, really cool. And he seems really nice. And that's such a contrast to the other side, which just seems kind of mean and, I don't know, just mean and angry. And he's just joyful. And that's nice to see. And I get the cynicism around lots of things. I mean, I cover the Supreme Court and Clarence Thomas all the time. So I am as wizened and cynical as they come. But this Santa Claus knockoff has warmed the cockles of my cold, dead heart. I really, I kind of like him.

Did you have any feelings about Walls before this? Or did you sort of come to know Walls as we all have over the last few weeks? Well, who knew Tim Walz before the last two weeks? I mean, he just started coming out and sort of being a surrogate for, you know, keep calm and carry on Democrats. And with such an effective communicator, I think he kind of willed himself into being considered for this. And we all learned about him, I think, as Kamala Harris and everyone else was learning about him. And, you know, so, I mean, I remember hearing his name. I knew that he had appointed Keith Ellison to supervise the prosecution of Derek Chauvin and the other officers involved in the killing of George Floyd. But I don't think I'd really kind of registered what he was doing in Minnesota until he kind of burst onto the stage like America's next top model. I would say, so I found out, as I find out most things, sitting at my computer, involved in some sort of text chain with Jon Favreau and Tommy Vitor and Lovett, etc. And I actually had woken up, I had convinced myself the night before that the way that I

would do this if I was the Harris campaign is I would send out a video at six in the morning. So to me, that at six in the morning. So to me, that means three in the morning, this news is coming out. So I woke up, as I do many times a night, I looked at my phone at 3am, no news. But you know what I couldn't really do after that? Go back to sleep. So I had a very sleep-addled day waiting for it to come. I actually, not to brag about this, but I knew Tim Walz a while ago. I will admit, I never for one second thought he was going to be the VP until maybe the last week. But I was around in politics 100 years ago when he ran for Congress the first time. He was this amazing story that people loved because

he was this football coach encouraged to run by his students in this district that no one thought a Democrat can win. This is 2006 when we were recruiting all these veterans to run because it was gonna be the first election where people had really turned against the Iraq War fully. And he had this ad, I talked about this ad on the podcast last week. It's an amazing ad. Was this the one about his students?

Like his students deserved, who went off to fight deserved? The one I'm referring to is his introductory ad that starts with him, like starts with his military service and state champion football coach, the teacher of the year, and then him. It's just like this great ad that I loved at the time. And then Tim Walz has this very fond place in the hearts of everyone who worked for Barack

Obama because no one thought Tim Walz was going to return to Congress if he voted for the Affordable Care Act, and he did anyway. Oh, wow. And he said – there was this list of people who were in these very endangered seats heading into that landslide election 2010 who were taking great risk upon themselves to vote for the Affordable Care Act. And Tim Walz is one of a handful of them who said to President Obama, essentially, why run for office if all you want to do is stay in office?

And so he voted. And most of them lost. Yeah. But Tim Walz actually managed to survive and win. And so like, it's very exciting to see Tim Walz here. I, if you had asked me to list 15 VP candidates for Kamala Harris a month ago, I thought that would have been chronologically impossible

if you'd asked me to do that. Tim Walz would have not made my list, but I think he's, I really come to think he's a perfect pick. Well, let me ask that. Why do you think she picked him over all the other people? Also, all of those things. I mean, I actually think there is something really refreshing about someone who said years

ago and continues to say, you know, what's the point of amassing political capital if you're not going to spend it? And he spent it in really profitable ways in Minnesota. So, you know, he's done things I think are actually progressive, but also makes sense. So I think it's really hard to kind of pigeonhole him. He's a Midwesterner, but he's doing some of these progressive things. And the things that he's doing are just sort of common sense things that his constituents really like.

So he's providing universal school lunch to kids so that poor kids can eat, but they're also not stigmatized when they get this provision. And he's an amazing communicator. I think that's going to be really important because she's going to need an effective surrogate on the stump. Gen Z fucking loves him. Which is wild.

No, but also just like, of course, he's like the Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights. He doesn't look like Kyle Chandler, but he acts like Kyle Chandler. And I think he's really inspiring and people like him. And I truly believe that Gen Z can turn this election if it wants to. It is like a sleeping giant of an electorate that hasn't really been turned on. And if he turns them on, then God love him. Let him do that. I think he's going to balance out aspects of this ticket. I mean, you can't really just sideline this as some kind of California ticket. He's a Midwesterner. Even if his politics are very progressive, he does have these

Midwestern sensibilities that I think make it very difficult to just write him off as a leftist and subsequently to write the entire ticket off as this sort of pinko communist California ticket. I think all of those things are really appealing. In know, in reading the reporting on this, it sort of jives with what I kind of expect in the sense that she just really likes Tim Walz, right? Like when you were picking your vice president, you're picking someone who's going to be in most of your meetings for four to eight years. The president and the vice president have lunch together once a week. So it's not just like, is this person going to deliver me this date? And they do this. It's like, I have to hang out with this person all the time. And Tim Wall seems like somebody you would want to hang out with for sure, right?

Well, I also think there's an additional level of this. And I think other women of color who have existed in the workplace will know what I mean. You can have people who are on your team who are not necessarily working to your benefit. They don't understand the assignment. And the assignment, when you're the principal, is to support you and to do it fully and joyfully. And I think one of the things that she probably really likes about Tim Walz is that he has a kind of Joe Biden-esque quality about him. I think one of the things I liked about Joe Biden was that he happily and

cheerfully rode shotgun for the first Black president for eight years, sidelining his own ambition to do it. And he did so happily and joyfully. And I think that there's something about Tim Walz that speaks in the same register. He's not going to mind ceding the stage to her. He gets that she's the principal. He's there to be the running back, to do whatever she needs to do to get the ball down the field. But he understands that he's the number two. And I think that's really important for the first woman president. I think that's such a great point. And there's just something about people who end up being vice president who never expected to be president. Tim Walz has never done a single thing that most governors imagine themselves as president and are doing – they're going to do the Iowa JJ dinner. They're going to do the 100 Club in New Hampshire and all that stuff. And they're planning for the day when the world will eventually recognize their talents and charms and make them president.

make them president. And Tim Walz really hasn't seemed that way at all. He was an accidental politician. He only ran because his students asked him to. And then he lasted longer than he thought he would. And then people were like, you know what? You'd be a great governor. You could do some cool stuff. So he ran for governor. And so he's just sort of in this to do the right thing. I think that's probably pretty appealing. Joe Biden obviously wanted to be president much of his life. He'd run multiple times. But as President Obama's vice president, he never did a single thing to put his ambitions above President Obama's. Even in the moment when he came out for marriage equality before President Obama, none of us, as frustrating as that was for those of us who are working on President Obama's rollout of his position, no one thought Joe Biden was doing

that to put himself above President Obama. There was that trust there that trust there. That's like absolutely essential for the working relationship. The other thing that I think led to this is there is something very balancing to the ticket, right? Kamala Harris is – she is a woman of color. She is from Oakland, California. She was a district attorney of San Francisco, California. And you have as your running mate someone who is from the quintessential Midwestern state. You have as your running mate someone who is from the quintessential Midwestern state. He's a public school teacher, coach, gun-owning veteran of – rule from rural Minnesota.

Like that is a – that's cultural balance, right? And like we should just be just clear. Like I love Tim Walz. I hate J.D. Vance. The vice presidential pick adds maybe a point or two or costs maybe a point or two unless you like pull a Palin. But there are going to be these voters who are looking for tiebreakers, right? And they all live in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, in more rural areas. Maybe they voted for Obama in 2012, Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020. And Tim Wallace can be a tiebreaker, right? It's a validation in some ways of who can, like him speaking about Kamala Harris is going to be very valuable with those

voters, I think. Well, I also think that he's very hard to pigeonhole. And I think that's also really valuable in a Veep pic. So it is, I think, easy to pigeonhole her. She's from Oakland, California. You can talk for days about how California is, you know, like you just tax these companies out of existence and they leave and they go to Austin. Tim Walz is a pro-labor governor, but he's also cultivated one of the most thriving economies in the country. Minnesota has an amazing economy. There are 15 or so blue chip Fortune 500 companies in Minnesota. He makes clear that you can be pro-labor and it's not anti-business, that these things are not irreconcilable. You can give workers the protections that they want and that they need, and it doesn't affect

your bottom line. You can still build a thriving economy. And I think one of the things that was so impressive to me yesterday when the pick was announced, there was a lot of hand-wringing from the business community about there were other candidates that they thought would have been better for business. And then people immediately were like, what are you talking about? Minnesota's great for business. 3M, UnitedHealth, Target. I mean, this is the man who cultivated the conditions for every American to go on a Target run where they are expecting to spend $20 and instead they spend $220.

Like, that's economic progress. And I mean, just there aren't a lot of people who could get enthusiastic tweets of support from both AOC and Joe Manchin in like a three-minute period like Tim Walz did. So I mean, it's just truly great pick. Now, while picking Josh Shapiro wouldn't have guaranteed a win in Pennsylvania, history in the polling says it would be easier with him on the ticket. Any chance this ends up being a major mistake? I really don't like doing this Monday morning quarterbacking. I think you made your pick, and now you lean into it, and you run as hard as you can. And I think fundamentally,

there was no perfect running mate. There were a lot of really good people. Kelly would have offered a lot, but then there would have been this open Senate seat that would have come up during the midterms that would have been very hard to defend. Beshear was great, did great things in Kentucky on COVID, but you weren't moving a red state like Kentucky. So there was no perfect candidate to be VP. And Shapiro would have brought a lot of great things to the ticket. I think he might have suppressed some of the enthusiasm from young people in part because of his stance on Gaza and the student protest. But I think at bottom, you have to respect the fact that this is a deeply, deeply personal choice. And all of the things I just said, I mean, this is the first Black woman running as the top of a

national ticket. She has to feel fully comfortable with whoever she's picked to be her second. And sometimes that comes down to intangibles. And it's not just about polling. It's not just about someone's record. It's literally about how you feel with this person. And that's got to be okay, too. There was no wrong choice here. And there was no perfect choice. And Josh Shapiro would have been a great pick. Josh Shapiro is someone who, like Kamala Harris, is very familiar to people who were with President Obama early, because he also, like the Vice President, endorsed Obama when a lot of people thought that was a really bad political idea and stuck with him through tough times. It is true that a home state governor or senator can add a point or two. And

Pennsylvania has been decided by less than a point. But I just don't think, one, the most important part of this decision has to be about governing and how you feel and the chemistry there. But also, it's just you can't make the decision based on one state alone. If you win Pennsylvania, you lose everywhere else, you're still not president. And so, Josh Brewer would have been great. But Tim Walz, just to say things, brings a lot to the table and across a whole bunch of states that would be very, very valuable, right? You just can't get beyond. There is no better bio for a politician than veteran, teacher, state champion, football coach, governor. That is designed in a lab to be appealing. And I think he just brings a lot to the

table. Shapiro would have been great. But just making it a decision solely over one point in Pennsylvania, I think is a sort of a overly simplistic way to look at it. Well, and big props to Josh Shapiro for showing up at the announcement to support this ticket enthusiastically and wholeheartedly, even while we all understand that he was one of the ones who was considered and he ultimately wasn't successful. I think if he continues to be a surrogate in Pennsylvania, you can get all of the advantages of having him on the ticket. But as you say, there are a lot of other options and doorways that Walls opens up. That was a very impressive thing to do under,

I'm sure. Imagine the sliding doors moment for his life based on one phone call in the morning. And he gave a great speech. He put his heart into it. And I guarantee you that he is going to work his tail off to deliver Pennsylvania for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. And so you're right. I think you can sort of get the best of both worlds here. Before we go to break, if you're listening to this, you probably, like all of us, have been both fully Walz-pilled and coconut-pilled. And surely you're signed up for Vote Save America and ready to knock doors and make calls, right? Another great way to support Vote Save America is by buying John, John, and Tommy's book, Democracy or Else? How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps, because Crooked's donating the profits to

support Vote Save America and progressive campaigns in 2024. With 89 days until the election, Democracy or Else is the perfect gift for anyone who's ready to get involved in politics but doesn't know where to start. Grab your copy of Democracy or Else now from your favorite bookstore or at crooked.com slash books. Harris officially introduced walls at a rally in Philly yesterday. The place was packed. There was huge energy and excitement. We got to see them appear together for the first time and get a sense of how their messages work together.

Here are some of the highlights. To his former high school students, he was Mr. Walls. And to his former high school football players, he was Coach. And in 91 days, the nation will know Coach Waltz by another name, Vice President of the United States. He signed the most significant expansion of voting rights in Minnesota in over 50 years. After Roe was overturned, he was the first governor in the country to sign a new law that enshrined reproductive freedom as a fundamental right. In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and their personal choices that they make. Even if we wouldn't make the same choice for ourselves, there's a golden rule.

Mind your own damn business. Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, J.D. studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community. Come on! I can't wait to debate the guy. That is if he's willing to get off the couch and show up. Melissa, did you get a chance to watch the event? What was your sense of the energy in the room? So I did watch it. I was on Amtrak. So I was using their Wi-Fi, which meant it kept cutting in.

So pretty spotty, I would guess. Yes. So I missed some of that. I'm actually glad to hear the super cut. But wow. I mean, it had all of the great elements, like a really substantial discussion of the legislative record. He was folksy. She introduced him as coach. Like that's going to get Tommy Tuberville really exercised. I love that. And then at the end, you know, you had the sort of subtle couch necrophilia issue that was inserted in there. I mean, he's funny and snarky, and I think I kind of loved it. I thought it was a great introduction. I loved the event. Tim Walz was amazing. That's a hard thing to do, right? Tim Walz is the governor

of Minnesota. I can't imagine there's a time he's had to speak to a packed basketball arena of people screaming his name. Maybe he has introduced a president coming to him, but nothing like that where he's the headline. We saw this with J.D. Vance at the convention. That's a hard jump to the big leagues, and he killed it in that thing. He was funny. He was charming. He's also like – if you'd asked me a few years ago if the one politician in the Democratic

Party other than AOC who would truly understand social media and TikTok would be Tim Walz, I would be – but like mentioning – I would love to know if the couch thing was in the remarks or if that was an ad lib, but it's just smart to like throw a little grist to the mill, throw a little chum in the water and get people to do it because it's funny. 99% of people who don't get it will go right over the head and they won't care. It was great. 99% of people who don't get it will go right over the head and they won't care. It was great. It was the perfect subtweet.

And I mean, I'm not surprised. Like this is the guy who just kind of decimated the Trump-Vance ticket by just, they're weird. They're weirdos. And that didn't surprise me at all. He was terrific. I'd heard that one of the things he discussed

with the Harris vetting team was that he'd never really used a teleprompter. And so this is going to be one of his first never really used a teleprompter. And so this is going to be one of his first forays using a teleprompter. It's not easy to use a teleprompter. So I mean, if that was his first shot at it, he cleared the high bar. He was great. He didn't get fumbled up on it, did not knock anything over. He was fantastic. It was also, and this has been true over the last few weeks with Harris's events everywhere, fantastic. It was also, and this has been true over the last few weeks with Harris's events everywhere. It has been so long since we have had that much excitement in these sort of packed

arenas of people like jumping out of their seats for a Democrat, right? Obviously, Biden ran in the pandemic in 2020. So we never got to see that. There was plenty of enthusiasm for Secretary Clinton, but she they sort of got in that can be a little wrapped around the axle of the campaign, the crowd size comparisons with Trump, and they didn't do those sorts of events. And so it really has been since Obama ran for re-election that we've seen things like this. And it's just- So I was around in 2007, 2008, when Obama was running for the first time.

And this is the first thing that I've ever seen approximate that kind of energy and the hopefulness. And that part, I think think is actually really important. And again, I keep coming back to the younger voters, like Gen Z, they don't remember what that moment felt like, but I think this is that moment for them where they're excited about politics. It just doesn't feel like yet another slide into hell

with like this election, but the promise of something better. And that's exactly how it felt in 2008. Yeah. We've lived, for good reason, in a politics of fear for the last decades as Trump was around. Both these elections were about what happens if Trump wins, not what we can... Sort of like what Trump will do to us if he wins, not what we can do if we win. And we had that in 2008. And then Obama had that again in 2012. And then this is the first time. And it's wild. She is the vice president of the United States, but she is the change candidate. She is future. She is hope. And it's infectious. I can't even tell you the people in my life who have not talked

to me about politics in six years, who have brought up Kamala Harris and brought up Tim Walz. They're excited about Tim Walz. They've seen him on, they've seen some of his stuff because they engaged three weeks ago when the vice president got involved. She became the nominee. They've seen him, they've seen those clips go viral, and they're just excited in a way that is just really, really thrilling. I think part of this too is, Kamala Harris on the stump as a primary candidate in 2019, 2020. I mean, okay. And I say this as someone who loves her. I am from Oakland, California. I remember when she was AG. I remember when she was

DA in San Francisco. I've been in the K-high for a long time now, but she was okay as a primary candidate. She kind of seeded the spotlight to Joe Biden, as she should have as VP. She is absolutely fantastic on the top of the ticket. So she is overperforming. She has this new partner who is clearly overperforming. And I think together, this new partner who is clearly overperforming. And I think together, the energy is just so infectious and the enthusiasm is refreshing and booing. I mean, I think it's a really exciting time to watch politics, to be in politics. If I was like a young person, I am a young person, I guess. But if I were younger than I am, I would be so excited to watch this happening and so excited to vote in November. You're right. I remember her announcement speech in 2019 when she had that huge

rally in Oakland, and she was amazing. Yeah, I was there. And that was the promise. It was an incredible event. And she was sort of the frontrunner in some cases in that race, because I think Biden hadn't actually gotten in the race yet. And then she was sort of the front runner in some cases in that race, because I think Biden hadn't actually gotten in the race yet. And it didn't work after that. But this, what we're seeing now is the talent that people have seen in her for a long time, right? That President Obama saw in her and the 2020 Democratic primary was a messy primary. She was clearly uncomfortable in how that portrayed. But this is like, and obviously she's got, you get a lot of reps, right? She has been, and she has been out there after that sort of first tough year, sort of under the radar, especially the last year, kind of killing it in her events, especially since

Dobbs. It really has been since Dobbs. Well, can I do a call back to the Strix Courtney live show at the Howard Theater back in June. So we had as a guest, second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, who came out and spoke with us about what men could do to support reproductive freedom. And we had a surprise guest and it was the vice president. And when Kate and I walked out on that stage, it was the same time they were seating her in the audience, the applause was so overwhelming. And I couldn't see because the lights are shining in your face, so you can't see what's going on in the audience. I literally thought the applause was for us. And I was like, okay, we are killing it.

We are killing it. She's like, calm down. I don't think it's for us. And the lights go down a little like, oh yeah, it was for her. It was like, we are ancillary here. But I mean, it was so exciting just having her there. People were really jazzed. So when there was all the talk that would Biden drop out, what would happen, I fully believed that if she were at the top of the ticket, she could totally carry it because I saw how stoked people were about her at that live show. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. So there was a poll out yesterday that showed that 70% of Americans don't know enough about Tim Walz to have an opinion on him. Clearly, one of the focuses of the event was introducing Walz to the American people. The

vice president spent a lot of time going through his bio in great detail. Walz sort of reemphasized some key points. What do you think the most compelling parts of his bio or from the remarks yesterday were? I mean, I think one, the combination of both executive and legislative experience is really important. He's done a lot as governor of Minnesota, but he also had some real issues that he had to deal with. He was criticized for his handling of the protests after George Floyd's death. He had to answer for that when he ran for reelection. He did. I think he told a very compelling story. That was important. And then it translated into legislative action. They passed a police accountability reform bill

that allows law enforcement to do their jobs, but also to do them under conditions in which ordinary citizens can expect a measure of public safety. And I think that's really important. So she matched up the record with actual specific discussions of things that he had done, the codification of Roe, which is enormous for many women who are headed to the ballot box this November. Minnesota was the first state, I believe, maybe one of the first states, perhaps even the first state, to actually take steps to ensure protections for abortion access and reproductive freedom in the wake of Dobbs. That's enormous. He has done executive actions that preserve the possibility of gender-affirming care for youth and let their parents decide, as opposed to allowing

state legislators to decide. The menstrual equity bill, I think, is also critically important. Republicans are calling him Tampon Tim. If I were him, I would make a t-shirt. Yes, I am Tampon Tim, and I'm here to stop the red wave. That's why I'm here. Lean into it. Who's mad about providing sanitary napkins and tampons? Like, you guys were wearing sanitary napkins on your ears a month ago. Like, what's the – I mean, like, so I thought it was really important that she introduced him as someone who was a person of action, but it was sort of common sense legislation that his constituents wanted and indeed that the majority of voters support. Yeah, I thought – I mean, his record is a model for what you want a record to be. It is progressive, but it is populist. It is common sense. These are all incredibly popular proposals that he has turned into law. I would say the

anecdote that I found most heartwarming and maybe said the most about Tim Walz that I think would be very, I think could really mean a lot to a lot of people. And there are actually two of them. The first is the story about how he decided to become the faculty advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance at the school and that he thought it was important for a straight man football coach to do it, what the message with that would send. And what just a way of not just being self-aware, but being empathetic to others and understanding the role and responsibility you have. And at a time when that was a very controversial thing for a football coach to do, right? It might still be controversial. What's the country do right now? And he did it. And it's just. The youth would call that allyship. I mean, I don't know that they were calling it allyship back at that point. But I mean, I think that's what my students would say. Like,

that's an ally right there. I'm sort of using his privilege to raise up other people. And again, the football coach, right? I mean, I've been covering the Supreme Court on strict scrutiny, and we've been talking about football coaches who want to prey on the 50-yard line in the middle of a public football field at halftime. But here's a guy using his position, using the clout that he has with his students, not to proselytize to them, but literally to lift some of them up and ensure that they feel included. You just imagine when people are having the conversation at that time about gay students at the time, and they can say the football coach is OK with it, the defensive coordinator

on the state championship football team is OK with it and supports us. That just carries so much weight in a high school. And it's just like particularly in a rural part of the country, it's just like the football coach is so important and such an influential part of they're like more than the mayor and to do that, just said a lot to me. And then the way he talked about their struggles to have children and using IVF and just like, once again, having the old white football coach from rural Minnesota, talk about it in that way, something that men almost never talk about in private, let alone in public, at a time in which the Republicans are trying to ban IVF. We're having all these questions around, and they're trying to do everything they can to get involved in women's personal lives and to talk about it in that way. It's like that will – like one of the keys to success is making also men care about Dobbs and what Republicans are doing.

I just think he just is so comfortable in his own skin. Relatable and relatable. Yeah. It's just really, really – it was really great. And people who did not know anything about Tim Walz who watched that came away loving him. People who went into it, favorably disposed to him came away loving it. I thought it was just – it was great. You know how they did those shirts with a young Doug Emhoff and he looks like he's straight out of a John Hughes movie with the Laguna Beach t-shirt? They have to do a t-shirt of Tim Walls holding that pig at the state fair. That's the t-shirt. He's so adorable. Have you seen the video of he and his daughter trying to film the PSA for the new hands-free

driving law? Oh, that's hilarious too. Minnesota. Yeah. It's so good. It's so like, I mean, telling his daughter that having his daughter tell him that Turkey is meat and him saying, no, it's Minnesota Turkey special. It's just so funny.

And the state fair one, like, I mean, it really is. He is like the, this is the underrated part is that he is great at the internet, which you would not have expected from Tim Walls. And he just, it's a huge asset to the ticket. Is it unexpected? I mean, this man is a teacher. He knows how to communicate. Yeah, that's true.

He knows how to relate to kids. Yeah. I mean, I think that's really a big part of this. And, you know, there was this one tweet this morning, this woman who was like, you know, I'm 100% sure that Tim Walls could teach me how to drive stick shift without making me cry. I mean, it's that kind of energy. Yes. I saw someone else say, Tim Walls can talk about heat pumps and install them. It's great. Now, Strict Scrutiny is a legal podcast, but you guys talk a ton about these

hot button social issues that tend to divide the country. Abortion is because of this court, and reproductive rights are always at the top of the ticket. What is your take on what Walls' addition to the ticket does in terms of the issue environment around reproductive rights and abortion? What's the Harris-Walls ticket like? No, it's a great question. I will just say, I know that Strict Scrutiny is a podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it, but law and politics are inextricably intertwined. So when we talk about law, you're right. Especially these days. we have to deal with that. I think one of the things that strikes me as really unusual about this ticket, and maybe even unprecedented, is that it is a reproductive justice ticket. And I just want to be clear about what I mean by that. There is the discussion of reproductive rights, which is

typically about access to abortion and access to contraception, about how to not become pregnant or how to stop being pregnant. Black women for many years have been talking about reproductive justice, which is not simply about avoiding pregnancy or avoiding parenthood, but being able to choose whether and how you become pregnant and the conditions under which you parent if, in fact, you do choose to become a parent. And it's just a much more capacious frame. And I've always been struck by the fact that Kamala Harris has been talking about reproductive freedom in ways that are really registering in a reproductive justice frame. Black women. She talked about access to prenatal and postpartum care. So not just access to abortion, but how are you going to become a parent in ways that

are healthful and conducive to your own thriving? And what I like about this ticket in terms of reproductive freedom is that Tim Walz is also talking about these things in a broader frame. So yes, he signed the protections of Roe into Minnesota's state law, but the menstrual equity bill, the gender affirming care bill, the universal school lunch bill that he signed into law,

those are all about reproductive justice too. Like the idea that you have these children and you raise them in conditions where you don't have to worry about whether they're eating at school. There's lunch provided, they can eat and they can learn. And there's someone, not just you, thinking about their broader health that if your kid is questioning their gender identity, you're not assailed by these legislators who are trying to make this choice for you. That's a reproductive justice issue. The fact that he is a hunter and a veteran,

but he supports common sense gun regulations, that's a reproductive justice issue. Gun violence is a scourge on so many communities and how parents raise their children in these conditions where violence is literally around the corner. So to me, what's great about this ticket is not that it's about reproductive freedom in the traditional sense, but that it's really a capacious frame that's thinking about

what are the conditions in which we exercise our reproductive capacity and then parent in ways that are consistent with our values and with the long-term health of our communities and our children. That's a really smart and interesting way to think about this. And it just says so much about what Wallace brings to the ticket, that he can reinforce that frame from the vice president. As a white guy. Right. As a white guy.

As a white guy. Who would believe that? I always believed it, Dan. You're exactly right, Dan. I always believed it. We don't get it right often, but Tim Walz is making a good case for us. Yeah. All right.

Donald Trump and the Republicans wasted no time attacking the choice of walls. Their arguments were all over the map, to say the least. Let's take a listen. What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you're not. This is a ticket that would want this country to go communist immediately, if not sooner. We want no security. We want no anything.

He's very heavy into transgender. Anything transgender he thinks is great. Let me tell you, this is a shocking pick. And I think it's very insulting to Jewish people. I think that any Jewish person who votes for a Democrat, or in this case, these people, but who votes for a Democrat should have their head examined because everyone thought it was going to be Shapiro.

It turned out not to be Shapiro. I have very little doubt that it was, you know, not for the reason we're talking about. It was because of the fact that he's Jewish and they think they're going to offend somebody else. Truly wild stuff from these yahoos. Based on reporting from Politico and elsewhere, it seems like they've settled on two of these crazy arguments. The first is that Walz is a radical liberal. And second, that not picking Shapiro's evidence of some sort of rampant anti-Semitism within the Democratic Party. Let's start with the first argument. What do you think? Can the Republicans make a gut-owning football coach from rural Minnesota

seem like a dangerous lefty? Not to lead the witness here to use one of your terms, but. Well, I think they're going to try. I think one of the things I think is going to be difficult about painting him as a pinko commie is that there's so much support for the things that he's doing. Like right now, drawing the contrast between the Republicans as they hate feeding school kids like they like they don't think these kids should not get fed at school, whereas he thinks that they should be fed so they can go and learn. And if they need the food, they shouldn't be stigmatized for taking. And that's the reason why it's universally provided. If that's the contrast you want to draw, we should say bring it on. That's a really important contrast. The party of compassion versus the party of lock her up, I guess. But to me, if you want to call this communism, I think there are a lot of people in the voting public who are like, I don't think that's communism.

I think that's just like being a good neighbor. And I think Walls is great at talking about this, like talking about the other side. These are my neighbors. Like, I may not agree with them, but I have to live with them and we have to find a way to work together. And so I think he is kind of practicing a politics where he's not afraid to call them out, but he's also not afraid to bring them in. Whereas they're just like, we want away from these people. We don't want anything to do with them. We don't want anything to do with their politics, but their politics are actually shared by a wide number

of people in the public. Yeah. I think it's going to be really, really hard to convince the public that Tim Walz is some sort of radical lefty, right? For a lot of the public, they don't go through the white papers and look at all the policies. I don't know, Dan. Santa Claus is pretty much a communist. He's like giving all these presents to kids and their parents aren't. But because he's an old bearded white guy, no one thinks he's a communist. But the elves.

The elves. The elves. It's like ideology. How people see ideology is more about identity than policy positions. And it's just, he does not code as a radical lefty. He doesn't code as a radical lefty. And I hope this comes up in the debate with J.D. Vance, if we have one. The things that he has done as governor of Minnesota are the same kinds of programs that

enabled a young J.D. Vance, when he was going by a completely different name, to survive while his mother was struggling with drug addiction, like while his grandmother was raising him. And J.D. Vance talks about that in Hillbilly Elegy. Those government programs were the bridge that allowed them to keep going as a family. Why then are you against them now? And why are you pillorying Tim Walz? Because he did more of that as governor. Right. But these things are also popular, right? Free lunch, popular. Free college for people who make less than $80,000. Popular. Popular. Paid family medical leave. Popular. Popular. Legalizing marijuana, incredibly popular. And these things are popular,

not just like 51% popular. They're like 60, 70, 80% popular with large swaths of the Trump base being okay with it. And so Tim Walz is of a, like he is a progressive, but he is a populist progressive in the like Sherrod Brown mold, right? Where it's just that really works in that part of the country. I think it's just going to be really hard to make him seem crazy. And even if they break – it's a kind of – I hope they spend all their time doing it. Focus on that, not the vice president, right? Because that is a – I don't think they can succeed. And if they did succeed, I don't think it would make a huge difference.

And so they are clearly – it is interesting that Walls wasn't – maybe if you were ranking it, you would have thought Shapiro was the most likely pick. but they had a list of three for a week now, and they haven't really, they didn't really prepare for this one in any way, shape, or form, and seemed pretty flummoxed, much as they were by Kamala Harris taking over another thing that was maybe not definite, but certainly foreseeable. And they, you know, it's just, it's interesting that they were not ready for this, and that's the best they have. But I take a lot of solace in the fact that they don't have anything better for that for the Tim Walz. Well, I mean, that was predictable, too. I mean, like, their whole approach to governing was like,

so we actually have to govern this thing? I mean, like, the whole four years was like, wait, like, how do you do this? And I think we're seeing them getting caught flatfooted. And to be clear, I do not think this is going to be a walk in the park. I think the level of distortion in the electoral landscape because of gerrymandering, because of voter suppression is really, really complicated. And it does mean that if Democrats want to win and to do so decisively so that there aren't a ton of legal challenges going forward about who won the election, Democrats are really going to have to flood the election, Democrats are really going to have to flood the zone. Turnout's going to have to be enormous. You are going to have to overwhelm them in order to run up the numbers to make it very clear that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz won,

and it wasn't even close. I think that has to happen. What do you think of the anti-Semitism attack? Can they really make that stick? to happen. What do you think of the anti-Semitism attack? Can they really make that stick? I think it's hard to make the anti-Semitism claim stick when the candidate who's running for president goes to bed every night with an observant Jew. I mean, you can try, I guess. I think for most people, you can understand that there were lots of things that Shapiro could have brought to this ticket. And there were a lot of things that Shapiro could have brought to this ticket. And there were a lot of things that might have been disadvantages that he could have brought. It's not just the question of Gaza, although I do think that and the question of the student protesters certainly had some relevance, especially when thinking about how to relate to younger

voters. But I mean, there were other things too that I think may have made Shapiro a less exciting pick relative to Walls. Same for Bashir, same for Kelly. I mean, these are very practical considerations that are then leavened with these very personal considerations. So I think that's the way to deal with the antisemitism. We're not antisemitic. It's a personal thing. There's chemistry. There's vibes. My dog agrees. Exactly. One thing I will say is there is a long history of Republicans using these false charges of anti-Semitism against Democrats, particularly Democrats of color. They happen to Barack Obama all the time. There's a real effort to that. That's a really good point. That would be very real. The idea, though, that because she did not pick a candidate who happens to be Jewish is evidence of anti-Semitism is absurd. Because guess who also picked a vice president recently and did not pick someone from their short list who is Jewish?

Donald Trump. Guess which one, as you said. Doug Hemhoff, second gentleman, Jewish. Donald Trump tends to dine with Nazis, right? Has called them very fine people. It's an absurd thing. And so I think the Harris-Walls community is going to have to watch some of the really pretty gross under-the-radar stuff to try to target Jewish voters. But as a broad attack about the Walls pick, I think it's kind of ridiculous.

Now, Walls and Harris were scheduled to do five rallies in five battleground states this week. The rally they had in North Carolina for later in the week was canceled due to weather from Hurricane Debbie. Trump, on the other hand, has only one event this week, which is a rally in Bozeman, Montana, which is not exactly a battleground state. But he did announce he's going to be interviewed by Elon Musk on Monday, so I guess he's doing some stuff. Why do you think Donald Trump's so absent from the trail? This is a very sparse schedule 90 days from the election. Does this surprise you? I watched The Apprentice in the early 2000s. Donald Trump did fuck all on that show. I mean, he literally showed up at the

beginning, announced the project, kind of intermittently showed up to ogle some of the contestants, and then showed up at the end to fire someone. Like, this is business as usual. And I think this was also the way he ran his administration. I mean, I didn't see a lot of action from him. And I think, you know, that was one of the reasons why I think the attacks on Joe Biden when he was the nominee were so galling. Like, this idea that, you know, Joe Biden is Sleepy Joe and he's not energetic. Like, neither are you, dude. And that's OK. Like, that's kind of what you do when you're in your 70s, kind of kick back. You're not working a full time job, but you're also not running for president. So I'm not surprised by this. Like, I think this is par for the course. And then you

leaven his natural proclivity toward being lazy with being an older person. I think it's not surprising that he's not out stumping hard. Yeah, you would think he would work harder to stay out of prison since that's his primary impetus. Oh, he's working really hard on that. Yeah, yes. You're right. He is lazy and he's entitled. And three weeks ago, he thought he was cruising to the presidency, which is why he scheduled this rally in Bozeman, Montana. The reason you go to Bozeman, Montana, is not to win the White House. It's to have a Republican Senate when you're president, because that's a rally to defeat John Tester, not to defeat Kamala Harris. And I think they just don't know what they're... And they thought they could run... If you're

running against Joe Biden, who was also doing one or two... He was doing more than Trump, for sure, but he was doing one or two events a week. Here you have Kamala Harris. She's doing two rallies today. She's going to do more today than Donald Trump has done in the last two weeks, right? That is- I'm just going to say, as a Jamaican, we always have three or four jobs.

She can do this. This is part of, it's what we do. It's what we do. Yes, she can handle it. Melissa, before we go, I wanted to get your take on some recent legal developments that we haven't talked about because we haven't had anyone on the podcast recently

who's made it through law school. But John Lovett and his LSAT score. He's only brought it up once or twice, don't worry. Okay, let's start with the Supreme Court. President Biden recently announced his support for, and then Kamala Harris immediately endorsed, a series of reforms to the Supreme Court, including term limits and ethics reform. Decision that was validated by a report in the New York Times this week that Justice Thomas had gone on even more junkets paid for by the billionaire Harlan Crowe. What do you think about the reforms and this latest news about one of your favorite justices? Let me do it in reverse. Was anyone even surprised by this?

I was going to say your favorite justice, but I knew that was probably your... Sarcastically, I knew that was Alito, so I had to put it in the plural. So many to choose from. There are just so many to choose from. I thought it was hilarious that this whole thing about Clarence Thomas and the other trips, I don't even think it registered with the public. They're like, Clarence Thomas accepting freebies? Again, some more? It was just sort of like, OK, more of the same.

It's fine. I think people are just truly over it. And it's just become a kind of oversaturation, like what else is going to happen? And it's almost like he's trolling us at this point. So there's that. And that's all I'm going to say about it. I do think that Biden's decision to issue this proposal about Supreme Court reform is really, really important, not because I think it's going to be successful.

I don't think anything is going to happen before the election. And I think you're going to need a wider majority in the Senate in order to get any of this to happen. But it means that one, he has zero fucks left to give. And he's now devoting it to this question, which has been a huge issue that many of us wish he had been more forceful on during the four years of his term in office. So I think this is great. And I think it's great that he's doing this. I will emphasize that these proposals are very modest reforms. The term limits, that's something that every constitutional court around the world already has.

We're the outliers here. The proposal to have a binding code of ethics, that's low-hanging fruit, too. It's just the court won't do it. The most interesting proposal is the constitutional amendment to overrule Trump versus the United States. That's the recent presidential immunity case. That, I think, is the biggest lift because it would require a constitutional amendment and the most significant thing. But I just want to emphasize, he is not talking about packing the court. He is not talking about recalibrating or rebalancing the court. These are all really modest proposals.

So the thing that I think is great about it is that he's willing to talk about it. He's willing to inject it into electoral discourse. And I love that Kamala Harris has doubled down on it because it means that the Supreme Court can be a part of the electoral discourse going into November, which Democrats have almost never done when stumping for their particular candidates. And I think the court has to be on the ticket. And it has to drive not only the race for the presidency, it should also drive the race for the Senate. And everyone should be talking about it. We could actually impeach Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito if we had a wider majority in the Senate.

And so court reform in all of its many facets has to be part of how we talk about what's at stake in this election. Yeah, I think the most notable, I agree with you that reforms are more modest than I would like. Obviously, nothing is going to happen in the near term. It does feel like a watershed moment that the ultimate institutionalist, the former chair of the Judiciary Committee, the one who is more reticent than anyone else on the party to criticize the court publicly, was willing to go this way. So whatever happens next,

it makes it easier for, we hope, President Harris to be able to take this on next time. He creates a permission structure for Democrats who were maybe worried about the politics or worried about the precedent or the norm busting of these sorts of reforms to do it. So I think it's a very, you know, it's not everything I would want, but the fact that Joe Biden, of all people, did it. And what is interesting enough was going to do it if he was still running for president. This was signaled as something. This was not something he was like, oh, now I'm not on the ballot. They had booked that venue when he was still running, and they went ahead with it anyway. And so I think it's just, we have to do something about the court. It is what you guys talk about all the time. And Joe Biden has moved the ball

forward in a way that he did not have to, but I think is very consequential. And the fact that he did, I mean, that just shows if an institutionalist is over this court, like we all should be over this court. Yes. Okay. Finally, after a very long and unnecessary delay that involved a president getting immunity, the January 6th case has finally been sent back to Judge Chuckens' courtroom. What happens now? Any chance we get some action before the election? Just give us an update. We used to follow this every single minute of the day, and then we've been on this, as we mentioned, rollercoaster for the last month. So what do we need to know? All right. So what kind of action are you seeking? Frankly, anything. I mean, I would like to see Trump frog march to jail,

but I have leavened my expectations that will happen before the election. Will we get a hearing? Will there be testimony? Well, you know, what are we going to get here? I'm glad you're being realistic about this. What's the next thing? All right. So I'm glad you're being realistic about this. So the case is back with Judge Chuck Kinnan. She's ultimately going to be forced to determine what aspects of the alleged conduct that took place in the run-up to January 6th, which of those actions were quote-unquote official actions and therefore immunized from prosecution, which were unofficial actions and can be subject to prosecution. And she has set an August 9th

deadline for a status report that both sides will file jointly. So they're going to have to agree on a kind of timeline for how this is going to play out and how they're going to address these questions. I imagine that in the process of trying to work out that timeline, there's going to be some push and pull, maybe some delays on that. But there's supposed to be a meeting

or sort of, I guess, a hearing of the parties on August 16th that's going to determine the pretrial schedule. I imagine that one of the things that will be set at that meeting, if they can agree to the schedule, is a date for some kind of hearing where Judge Chuckton will hear evidence about whether or not certain aspects of that conduct were official and that which was unofficial. And my co-author on the Trump indictments, Andrew Weissman, has, I think, for months said that this might be the closest that we get to some kind of public airing about what actually happened on January 6th and the

events leading up to January 6th. Maybe we have testimony from Mike Pence about this. I mean, all of this could happen as she tries to sort of suss out what is official, what is unofficial, and therefore what is subject to prosecution. But I don't think we are going to actually resolve any of these questions to the point where we can get to a trial before November. And we've been saying that for months. On strict scrutiny, we said as early as March that it was unlikely because of the Supreme Court's delay that we would ever get to a trial on this. I think the fact of a hearing on these questions about what's official and unofficial, that

might be the best that we can hope for, for a public airing of what happened on January 6th. Hey, look, I'll take it, right? Public airing. We could, you know, a little focus on Trump's actions on January 6th before the election seems interesting for the persuaded voters out there. But that's, again, why the election is so important. I mean, you've said this multiple times today.

Donald Trump is running for president, so he doesn't go to jail. If he wins the presidency, we're not going to have these trials at all. He's going to direct his new attorney general to kill these prosecutions. He will not get sentenced for the New York convictions because we've never had a situation where a sitting president has been convicted and sentenced, and I doubt we will. And it's very likely he'll figure out a way to kill the Georgia prosecution. So the stakes of this election are not just about the Supreme Court, not just about abortion rights, not just about voting rights. It's about whether or not we're going to have accountability.

If Harris and Walz win, these prosecutions will go forward. And if they don't win, they will not. It's as simple as that. That seems like a great place to end it. Melissa, thanks so much for co-hosting today. John and I will be back in your feed on Friday morning with another podcast. Thanks. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more,

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