The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - The Tim Walz Interview

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Mankato West High School's former defensive coordinator joins the show with honest answers on immigration, gun control, racist jokes... and the college-football playoff. Plus: a hard-hitting interrogation from Stugotz on Rocky power rankings — and Joe Mauer's rightful place in the Hall of Fame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network. We have the state champion defensive coordinator for Mankato West High School with us, Stukots. We finally have a coach on the show. Yes. Do you prefer Tim Walz with us? Do you prefer governor or coach with us? Do you prefer Governor or coach? What should I be calling you during this? Coach? That's the lead I want, you know I don't I don't get any help for that you come with governor or candidate everybody beats on you, but defensive coordinator

They leave you alone, but good to be with you guys Thank you for being on with us We have politics questions and sports questions, but I want to hear about the legendary story of you lighting up your offensive coordinator because he was running too many trick plays. Yeah, and this guy was good. Guy's name was Tom Boone, and he was doing things that irritated me,

like passing and getting yardage. And you know, this was, I'm a 6-0 guy, you know, the old school thing or whatever. And this guy continued to score, and I said, you know this was I'm a 6-0 guy you know the old school thing or whatever and and this guy continued to score and I said you know look part of this is pace of the game you know we can control the game keep my defense you know on the sideline a little bit here all that and not this guy so that was his his philosophy to just score every time and kind of fun now keep in mind he's joining us on very little sleep from a hotel room in

uh... georgia here so i don't know how much sports he's paying uh... paying attention to but i just wanna show you a statue here that was revealed recently and give you a multiple choice question i want to ask you is this uh... well there's a hint on the front here is this laurence fishburn uh... and swan walker There's a hint on the front there. Is this Laurence Fishburne, Antoine Walker, Dwayne Wade, Kelsey Grammer, or Dana White? Who do you have this statue? I think we gave it away with the uniform.

You did, but when I saw the Laurence Fishburne, I said, man, it is Laurence, that is a good one. Look, how gracious was D. Wade, though, about this to the sculptor, because this is pretty horrific. I mean, this is a Lucille Ball type, the Lucille Ball statue thing. So it's horrific. But D Wade, what a class act. He's like, no, this is really nice. I'm grateful. And yeah, I don't know how they get that wrong. Would you think they would show it to everybody first and have people like- No, he was very involved in it. He made, he was there for...

Oh, I didn't know that. You would have no evidence in the statue, but evidently he went three or four times to be with them and even measured like the length from the nose to the lip and everything. Yeah, he looked at... Well, he's even more gracious or he just didn't care. I don't know what you want. Didn't care? I don't know. I'm sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say he's got a statue that's got to be pretty cool right? You know I was in Philly the other day and honest to god and I earned it because I ran a 5k to it no lie to the rocky statue you know up the stairs with both arms up it was cooler than I thought it would be.

It was really cool. But anyway, sorry to interrupt you, Dan. That's all right. Thank you. I do appreciate your time. I do have some questions in politics. I'd like to know some of what your inner monologue was during the debate when Vance refused to say that Trump had lost the election. Yeah, well, I'm thinking to myself, we're 85 minutes into this thing, and it kind of seems like that was the lead. Do you believe in democracy?

Are you going to honor the vote? Which truly isn't all that political. It's just kind of standard operation. And just on that, my team was very clear to me. They said, don't ask a direct question, you know, because you don't know the answer. It puts you in a bad spot in a debate. And of course, me, I disregarded what I should have done was listen. But in that case, it worked because just ask him the question. And I guess I thought he would answer it. And it took

a couple of weeks. He did eventually answer. And he said, no, he didn't lose the election. Donald Trump did not lose that election. So I guess he could have done it that night. But obviously, he had a little bit of inner monologue going to about how do I answer this. I was kind of speaking to, you know, 340 million people. I think he might have been speaking to one. So that's a little bit, you know, a little more challenging. Do you regret at all not bringing up during that debate that he, your opponent, had once said of Trump that he might be America's Hitler?

Well, I think, you know, like a game does, you go back over it again, how you would do this. And I was very clear, I know my skillset, strengths and weaknesses and debating, I always, one, I kind of worried about. I say this because as a teacher and a coach, I'm trained to answer the questions. If you're good at debate, you don't answer the questions. You just spin somewhere else.

And that's one I thought about, but you know, it almost gets to the point where some of this stuff becomes unbelievable to people, even though it's true, and it takes away some of the punch from it. But yeah, it's not that I didn't know that part, and I'd actually thought about it, but after we saw this last weekend, I think that spoke for itself.

I probably didn't have to say it. Coach, rank the Rockies for me. Rocky, Rocky 2, Rocky 3, Rocky 4, no one saw Rocky 5. Go ahead. You're right, I didn't see Rocky 5. Why would you? Yeah, well, you know, Cold War stuff with the Russians was something, but don't you have to go with the original? Don't you have to go, we didn't know what was coming. I mean, that's... Rocky loses there. You're badgering the man. Spoiler alert. I am, that's, I don't know. Well, Rocky loses there. You're bantering the man.

Spoiler alert. I am, I just want to explain this to him because he's a busy man. Rocky loses in the original Rocky and I don't like Rocky losing. So therefore for me, it is Rocky two, Rocky four, Rocky three, Rocky. Good point, good point.

Yeah, but Apollo dies. I mean, I don't know. Spoiler alert. I live in a world where- You're a vengeance death. So you're saying world where. I mean, he's dead. So you're saying that the Rocky Lose and just killed the whole thing. You wanted him to win that?

Yes, every time, of course. Well, that kills the story then. There's no, well, yeah. This is why I'm not a screenwriter. I'm not a screenwriter. I'm not paying good money to go to the theater to see Rocky Lose. Quit interrogating the man, please.

I'm sorry, sorry coach. Quit badgering him with your correct, obviously correct opinion. Which do you view, if you had to choose one, which do you view as the most dangerous of Trump's lies? I think the election denial, because I think it undermines, that's the foundation that everything's built on,

the idea that democracy matters and that you count. I think everything, if you can get by with that, everything's on the table and you can just go after that. I just, our elections are secure, they're safe, they always have been. And, you know, I think we grew up with this and certainly me running office, I expect if I lose to go over and shake the hand

of the person who won and then in politics work really hard to help them be successful you know I didn't I didn't want to see George Bush win the election but when he did and I was a member of Congress I wanted to see him be successful so I tried to work with them the best I could. I can't believe I'm uttering this sentence I don't know because you were playing Madden on Twitch with AOC how much of what you saw at Madison Square Garden this weekend? Surely you've read about it though, so what are your thoughts of how racist all of that felt? Well that's another thing that that Senator Vance once said. He said the thing that voters don't really

like about Donald Trump is the racist part. That was him. I did not say that. Look, this is dangerous stuff. It started, you know, it started long ago, but the Springfield stuff of denigrating, you know, Haitian folks who were here legally just trying to get by. This dehumanizing piece of it is what's really this is the oldest playbook in the world. And I think for us, the contrast couldn't be greater. We're talking about unity. We're talking about bringing people together. We're talking about a to-do list for the American public rather than kind of an enemies list and putting people on there who we don't like. And very troubling. And I feel, you know, my job as governor is to protect the citizens and do all we can. And I'm hearing from folks,

you know, the Hispanic community is nervous and in some cases scared. So I didn't watch it personally. AOC showed me that in real time. I didn't know who this guy was, this comedian or whatever, but saying that we don't have a sense of humor. Using vulnerable people as a punchline for your jokes is really weak. It's, that is not humor. Be, and I have to say this, the guy delivery was terrible.

It was just mean spirited. That didn't, that wasn't a joke. That was a dog whistle. Well, not even a dog whistle. It was a scream. Are you nervous and scared? Look, I'm committed to winning this thing. I know the American people and the goodness of the American people.

Kamala Harris is a leader that has devoted her entire life to serving people. I'm out there listening to folks. I'm in Savannah, Georgia. Last night I was in Ann Arbor, by the way, where I got to give the Bo the team, the team, the team in my speech, which was gold. But I'm optimistic.

I'm an optimistic person. I believe in this, this American experiment's not going to end here. We're going to continue to go on. But I am, I'm not naive that there are things that we need to be. We've seen poll workers already attacked and that was written off. And they made a joke about the person who got punched and called the guy who punched them a patriot. Look, this, I know you've got listeners out there, viewers that are that are conservative,

that are Reagan Republicans, independents, they can't like this. If I were saying that stuff, you should be railing on me. Well, something that I would rail on the Democratic Party on is I don't think they're much better at the border on immigration than Trump is. Mass deportation is horrifying to me, but Obama was pretty bad on this and Biden wasn't a lot better. How are you guys better? Yeah, well, the vice president's been clear and since they've been in there, we had a chance to get this and this happened once before and we had a Republican governor showed courage and that was George Bush as the governor of Texas and we had a Republican governor showed courage and that was George Bush as the governor of Texas.

And we had a Republican Senator showed courage and that was Mike DeWine, who's now the governor of Ohio. These are folks that understand that Congress needs to be a piece of this. We had a bill that added 1500 more agents. It added more equipment, but it also added more money to DOJ to expedite these asylum claims. And then you can secure the border, which we need to do

and also adhere to American values by giving pathways to citizenship. Where Donald Trump's talking about, JD Vance in that debate did not answer, will you separate families? And the answer is yes, yes they will. So I think first and foremost, Dan, you need to get the tools necessary

and you do secure the border, but we can't forsake this idea that there are pathways to citizenship that are take too long, and you can get people who are here, want to be here, contributing to this country, give them that pathway that's legal. And I think that's what the vice president has said.

She said she'd sign the bill immediately. The only reason we don't have it is Donald Trump killed it because he loves the issue. He loves the issue. He doesn't wanna fix this. He just wants to admire the issue and tell people he loves the issue. He doesn't wanna fix this. He just wants to admire the issue and tell people he had four years. He doesn't wanna fix it.

Just continue to rail on. Can you explain to people what mass deportations will do to prices in this country that are already crazy? Well, look, I represent, and I was a member of Congress in Southern Minnesota, we're the largest turkey producers. You can thank us at Thanksgiving, by the way, for your turkey, it's coming from Minnesota.

And a lot of folks, like my grandparents, kind of first generation or second generation immigrants would work in meatpacking and things. And it's not me saying it, it's the leadership of those companies saying that it would be massive shutdown of it. How are you gonna make this happen? How are you gonna make the economy work?

What's gonna happen to the construction industry? And I think most Americans get that. They have compassion. What they want to know is the border's secure. They want to know that folks coming in are coming in through a legal pathway. And then they want to know, you know, what's that path to citizenship look like?

And I think folks could recognize and see this. Let's be honest, the jobs you're doing, who do you think's doing all these jobs? Who do you think's making it happen? These are folks that are doing the work. We need to fix that system, but I'll say this once again. It benefits Donald Trump to create chaos. It bents Donald Trump to say,

I'm the only guy who can fix it. Let's be clear. The only guy who didn't fix the border, who made it worse was Donald Trump by killing that bill. My God, these were conservative senators like James Langford from Oklahoma. Senator Langford's super conservative, but he crafted a really good, fair, strong bill. And that, yeah, the mass deportation issue is, I think Americans are starting to understand

that, I hope, thinking about it. Coach, next Tuesday, Americans have a really important decision to make, and that is the college football playoff selection committee. What do you think they will do with a one loss Notre Dame team that had a really brutal loss to Northern Illinois earlier this season but has a great win against Texas A&M and the Naval Academy? Good question. I got to be careful on this one.

I would just say when doesn't Notre Dame get in? Even though the years we know they're not going to get in. They're going to get in. And so I and they look, they may deserve it on this one, but everybody they got a fan base that's across the country. I don't want to, you know, I'm not a conspiracy guy here. I think we're moving towards a fairer system. My question is, what are you going to do with an undefeated army or something? You know, you get one of these or who do we have out there? We got Boise State again playing good ball. Well, that means that they would beat Notre Dame because armies got them at Yankee Stadium One of these are, who do we have out there? We got Boise State again, playing good ball. Well, that means that they would beat Notre Dame

because Army's got them at Yankee Stadium later this month, Coach. So that's a fair point. They will. That's a fair point. They will, right? Tell me you don't want to see that. We want to see that.

I am a Notre Dame grad and I do not want to see that. Are you brave enough to pick the Ohio State, Penn State game? Would you dare? Oh, Jesus. Would you dare? Yes, I would. I'm going with Penn State game. Would you dare? Would you dare? Yes, I would. I'm going with Penn State.

I really am. And this is hard. I'm a gopher guy out here. I should have done better research. I didn't know the Notre Dame thing, but in all fairness, I would have answered that question the same way anyway, just so you know.

Yeah, no, I think Penn State. I think Penn State's better team. And I say this because I'm still a, I'm still a peripheral Nebraska fan and Nebraska should have won that game against Ohio state. They should have won that game. And I think that's, look, that's a team that Indiana, you know, boat race the week before and Ohio state slips by.

I don't think that bodes well for him. I think, I think James Franklin's got them ready and look, they're at college station where they're going to get all the calls too. So it's going to happen. As a gopher and as a Husker, what is your plan to stop conference realignment? Cause we both know USC, UCLA, those are not big 10 teams.

They're just not. I know, I was in the, I got to go to the Coliseum and as a timing worked out, the week after the Gophers beat them, which was so, I was in there wearing my gear and everything. Yeah, you know, I'm this is one that I don't know. And it's Charlie Baker, a former colleague, you know, the governor of Massachusetts is there. I love that guy and Republican governor trying to deal with the alternative. I mean, I've forever been a guy that these players need to be compensated.

Don't get I was 100% there. But this is a really strange place of how the Neil Collectives are working. And this is where I'm old enough that I'm still nostalgic. I'm the Tom Arsbon, Barry Switzer, Big Eight, where the Oranges came down onto the field or whatever. Those classic rivalries, I'm really worried about that you don't get these games that were played every year, what that does to, because it feels, I don't know,

I get your guys' opinion, you're the experts on this. It feels a little bit, now we've got AAA ball heading into the NFL, which college football was a distinctly different game, at least I saw it that way. Coach, you are a big Twins fan, and I am outraged that Joe Mower is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, am I right?

Oh no. Am I right? You agree, I mean, Coach, you agree, right? Oh no. He has no business being a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Oh no. Oh my God, Joe is the best guy business being a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Oh, no. Oh, my God, Joe is the best guy. Just imagine, he's a Hall of Famer at catcher.

He's a Hall of Famer at catcher. He's a Hall of Famer at first base. Can they put him in twice? No. Can he be in there twice? I'm not saying he shouldn't be in, coach. I'm just saying first-ballot is reserved for special, special players.

You know what I'm talking about? He's not one of them. Like who? Like who? Like Babe Ruth. Okay. Roberto Clement. first ballad is reserved for special special players. You know what I'm talking about. He's not one of them like who like who like Babe Ruth. Roberto Clement. Okay, I'll give you that. He he might not be Babe Ruth. Thank you. Alright. Well, again, Stu is just badgering the coach. I've never had so many follow ups. Yes, you are. You're it's too is pounding me. I got Rocky wrong. I got I got Joe Mauer. No, I'm

trying to help you. Okay, next time. So what about Fran Tarkington? What about Fran Tarkington? Any thoughts? Not a first ballot Hall of Famer. See, I knew it. I knew it. No, I mean, did he win one? Does he have a ring? So you throw Namath in

with that too. Oh, the ring. No, Namath's overrated. I'm a Jets fan. He should not be in the Hall of Fame. He's terrible. Are you still a Jets fan this week? Yes, I am. All right. Let's terrible. Are you still a Jets fan this week? All right, let's let's just show him a picture of Eric Adams here and get coaches Reaction to just the b-roll here of Eric Adams wearing a Yankee cap. That is also a Mets cap

Tell me your honest opinions of what is happening there and don't go political on me. God, I don't know. I haven't seen that before. I don't use it. I think you just got to make a choice. This is kind of hard. I watch governors who have two teams in their state and they just make the choice on them. You take a little bit of political heat,

but these politicians go to like these state fairs and then they don't want to say which one's the best. It's obviously Minnesota state fair. And even though you lose votes in Iowa and Texas for saying that, you just say it. So I think Eric should just pick, and he's certainly not gonna pick the Mets, so he should just wear the Yankees.

Yeah. What do you? That would seem to me to be. Yeah, no, it's a good, it's a strong opinion, and I think most of us would land there. What do you say to criticism that your campaign has been too much about don't vote for that rather than making sure that everybody sees

a progressive path for the country through you and your party? Yeah, well, if folks say that, then we hear them, but I will tell you this, we've been out there. I think that is a fair thing to say. I think you have to underline what the other choices are. And in the case of Donald Trump, you know, he's told us who he is, believe him on that. But we've given a new way forward. We've laid out extensive plans. I rolled out a rural agenda that the vice president and our team put together that

I'm really proud of. These are things that people care about. If you don't live in a rural area, this issue of your rural hospitals and ambulance deserts and child care. Those things come up. People don't talk about these other things that, you know, get in the news. They talk about how am I going to find child care and what happens when I die on 9-1-1. And we've laid out plans on those. I think you do have a responsibility and we're doing it to give people a reason to vote for it. And this one is turn the page, new way forward, end the chaos, middle-class tax cuts, child-tier tax credit, middle class tax cuts, child tier tax credit, making housing more affordable, bringing down prices.

Those are things we're talking about. And I would challenge anybody in the media to show me what is Donald Trump's plan other than just a list of grievances. So this is a to-do list versus a grievance list. And I think that's a big difference. I saw a report here, US intelligence offices saying basically that Russians targeted you with some unfounded claims and also all over the place there's a bunch of unfounded including and this one seems like it would hurt stolen valor which of these has been most hurtful to see this era of misinformation cut

you well look if you're in this you um, you know what you're gonna get. I also said, don't forget, I supervise the high school lunchroom. I pretty much heard everything leveled at me. You know, Russian intelligence can't beat a ninth grader who's really angry with you, I don't think. But I will just be honest with you, uh, the integrity around this, I served 24 years honorably in service and, uh, and, and have a spotless record on that. Was a senior enlisted soldier in my battalion. And to see folks use a spotless record on that, was a senior enlisted soldier

in my battalion. And to see folks use this to kind of undermine that. I don't go out and stick it in people's faces. There's lots of ways to serve this country, but 24 years is a long time and to have a record. And the issue they're talking about, I'm talking about children being killed in our schools with weapons of war. And one incident, use the wrong word. I certainly am proud of what i've done i know what i've done but i think undermining that and then this you know the russian stuff or whatever of course they try and get as gross as possible uh i you just take it what it is you know the american people know who you are they know who i am and uh i think they know i'm

not a a serial liar like we've seen on the other side. So that that makes a difference. You're a hunter and Kamala and you had and have guns, but you've had your opinion shaped or changed by what happened or what your daughter came to you with after the Parkland shootings very near Stugatz's home. Yeah, well I think it's an evolution. I think you'd want your elected officials to do this. I grew up in a time, Dan, where we took our guns to school. This isn't something, you know, it's a different time, simpler. And after football practice, we'd go hunt because we're a town of 400. You know, we're just out doing that. The world has changed. And I think for me, setting with the Sandy Hook parents, and my son would been about the same age as theirs, those kids would have graduated last year, they'd be 19.

And there were all those little bodies piled up and shot in there with their teachers in their classroom with one of these weapons of war. Pretty hard to set in there when they, those parents are saying, can't you take a vote on background checks? Can't you take a vote on red flag laws? Can't you take a vote on these assault weapons?

And the answer is yes. And having my daughter, and I've mentioned, you know, I got a son who's in high school and they practice these drills. So look, you can protect the second amendment. Nothing we're proposing does anything on that. But our first responsibility is to those kids, these kids in the classroom.

And I think the vice president's been very clear about that. And I think, look, this thing polls like 80% the American public. This doesn't happen in other parts of the world the way it happens here. America can do something about this, and you can still have your firearms, your legal firearms, but we can make a big difference. – Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025. I'm guessing our listeners don't want to read a 900-page policy document, but its authors have tried to ban books about slavery, they want to privatize the weather forecasts, the weather, they want to ban porn.

What should scare the average young male apathetic voter about what it is that Trump really plans to do in office? Yeah, all these things. You may think right now that they're not coming after you when it's, you know, restricting women's rights to, you know, to reproductive care, but you're right on this. And what you view in your content as an adult, what you're able to read or whatever, these are folks that have a very specific idea that they think government should make all these decisions. Banning the Department of Education, rewriting this. Why would we ban books on slavery? It happened. You know, we're a big enough country, we can tell the story. You're never going to get beyond these things unless you understand where they were at.

But these are folks that have a very specific agenda. They believe that they should weaponize the Department of Justice. I mean, imagine they're saying enemies from within. I know I'm at the top of that list, but a lot of your viewers need to recognize they'll be on that list too. If they happen to believe that we should have weather forecasting, if you live in Miami, it might be a nice idea to know which, you know, a hurricane's coming because lives are at risk. These folks, and somebody asked, why do they want to privatize this or whatever? Because they want to deny climate change, because they want to deny we're doing, you know, we need to do something. So I think there's a whole bunch of things in there,

and young viewers should, this is about freedom. This is a really, you know, the juxtaposition between Donald Trump trying to talk about freedom when all they're trying to do is weaponize the federal government against your basic freedoms is really something to behold. And I think, you know, when Vice President Harris talked about freedom, she means you. You make decisions about your healthcare, your family, the choices, what you read, what movies you watch.

So I think it's a pretty clear choice, but that thing, yeah, they want to distance themselves because it's horrific, because nobody's asking for this agenda. Can you guys picture, they're telling us that the biggest issue a bunch of guys sitting around in a bar in Wisconsin is, you know, we should do, we should ban Orwell's books. You know, we should ban 1984. No one's saying that. They're like, how come I'm not getting paid more?

Where are the manufacturing jobs? How do I buy a house? And I don't want my kids to be shot. And I think listening to these guys talk about these things, nobody's asking for this crazy agenda. Coach, thank you for the time. I think you might have swayed down the middle, Chris, here. I think he's voting. I'm pro porn.

Yeah, pro porn. Excellent work by you guys. Hey, you do what you do. You be you. You be you is my thought. Coach, thank you for being on with us. I am mortified by my colleagues. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, guys. It was a pleasure.