Today, Explained - It's Tim Walz

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

The governor of Minnesota is Kamala Harris’s running mate. Minnesota Public Radio’s Dana Ferguson and Vox’s Andrew Prokop explain the Democratic ticket. This episode was produced by Peter Balonon-Rosen and Amanda Lewellyn, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Amina Al-Sadi, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram and Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Noelle, if you and I were running for president, who would be at the top of the ticket, you think? Wouldn't we both be at the top of the ticket? No, someone's got to be second banana. Oh, Veep. Someone's got to be Veep. Okay, are you old enough to be president? Thank you for that. I have so many grays, Noelle. More than me.

It's presidential. I'd die dyed mine. Okay, well, you're my pick for president. But the point of the matter is, Kamala made her pick today for Veep. Walls? Walls. Walls. Minnesota Governor Tim Walls.

Tim Walls. And you're going to Minnesota to talk to the Minnesotans? And you're going to the office to talk to Andrew Prokop. Let's do it. Today Explained. Love it. Great. That was good.

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If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It's Today Explained. Today is going to be explained to you. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King with Dana Ferguson. Dana is a senior political reporter at Minnesota Public Radio, MPR. Dana, tell us about Governor Tim Walz. Tell us everything we know about him.

He comes from a background of being a geography teacher. He grew up in rural Nebraska, and he talks about that quite a bit. So putting money into teaching our young people, it's where my family came from. My dad's parents were butchers. They were immigrants, and they owned a butcher shop in Tecama, Nebraska. He worked there for a while,

met his wife, Gwen Whipple. They got married and ended up coming back to Minnesota. That's where she is from and taught in southern Minnesota in a city called Mankato. Walls harkens back to a story about how he was at a political rally for then-President George W. Bush. He was with a group of students who had John Kerry apparel on, and they were asked to leave the rally, and he was deeply concerned about that. He thought that the students had a right to be there and to be part of the political process. That inspired him to run for Congress in southern Minnesota. He was able to win in a deep red district and serve there for more than 10 years

before deciding to run for governor. And what's his reputation, Minnesota? Who likes him? Who are his enemies? So he's had to go through some pretty difficult circumstances as a governor in his first term. He worked in divided government. At that time, the Senate was Republican-controlled. The House was Democratic-controlled. So he had to figure out compromise. He had to pass a budget that both Republicans and Democrats could agree to. That was a little bit difficult, but Republican leaders at the Capitol said they had a generally good working relationship with him during that time. But that changed during COVID.

The process of how we as a state and how we as a nation respond to these things is really important. There was a lot of disagreement, mostly on a partisan level, about how the state should aim to curb the spread of COVID. Republican leaders felt that he took too firm a stance and didn't let people make their own decisions. On the Republican side, he has not made a lot of friends, but I would say progressive folks here are big fans of the governor's. He was instrumental in passing many significant policy wins for them that they'd been working on for a long time in 2023. That includes free school meals, protections for abortion access and gender affirming care in Minnesota, paid family and medical leave, legalizing marijuana. So they point back to the policy gains that they made last year

and just say the country could be ready for a number of those on a federal scale. For four years, despite enormous headwinds and complicated politics, we did get a lot of good things done for the people of Minnesota. But now we have a new mandate for action, a chance to set aside the old fights in favor of doing something truly historic for our children and our grandchildren. This is a moment we have been building towards for a long time. Many people in the United States have not heard a ton about Tim Walz, but if we have heard about him, we've heard about him on guns. He's had

a real evolution in his thinking on guns and on gun control, and it is certainly something that Republicans will bring up with him now on the ticket. Can you walk us through how he's evolved here? Yeah, he was previously very strong on wanting folks to be able to have access to firearms. He was endorsed by the NRA. But since his time serving in Congress and really following the Parkland shooting, he has changed his tune. I'm a veteran and I'm a hunter. And for many years, I was one of the best shots in Congress and I got the dang trophies to prove it. I know guns as well as anyone, but I'm sick and tired of talking about that

because I'm not just a veteran, not just a hunter, not just a gun owner. I'm a father. And for many years, I was a teacher. And we all know damn well weapons of war have no place in our schools, in our churches, in our banks, or anyone wants to live in peace. And he's really come out strongly in support of more restrictions on firearms. The Democratic-led legislature and the governor were able to put in additional restrictions, red flag laws, stronger background checks for firearms, tougher penalties this year for folks who buy a gun and give it to someone who's not legally allowed to have one.

So he really has changed. When I first started in Congress, I had an A rating from the NRA. I have straight Fs now. I sleep just fine at night. He thinks that folks who own guns want to be safer about it. They are already locking up their firearms when they're not in use and trying to make sure they don't fall into hands of folks who aren't meant to have them. So in recent weeks, the governor's been credited with coming up with the weird line of attack, the idea that Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and their like are just strange people. These guys are just weird. That's where they are.

That is weird behavior. And I I don't think you call it anything else. Once again, it's weird. I don't want J.D. Vance talking about my family. I certainly don't want him talking about my daughter or my wife. I wonder what that tells us about him. So you could say, well, maybe he's a brilliant strategist, or you could say, well, maybe he's just a normal shoot-from-the-hip Midwesterner. What is your impression of Walls on this front, on the national front? I think it comes more from his background as a teacher. He does have a way of being just direct, concise. He likes to use these one-liners to make a point and kind of dig in on political adversaries. During COVID, he would give these updates and sort of lay out the strategy of what the state was going to do to address the problem.

And it was in a similar sort of teacher moment of just, here's what we're dealing with, here's what you need to know, and here's what we're going to do about it. So to me, it wasn't that surprising that he could find a term like weird and brand it this way, but apparently the country really took hold of it. And by the way, don't you find some of their stuff to just be plain weird? The country took hold of it and it offered the Democrats a very compelling line of attack. What else do you think he brings to the Harris ticket? I think that he'll be able to really communicate and connect with rural voters in a way that the vice president might not be able to. He talks quite a bit about having grown up in rural Nebraska and just small town issues that

she might not be quite as connected to. I think folks appreciate the fact that he has a background as a veteran serving in the National Guard. He is experienced having served in Congress as well as as a governor. So I think folks appreciate his diverse experiences coming into this position. You spent quite a bit of time in the past few weeks digging into governor walls. Are there any possible weaknesses for the campaign? Yeah. I think that folks, especially on Trump's side, will point to the governor's response to the riots stemming from George Floyd's murder. There are some that feel the governor didn't act quickly enough to call out the National Guard and the State Patrol to curb some of that.

He perhaps froze under pressure. They might point to a COVID-19 era program that was a federal program, but administered through the state here that was subject to widespread fraud. That's called Feeding Our Future. It was meant to help kids get meals during the pandemic, but a number of folks dipped into that money and misused it. They might also point to an arrest that he had decades ago in Nebraska for speeding, and he seemed to be driving under the influence. We've already seen that mugshot crop back up, so I would expect that he will speak about that. The Democrats seem to have realized that a lot of Americans are tired of dire existential negative politicking and are looking for a little bit of levity. It's the reason that Kamala Harris's laugh has not proved to be a problem for her, but instead something that people enjoy.

You know the governor. What do you expect to see from him in the next hundred days or so as he gets on the road and starts to campaign? I would expect to see him really getting out, talking to people. That's where he is the most charged up. He, as a former teacher and as a dad, he loves being around kids. So I could see appearances where they might be in a classroom or talking to families. He uses a lot of dad jokes. So don't be surprised when that comes around. And if he feels like he's got a good one, you're going to hear it more than once. What's his best dad joke?

Oh, wow. I might have to think about that and get back to you. There have been a lot of them over the years. Dana Ferguson, senior political reporter, Minnesota Public Radio. Sean, is that you? It's me. I'm here. We're going to Vox next. Coming up, Today Explained. Walls is the pick. Today Explained is the program. Andrew Prokop is now the guest.

Andrew, as we've heard the former president say, the VP pick doesn't really matter. But you'd never know that from, like, the last, I don't know, two weeks of intense speculation. Does this VP pick matter? The extent to which the VP pick matters for determining who will win this upcoming election is generally a little overstated. Now, of course, the VP pick matters a great deal in determining the future of the party doesn't guarantee anything. But obviously, Barack Obama's VP was Joe Biden, whose VP was Kamala Harris, and whose VP is now Tim Walz. So, you know, judging by past precedent, he has a pretty good shot at potentially running for the big job one day. But for now, he is a second banana.

So tell us how Tim Walz became Barack Obama's VP's VP's VP. Well, Harris started her search and it seemed to focus mostly on white Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. So many different kinds of white men. How did she choose the one? It's real diversity. So she basically watered down that list to a final showdown between Walsh and Josh Shapiro. Throughout this process, it has seemed to most observers, myself included, that Josh Shapiro was the more likely pick, simply because Pennsylvania is the single most important state on the electoral map. Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes. And when you run the different scenarios of how the election could go, it is very hard for Harris to win without Pennsylvania. So, you know, by crude electoral calculation, Shapiro would seem to be really the obvious pick.

He is a popular incumbent governor. He's been viewed as a political rising star. So what happened? The first thing that happened is that Walsh kind of unexpectedly went viral he went viral with his comments on msnbc calling republicans weird it was an interesting tonal shift from the democrats uh typical portrayal as donald trump as a terrifying threat to democracy uh it had a bit more of a light mockery to it so he got a lot of attention there. But as governor of Minnesota, he eventually won a trifecta.

Democrats in control of the whole state and passed a sweeping progressive agenda. But there are a lot of other governors who did similar things. And so it's a little unclear why the left became so hot on Waltz in particular, unless you understand the greater context around Shapiro. You're saying Waltz didn't just fall out of a coconut tree. Well, yes, yes, yes. He exists in the context of all which came before him, which is the fact that there was increasing resistance, opposition, and controversy within parts of the party around the idea of picking Josh Shapiro. This is for a few reasons. One is the

particularly divisive issue in democratic politics of Israel-Gaza. Shapiro has a long record of being pretty solidly supportive of Israel. He has evolved with other Democrats on this issue. He says nowadays, he says Benjamin Netanyahu is a terrible prime minister who should step down. But, you know, he was pretty tough on campus protesters. He has a long history and track record of saying things that are pretty strongly supportive of Israel at times in opposition to Palestinians. In 1993, Shapiro, then a 20-year-old student at the University of Rochester, wrote Palestinians and Israel could not peacefully coexist. Shapiro, who is Jewish, wrote in part, Palestinians, quote, do not have the capabilities to establish their own homeland and make it successful even with the aid of Israel and the United States. They are too

battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own, unquote. And so, you know, fairly or unfairly, it's not really clear how much his selection would mean for actual policy decisions, but he became sort of tarred with this and the anti-war faction of the party, which has been critical of Israel, decided they wanted to stop Shapiro from getting picked. There are a few other issues that came up. Shapiro had supported a school choice bill in Pennsylvania that teachers unions didn't like. Eventually, because of pressure from them, he ended up vetoing that bill. But that ended up kind of pleasing nobody because now the unions were still mad he let it get that far. And the school choice people were now mad that he

chickened out at the end. Further, there were a couple of scandals specific to him that were starting to get some media attention. His chief of staff in the Pennsylvania governor's office, there was an allegation of sexual misconduct, claims about a possible cover-up. And there was also an old case that he had some role in overseeing at the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office. This involved a young woman being dying with many stab wounds in what was initially ruled a suicide, but her family insists it was murder. And there's a cover up and articles were being written about this. And, you know, I tend to think that we don't know why Harris made her decision, but I tend to think that we don't know why Harris made her decision. But I tend to think that all these things kind of piled up. And at the last minute, it just seemed like too much. And it seemed like picking waltz would make her coalition happy. And in the end, that is what

she chose to do. In doing so, did she potentially sacrifice Pennsylvania or sacrifice an easier path to Pennsylvania? Or is there no way to know? I think there's no way to know. There's been a lot written about how VP picks don't actually make a difference. But when you look at the history a little more closely, it's very rare for a presidential candidate to actually pick a popular incumbent governor from a very important swing state as their running mate. It hasn't happened in decades. People keep making their VP picks for other reasons, like Harris apparently did this time around. So, you know, people say there's little evidence that he could have delivered Pennsylvania. I think that's fair to say. Obviously, if she ends up losing this

election because of Pennsylvania, there are going to be some pretty serious second thoughts about this choice. There's a lot to dislike about J.D. Vance. I love you guys. It feels like Democrats are having a lot of fun going after him based on his positions, based on some potentially extreme viewpoints he holds. What strategy do you think Republicans are going to take against Walsh? So we're starting to see early signs of this. I think they're not sure yet, just like they're not really sure how to attack Harris yet. But the thing I've seen that has caught on most so far is that they are blaming Walsh for being governor during the tumult of 2020 and the George Floyd protests, which hit Minnesota particularly hard.

There's like circulating pictures of buildings burning down and saying, you know, this is Tim Walz's Minnesota. This is what he wants to bring to America. Every voter in Minnesota needs to know that when the violent mobs of anarchists and looters and Marxists came to burn down Minneapolis four years ago, remember me? I couldn't get your governor to act. He's supposed to. of waltz by harris is also a sign that the democratic party remains captured by the left fearful of offending the left and and deferential to the left we're gonna be seeing a lot of this dude for the next four months three three my god sorry starting tonight in ph Philadelphia, what is the Harris-Walls campaign strategy moving forward, you think, other than, you know, Project 2025, weirdos, extremists, whatever? and that waltz particularly has embraced they want to argue that democrats want to make people's lives better to help people waltz talks a lot about the universal free school lunch and breakfast bill that he passed in minnesota last year and you know that's the sort of thing he he wants to say

we just want to help people we want to do common sense things to make people's lives better in contrast to these bizarre Republicans who are obsessed with their own personal feuds and culture wars. And we don't want to play that game. We want to we want to help you. We care about people like you. And so I think that is what they're trying to go for. And whether it works, of course, a different question. Andrew Prokop, Vox.com. Today's episode was produced by Peter Balanon-Rosen and Amanda Llewellyn. It was edited by Matthew Collette. And fact-checking was a team effort led by Amina El-Sadi. We were mixed by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christen's daughter. I am Sean Ramos from You Are... Noelle King.

It's Today Explained. Boom, bang, bam. That's it. We did it, Joe. We did it, Joe.