WSJ What’s News - Who Is Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ Pick for Vice President?

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

P.M. Edition for Aug. 6. Presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris taps Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in the 2024 presidential election. WSJ reporter Ken Thomas breaks down his political record. And markets stabilized after Monday’s losses, but investors remain braced for more turbulence. Plus, reporter Annie Linskey explains how weakness in the U.S. economy could weigh on the Harris campaign. Francesca Fontana hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Mazda. When you drive a Mazda, you'll find out why RSUVs won more 2024 IIHS top safety picks than any other brand as of June 2024. Find out what makes Mazda different at Mazda.ca. Kamala Harris has a running mate. We take a look at her pick for vice president, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, and what he brings to the ticket. Walz helps neutralize J.D. Vance's appeal to rural voters, especially those voters in the Midwest, some of the states that will help determine the election. And after yesterday's markets meltdown and broader recession fears, how will shocks in the economy affect the Harris campaign? Plus, what Google's loss in its federal antitrust case means for Silicon Valley. It's Tuesday, August 6th.

I'm Francesca Fontana for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. The VP has her VP. Presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate in the 2024 presidential election. In a fundraising text message sent to supporters today, Harris called Walls a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families.

So who is Tim Walls? A two-term governor and current chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, he wasn't widely known outside of Minnesota until recently. Our WSJ White House reporter Ken Thomas has more. Tim Walls is now in his second term as Minnesota governor. He's had a long career in public service. He served for 12 years as a congressman representing a largely rural district in Minnesota. Before that he was a public school teacher. He taught social studies and he also served in the Army Reserves. So he

has an extensive background in public service and many of his supporters note that before he entered politics he had a completely different career doing roles that many Americans can relate to such as being a school teacher. Ken says that as a running mate for Harris, Walls could be especially helpful in the battleground states of Wisconsin, where he's well known in some regions, and Michigan, which has some economic and cultural similarities to Minnesota. Tim Walls is a proven winner among rural voters, and he's been very successful in Minnesota, which is a state that Republicans are trying to put onto the battleground map.

In all likelihood, Minnesota should be in the Democratic column, especially with Walls's role in the ticket now. But he's viewed as an asset in the upper Midwest, so states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. You should expect to see Tim Walls campaigning in some of those upper Midwest battleground states as a result of his time as governor and a congressman in Minnesota. His strength with rural voters as well as his Midwestern background makes Walz a formidable opponent to former President Donald Trump's running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. Walls helps neutralize J.D. Vance's appeal to rural voters, especially those voters in the Midwest, some of the states that will help determine the election.

Walls has been able to win in largely Republican areas, so he's viewed as somebody who could help neutralize Vance's role on the Republican ticket. Speaking of Trump and Vance, Walls gained some newfound internet celebrity recently for hitting at the pair during various interviews on MSNBC and CNN. And for introducing a new word to the political meme lexicon. Yeah, they're weird. And I am not changing that. I see Donald Trump talking about the wonderful Hannibal Lecter or whatever weird thing he's

on tonight. That is weird behavior. Ken Thomas says that Walls does have some vulnerabilities in his political record. As governor, Walls oversaw Minnesota's response to the widespread unrest following the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer in 2020. I'm authorizing and talking to General Jensen to fully mobilize the Minnesota National Guard, an action that has never been taken in the 164-year history of the Minnesota National Guard.

That was walls at the time on MSNBC. But as Ken Thomas says, the governor faced criticism that he didn't do enough. He faced some criticism that he did not act quickly enough to quell some of the violence that we saw on the streets of the city. There was criticism that he didn't quickly bring in the National Guard to restore order. In the aftermath of the Floyd killing, he pushed for a number of police reforms through the state legislature, and he was ultimately successful in getting some of those reforms through the legislature. legislature and he was ultimately successful in getting some of those reforms through the legislature. Walls is known as a liberal policymaker.

As Governor Walls has overseen a progressive agenda that is in some ways the model for a number of states, he helped get through a program to provide universal school meals for children. He was supportive of codifying abortion rights. He helped get through universal background checks to push back against gun violence. He was supportive of the legalization of recreational marijuana and he was viewed as somebody who was very progressive on climate change, the environment, and also in promoting infrastructure spending.

Trump's campaign in a statement suggested the selection represented a doubling down on progressivism. J.D. Vance, who's scheduled this week to make stops in many of the places Harris and Wall's plan to go, told reporters traveling on his campaign plane that he left Wall's a congratulatory message after the announcement. And criticizing Wall's policies, he said, This is a guy who's proposed shipping more manufacturing jobs to China, who wants to make the American people more reliant on garbage energy instead of good American energy.

Coming up, how trouble in the economy could weigh on the Harris campaign. That's after the break. A stock rebound in today's session still left investors bracing for more turbulence after yesterday's dramatic sell-off. Stocks rallied across industries and Wall Street's fear gauge, the Sebo Volatility Index, aka VIX, dropped 28 percent, its biggest decline since 2010, according to Dow Jones market data. All told, the S&P 500 gained 1 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.8% or about 294 points, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq

Composite rose 1%. This market volatility, along with recession fears, could reinforce voters' views that the American economy is on shaky ground, which would spell trouble for the Kamala Harris campaign. Here to discuss the economy's role in the 2024 election is White House reporter Annie Winsky. Annie, what does yesterday's markets crash mean for Kamala Harris and her campaign? Donald Trump has had a series of really difficult news cycles since Joe Biden dropped out of

the race. But when the markets crashed, it became a moment where the Trump campaign could focus on an issue where Democrats are typically soft. And so yesterday, Trump was immediately on social media posting over and over and over again about how this is, quote unquote, Kamala's crash, blaming this market sell off on Kamala Harris. And in the immediate term, it's hard to see how she personally triggered this massive sell-off. But what he's doing is he's associating a volatile economy with her. Why is Harris and her campaign so vulnerable to economic uncertainty here?

Voters have a memory of the Trump presidency and the economy, and their memory is much more positive than their feelings of the economy over the last three and a half years. Trump did not have to contend with the inflation that Biden and Harris had to contend with. So there's a very real anxiety that voters have over the economy over the last three years. They have largely associated that with Biden. And what the Trump campaign's job is to do is to make sure that voters are also associating that with Kamala Harris. Even if this current

market downturn passes, voters still have this backdrop of economic uncertainty to contend with, and so does Harris. What are her campaign's options between now and November? How can she gain background? So you had one really terrible day. We don't really have crystal balls here. We can't read into the future. You don't want to have one bad event sort of tell you what direction the economy is pointed in. And what can Harris do? Well, she and her campaign have made a point of saying, look,

they're going to continue to talk about the economy and they are going to try to say that Donald Trump's economy benefited the wealthy and pushed this idea that Trump is mostly interested in helping the super rich. And the other piece that Harris is interested in doing is to look at some of the plans that Trump has said that he would enact if he got another four years. So she is going on offense on this topic, but what she hasn't done so far is put out her own economic plan and say, this is what I would do if I were president of the United States. That was WSJ White House reporter Annie Linsky. Now what's your take on the U.S. economy? Economic data says inflation is coming down, but it still might not always feel like it. From food to housing,

health care to utilities, what costs that are a big part of your budget are still going up? Which aren't. And overall, how confident are you that your overall situation is going to get better? Send a voice memo to wnpod at wsj.com or leave a voicemail with your name and location at 212-416-4328. We might use it on the show. Google's loss in a historic US antitrust trial, which we've been talking about on the show,

is reverberating across Silicon Valley, and it stands to reshape the search and mobile industries. According to the federal judges' ruling, Google parent Alphabets deals to get its search engine in front of users, by paying to be the default on browsers and mobile phones, are illegal. If Google doesn't successfully appeal yesterday's ruling, the landscape will change for a search industry long dominated by one company and for partners they've shared in its plentiful advertising sales. Miles Krupa, WSJ's Google and Alphabet reporter, spoke to WSJ's tech news briefing podcast. Google pays on the order of $20 billion a year

in advertising revenue to Apple to be the default search engine in Safari web browser and Apple devices when you take them out of the box. And what people think is most likely web browser and Apple devices that's also subject to some uncertainty is maybe Apple will have to start offering what we call a choice screen. So when you open up your iPhone or you open up your web browser, you'll be presented with a few different options of search engines and you'll have to pick which one you want to be the default instead of having it selected for you. That was WSJ Reporter Miles Krupa. And you can hear more about the effect of that ruling on tomorrow's Tech News Briefing

podcast. And that's What's News for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Anthony Bansi and Pierre Bienamé with supervising producer Michael Kassmitis. I'm Francesca Fontana for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.