Tim Walz

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      ‘Let’s kick ass!’: Hollywood celebrities share their support of Tim Walz

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      Hollywood figures, including Julianne Moore and Rob Reiner, have shared their support for Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz.The 60-year-old Minnesota governor was announced as the running mate of Harris, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, on Tuesday after weeks of speculation.The decision was praised on social media by stars such as Cynthia Nixon, best known for her role in Sex and the City and her unsuccessful campaign to be governor of New York. “I’m Walzing on air,” she wrote while thanking Harris.Film-maker and Democratic fundraiser Rob Reiner, who had called on Joe Biden to step down in early July, reposted a montage of Walz and then later wrote: “Harris/Walz. Let’s kick ass!”Paul Feig, director of Bridesmaids and The Heat, also shared his support, writing that he was “so happy” about the decision while sharing his Saturday Night Live dream casting. “If only Chris Farley was still around to play him opposite Maya Rudolph’s Kamala,” he wrote.Acclaimed documentary film-maker Ken Burns, who has previously warned against Donald Trump, reposted a tweet from Walz, adding his support. “You can’t go wrong with a social studies teacher,” he wrote. “Excited to have @Tim_Walz on the ticket. Good to have someone who knows American history.”Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, who thanked the president for his “leadership, grace under pressure, strength and resilience” after he withdrew from the race, shared a picture of Harris and Walz, with the tagline: “LET’S GO AMERICA!” The same image was also shared by fellow Oscar winner Julianne Moore who wrote: “This is such exciting news! I cannot wait to vote for this ticket.”John Cusack, who had called for Biden to step down, expressed confidence over the decision in a post. “It’s no absolute guarantee dems win – but absolutely gives us the best chance,” he wrote.Wonder Woman actor Lynda Carter referred to Walz as “a champion who understands America” while Abbott Elementary star Sheryl Lee Ralph called him “an honest, forthright family man with morals and true values”.In a statement announcing Walz as her choice, Harris wrote: “As a governor, a coach, a teacher and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. We are going to build a great partnership.” More

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      The Tim Walz cheat sheet: 10 things to know about Harris’s VP pick

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      In Kamala Harris’s “veepstakes” – the search for a running mate to take on Donald Trump and JD Vance – the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, came from relative obscurity to seize the glittering prize. So who is he and what should you know about him?He’s ‘Minnesota nice’According to the Star Tribune, the well-known phrase refers to “Minnesotans’ tendency to be polite and friendly, yet emotionally reserved; our penchant for self-deprecation and unwillingness to draw attention to ourselves; and, most controversially, our maddening habit of substituting passive-aggressiveness for direct confrontation”. Most of that holds true for Walz, 60, who was born in Nebraska but whose cheerful and friendly demeanour has made him popular in office and even seems to make his political attack lines more effective, as when he went after Donald Trump and JD Vance for being “weird”, the gambit that propelled him into the reckoning to be running mate to Harris.He’s not that ‘Minnesota nice’Walz was a high school football coach, a profession known for displaying and encouraging aggression – active rather than passive at that. For more than a decade at Mankato West high school, Walz was defensive coordinator, working out how to best tackle and silence opposing attackers. As he told Pod Save America this year, when he arrived, the school had lost 27 games in a row. “We said, ‘This is nonsense. Let’s turn this thing around.’ Three years later we were state champions, and now they’re a powerhouse.”He was a sergeant in the national guardWalz spent 24 years in the national guard, out of Nebraska, and then Minnesota. As reported by Stars and Stripes, he enlisted as an infantryman at 17, encouraged by his father, a Korean war veteran, then put himself through college on the GI bill. Re-enlisting after 9/11, Walz deployed during natural disasters on US soil and to Italy in support of operations in Afghanistan.In 2005, Walz retired as a command sergeant major in the artillery – and faced criticism for leaving as his battalion prepared to go to Iraq. In comments publicised by the US army as Covid struck, Walz, the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever voted into Congress, said: “In the guard, you put your community first. Everything you do, you do to ensure the health, safety and security of the people who are depending on you. And as governor, those are principles of servant leadership that I rely on every day.”He’s good at winning electionsWalz was a high school social studies teacher – and adviser to LGBTQ+ students – until, in 2006, he beat a Republican incumbent in a rural area to win a seat in Congress. After six terms in the US House, he ran for governor of Minnesota in 2018. He won that race, against the Republican Jeff Johnson, by 11 points. First-term challenges included the response to Covid-19, imposing and maintaining lockdowns and school and business closures, and the fallout from the police murder of George Floyd, an epochal event that made Minneapolis both the focus of worldwide protests for racial justice and the site of serious rioting. Running for re-election in 2022, against Scott Jensen, Walz won comfortably again.He’s popular with progressivesOn defeating Jensen, Walz told Minnesotans they had “made a conscious choice … to reject negative, divisive politics and choose the whole path of each and every one of us to be the best we possibly can”. On Tuesday, campaigners saluting Harris’s choice of running mate emphasised Walz’s progressive achievements. NextGen Pac, a youth-led group, said Walz had passed “significant legislation … that protects our rights, fights for climate justice, and builds a stronger economy for everyday people … enshrining abortion rights, establishing paid sick and family leave, enacting a nation-leading child tax credit, and signing 40 climate initiatives into law”.Walz has also overseen significant gun control reform, a notable achievement from a politician once endorsed by the National Rifle Association who was encouraged by his daughter to come out in favour of an assault weapons ban, after a series of school shootings.He enrages RepublicansThe announcement that Harris had picked Walz was greeted with predictable rightwing attacks. Foreshadowing Vance’s invective in Philadelphia at lunchtime, the Republican National Committee called Walz “a far-left radical … weak on border security” (presumably the southern border, hundreds of miles from Minnesota, rather than its northern one with Canada), and slammed him for supporting universal healthcare, taxation to pay for such measures, and abortion and voting rights. Walz, the RNC said, is also “extremely woke … a climate radical who wants to phase out fossil fuels” and “soft on crime”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Republican National Committee also highlighted a remark in which Walz discussed the Minnesota electoral map in terms familiar both to students of national politics and those engaged by his folksy attacks on Trump and Vance: “You see those maps,” Walz said in Minneapolis in 2017. “Red and blue and there’s all that red across there. And Democrats go into depression over it. It’s mostly rocks and cows that are in that red area.”He’s a family manWalz’s wife, Gwen Walz, is a public school teacher like her husband and also a prominent campaigner for educational reform, in particular a champion of improving education in prisons as a means of reducing reoffending. Gwen Walz is also the mother of two children, Hope, 23, and Gus, 17, born with the help of in vitro fertilisation, or IVF – treatment under threat from Republicans and rightwing Christians seeking further victories after the removal of federal abortion rights. “If you have never personally gone through the hell of infertility, I guarantee you someone you know has,” Walz said in March, during his state of the state address.Walz’s children have appeared with him in public. At the Minnesota state fair last year, he told Hope, a vegetarian, she could have a turkey corn dog. “Turkey is meat,” Hope said.“Not in Minnesota,” her dad said. “Turkey’s special.”He knows a bit about ChinaThanks to a Harvard-run program, Walz taught in China for a year – it happened to be 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square protests and brutal government crackdown – and as a result he speaks some Mandarin. In 1994, he and Gwen spent their honeymoon in China, on a trip they had arranged for a group of students. According to Gwen Walz’s official state biography, the couple continued to arrange such trips through 2003.He doesn’t drinkIn September 1995, when he was 31, Walz was stopped while driving at 96mph in a 55mph zone. Having failed a sobriety test, he pleaded guilty to a charge of reckless driving and paid a $200 fine. Walz has acknowledged the incident and said he no longer drinks. His preferred tipple is Diet Mountain Dew – coincidentally, also favored by Vance, the Republican pick for vice-president.His name is a mystery to someIs it “Waltz”, as in the dance, or “Walls”, as in the things that hold up roofs, or even “Wal-tz” as in Walmart? Turns out it’s “Waalls”, as in “Walls” but with a slightly longer “a”. He says it that way himself. More

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      The coach v the couch: key takeaways from the first Harris-Walz rally

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      Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to supporters at a packed, energetic rally at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The event, which kicks off a week-long tour through the most politically competitive US states, marks a new chapter for the Harris campaign after securing enough delegates to be the Democratic nominee.Here’s what you need to know:Harris sought to define Walz foremost as a teacher, veteran and football coachHarris called Walz the “kind of teacher and mentor that every child in America dreams of having”. She told a story about him agreeing to lead his school’s gay-straight alliance, knowing “the signal it would send to have a football coach get involved”.Harris also spoke of his skills as a marksman and his views on the second amendment. And finally, she talked at length about Walz’s time in the army national guard and his service to the country.Walz focused on a unifying, future-focused messageWalz, who like Harris is known for his smile, started his speech by saying: “Thank you for the trust you put in me, but more so, thank you for bringing back the joy.” He then spoke about growing up in the “heartland”, respecting neighbors, and his family of educators, attempting to differentiate the ticket from Donald Trump and JD Vance’s focus on mass deportation and crime.“If Donald Trump and JD Vance are irritated that Kamala Harris smiles and laughs, they’re really going to be irritated by Tim Walz,” Melissa Hortman, the Democratic speaker of Minnesota’s house of representatives, told the Guardian.’Mind your own damn business’: Walz attacked the Trump-Vance ticket with a focus on reproductive rights and other freedomsWalz talked about his daughter Hope, who often appears in videos and photographs with her father, being born through IVF, and Republican attacks on contraception and abortion. Abortion opponents have been increasingly pushing for broader measures that would give rights and protections to embryos and fetuses, which could have big implications for fertility treatments.He also spoke about gun control, a tenet of the Harris campaign, saying he supported the second amendment but that children should have the freedom to go to school without the concern of school shootings.Walz made a direct hit at Project 2025, the conservative manifesto created by Trump allies and advisers. “Don’t believe him when he plays dumb,” he said of the former president. “He knows exactly what Project 2025 will to do restrict our freedoms.”He encapsulated his idea in another sticky colloquialism to counter Republicans hoping to intervene in medical practices and schools: “Mind your own damn business.”Josh Shapiro, who had been a vice-presidential contender, still made his markThe Pennsylvania governor who was also in the final running to be Harris’s running mate, spoke before Harris and Walz. His pitch-perfect and fiery speech helped set the tone for the rally, and he threw his support behind the newly announced ticket.Shapiro and Walz’s speeches also made the distinction between the two politicians clear. Shapiro has been described as Obama-like in his polished and forceful delivery. Meanwhile, Walz, whose speech spanned dad jokes and pointed attacks on his opponents, seasoned his remarks with midwestern dialect, adding a “damn well” here and a “come on” there. “Say it with me! We are not going back,” he said, starting a chant from the audience. “We’ve got 91 days. My god, that’s easy,” he said. “We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”The couch joke was madeWalz said his GOP rival, Trump’s running mate JD Vance, and Trump “are creepy and yes, they’re weird as hell”. He added that he “can’t wait to debate the guy”, speaking of Vance. Then, to sustained cheers and laughter, he made a reference to the baseless, but much-shared claim, that Vance admitted to having sex with a couch in his memoir. “That is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up”.Stumping earlier today in Pennsylvania, Vance said: “I absolutely want to debate Tim Walz,” but not until after the Democratic convention, he said, because of the sudden change in the Democratic ticket. More

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      ‘I feel ecstatic’: Harris and VP pick Tim Walz fire up Philadelphia rally-goers

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      At Kamala Harris’s first rally since announcing Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, the room at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was ebullient, filled with thousands of voters cheering and waving Harris-Walz signs.“I feel ecstatic,” said Joseph Alston, a 69-year-old West Norriton Democratic committee member. Last week, he campaigned for Harris by knocking on doors and handing out flyers in the nearby King of Prussia area. People who he spoke to said that they were committed to vote against Donald Trump. “They don’t want him anywhere near the White House,” Alston said.Voters at the Tuesday rally were split in their opinions about Harris’s decision to pass over Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor who was on the shortlist of vice-presidential candidates. Still, they reaffirmed their vow to support Harris and to ensure that Trump isn’t elected again.“For me, it was always going to be Harris and whoever her running mate was going to be,” said Torri Green, a 35-year-old photographer from Philadelphia. “There’s too much at stake.”Outside of the event, Green had stood in line with thousands of people waiting to enter. If Harris is elected president, Green said she hopes that teachers will get paid more and that reproductive rights will be protected. Casting a vote for Harris in November is a no-brainer for her, she said: “I appreciate her as a person and the light that she brings.”“I feel so good,” said Patricia Bai about supporting Harris as the Democratic nominee. The caregiver from Liberia will vote in a presidential election for the first time after recently becoming a US citizen. “If [Harris] becomes president tomorrow,” Bai said, “she will implement policies that would put us in the right place.”Bill Haggett, a 72-year-old former health executive, said that he appreciated that Walz made school meals free for all Minnesota students, and he was curious to see if Walz’s accomplishments in Minnesota would be scalable nationwide.View image in fullscreenIn the eyes of Andrew Cambron, a 34-year-old teacher from Delaware, Walz was the best option for Harris’s running mate, since he’s “the kind of guy who resonates with the center of the country”. Cambron added that he wanted to see a broader investment in public education and to see Harris get behind universal healthcare.“We finally have a progressive on the Democratic ticket,” Cambron said about Walz, “which hasn’t really happened since Obama in 2012.” Shapiro would have been a terrible choice, said Cambron, who disagreed with Shapiro’s pro-Israel stance and his efforts to quash pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.During the presidential primaries, more than 700,000 voters cast uncommitted ballots or the equivalent to express their dissatisfaction with Joe Biden’s support of Israel’s war on Gaza. The Uncommitted National Movement has stated that it’s waiting to hear from Harris on her Gaza policies before agreeing to endorse her. But following Harris’s Tuesday announcement about Walz, the group released a statement saying that they hope he will help change course on Gaza policy.“Governor Walz has demonstrated a remarkable ability to evolve as a public leader, uniting Democrats diverse coalition to achieve significant milestones for Minnesota families of all backgrounds,” Elianne Farhat, senior advisor at Uncommitted and executive director of Take Action Minnesota, a political advocacy group, said in a statement. “As Harris’s vice-presidential pick, it’s crucial he continues this evolution by supporting an arms embargo on Israel’s war and occupation against Palestinians in an effort to unite our party to defeat authoritarianism in the fall.”Shapiro, who spoke before introducing Harris and Walz at Tuesday’s rally, affirmed his support of the Democratic nominee, exclaiming that she is “battle tested and ready to go”. He spoke of the danger of Trump becoming president again, citing the statement coined by Walz: “He’s a weirdo.”Harris entered the stage shortly afterward. “Together with Josh Shapiro, we will win Pennsylvania,” she said to applause.Cherelle Parker, Philadelphia’s mayor, also spoke in support of Harris at Tuesday’s rally. As the first Black woman mayor in the city’s history, Parker acknowledged that the event was “history-making”.“We are on the cusp of electing our vice-president Kamala Harris to be the 47th president of the United States,” Parker said as the crowd erupted. “Don’t let Trump the trickster take our eyes off the prize.” More

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      Tim Walz to join Kamala Harris for the first time on the campaign trial in Philadelphia – live

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      The rally will mark Walz’s first official campaign appearance since Harris selected him as her running mate earlier today, and for Walz will serve as an introduction to the country.“I couldn’t be prouder to be on this ticket, and to help make Kamala Harris the next president of the United States,” he is expected to say, according to the campaign, which shared excerpts from his prepared remarks.The Minnesota governor will share about his upbringing in Butte, Nebraska – a small town of 400 – as well as his experiences as a teacher and an elected official.“I am more optimistic than ever before,” Shapiro said – capturing a truly dizzying vibe shift among Democrats over the past two weeks.In Philadelphia, Shapiro also referenced the city’s history as the birthplace of American independence.“In Independence Hall, just a couple miles from here, nearly two and a half centuries ago,” Shapiro said, the founders declared independence from the British crown. “They came together to declare our independence from a king and we’re not going back to a king,” he said.An riled-up crowd is now chanting “He’s a weirdo” – referencing Tim Walz’s now iconic characterizations of Donald Trump and JD Vance.“Tim Walz, in his beautiful midwestern plainspoken way, he summed up JD Vance the best. He’s a weirdo,” Shapiro said, encouraging the crowd.Earlier, Senator John Fetterman had referenced the same, effectively pithy insult.“This election is about moving our country forward with Vice-President Harris and Governor Walz. Or a couple of really, really, really, really weird dudes,” Fetterman said.” “And look, I gotta tell you, I work with JD Vance … and I’m here to confirm that he is a seriously weird dude.”“Let me tell you about my friend Kamala Harris, someone I’ve been friends with for two decades,” Shapiro said. “She is courtroom tough. She has a big heart and she is battle tested and ready to go.”Shapiro is speaking to a riled-up crowd. “Not going back! Not going back!” the crowd chanted, as he brought up Donald Trump’s record.“It was more chaos, fewer jobs and less freedom,” Shapiro said.“I love you Philly!” Shapiro began. ““I love being your governor. You all fill my heart and I love you so much.”Shapiro was considered a frontrunner for Harris’s running mate, along with Walz.The rally will mark Walz’s first official campaign appearance since Harris selected him as her running mate earlier today, and for Walz will serve as an introduction to the country.“I couldn’t be prouder to be on this ticket, and to help make Kamala Harris the next president of the United States,” he is expected to say, according to the campaign, which shared excerpts from his prepared remarks.The Minnesota governor will share about his upbringing in Butte, Nebraska – a small town of 400 – as well as his experiences as a teacher and an elected official.At the Liacouras Center at Temple University in Philadelphia, crowds are filing in for a packed rally.Sisters Stephanie Ford, 54, and Diane Harris, 59, said they wouldn’t have believed it if someone told them one month ago they’d be at a rally to support the first Black woman to lead a major party’s presidential ticket.Harris – no relation to the vice-president – danced excitedly. She hadn’t seen people this excited to vote since Barack Obama in 2008. “It’s hope and change and newness,” she said. Ford, who runs a coffee shop, said she saw some of her customers in line on the way in.Both said they were hoping Harris picked their governor, Josh Shapiro, to be her running mate. “I was hoping it was him,” Ford said, as her sister nodded. “But now we get to keep him for ourselves.”Neither had heard much about the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, who Harris announced on Tuesday would be her running mate. But they both said they liked what they were learning about him, especially what he’s done to help children in the state.“I trust her judgement,” said Harris. “It was a win-win for us.”Soon, Harris and Walz will appear together at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, which thousands of people are lining up to attend.On Instagram Live, progressive representative Alexandra Ocasio Cortez said that Walz has helped unify Democrats.“It’s really kind of nuts,” she said. “I am trying to think about the last time Senator Manchin and I, respectfully, were on the same side of an issue.”Walz is hardly a leftist. But in Minnesota, progressives who’ve clashed with him on policy issues are nonetheless rooting for him, my colleague Rachel Leingang reported:
      Elianne Farhat, the executive director of TakeAction MN, said she and her organization had disagreed deeply with Walz over the years, but that he was a person who will move and change his position based on feedback. He evolves.
      She and others pointed to his position on guns. Walz is a gun owner and a hunter who previously received endorsements and donations from the National Rifle Association and had an A rating from the group. But he shifted: he gave donations from the group to charity after the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017, and he supported an assault weapons ban after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida. While governor, he has signed bills into law that restrict guns. He now has an F rating from the NRA.
      ‘We’re not electing our saviors. We’re not electing perfect people. We’re electing people who we can make hard decisions with, we can negotiate with, and who are serious about getting things done for people. And Governor Walz has shown that pretty strongly the last couple years as governor of Minnesota,’ Farhat said.
      The Harris campaign said it has raised more than $10m from grassroots supporters since announcing Tim Walz as the vice-president’s running mate.The campaign released a video of Harris calling Walz to ask him to be her running mate.Here is where this eventful day in US politics stands so far:

      The Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, has selected Tim Walz as her running mate. Walz, the governor of Minnesota, and Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, were reportedly the two finalists in Harris’s search for a running mate.

      Harris and Walz will soon appear at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, marking their first joint event since the running mate announcement. After the Philadelphia rally, Harris and Walz are scheduled to appear at a series of events in battleground states across the country in the coming days.

      Harris said she chose Walz because of his “convictions on fighting for middle-class families”. “We are going to build a great partnership,” Harris said on Instagram. “We are going to build a great team. We are going to win this election.”

      Walz thanked Harris for “the honor of a lifetime” by choosing him. “I’m all in,” Walz said on X. “Vice President Harris is showing us the politics of what’s possible. It reminds me a bit of the first day of school. So, let’s get this done, folks!”

      Republicans attacked Walz as extreme, while Democrats praised him as a down-to-earth leader who can achieve change. “Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. But Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic House speaker, rejected that characterization. “He’s right down the middle,” Pelosi told MSNBC. “He’s a heartland-of-America Democrat.”

      Meanwhile, Donald Trump will participate in a “major interview” with billionaire and X owner Elon Musk on Monday, the former president announced in a social media post. The announcement comes one week after Trump’s calamitous interview at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists, where he questioned Kamala Harris’s race.
      The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.Hello from the Liacouras Center at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Kamala Harris will debut the freshly formed Democratic ticket later this afternoon.The line to enter wrapped around the university for blocks, and supporters braved a downpour and some sticky summer weather to get inside.There was plenty of excitement among the crowd. Spotted on my way in: several students wearing chartreuse-colored “Kamala is Brat” shirts. Another woman wore a shirt with the play on words “About Madam time” to celebrate the possibility of sending the first woman to the White House.Donald Trump will participate in a “major interview” with billionaire and X owner Elon Musk on Monday, the former president announced in a social media post.“ON MONDAY NIGHT I’LL BE DOING A MAJOR INTERVIEW WITH ELON MUSK — Details to follow!” Trump wrote in a post shared to Truth Social.The announcement comes one week after Trump’s calamitous interview at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists, where he questioned Kamala Harris’ race.The NABJ interview was initially supposed to be an hour long, but it ended after just 34 minutes, as the audience jeered many of Trump’s responses. He will likely face an easier audience with Musk.Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, was having some fun at Republicans’ expense this afternoon, after Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her running mate.Some Republicans have accused Harris of passing over Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, for the running mate spot because of his Jewish faith. If chosen, Shapiro could have become the first Jewish American to serve as vice president.The rightwing commentator Erick Erickson said on X, “No Jews allowed at the top of the Democratic Party.”Schumer, who is the first Jewish American to lead the Senate as majority leader, responded to Erickson by saying: “News to me.”Democrats also note that Harris is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, who could become the first Jewish spouse of a US president if the party wins the White House in November.Kamala Harris’s campaign has released a new video introducing Tim Walz to the country, as most Americans are not yet familiar with the Minnesota governor.The video, which is narrated by Walz, recounts his upbringing in Nebraska and his decision to join the national guard before he became a teacher and eventually a lawmaker.The video, as well as Walz’s scheduled campaign appearances in battleground states over the coming days, will provide many Americans with their first impression of Harris’s new running mate. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll showed that only 13% of Americans knew enough about Walz to register an opinion of him.Here is the full transcript of the video:
      Sometimes life is as much about the lessons you learn as the lessons you teach.
      Where I grew up, community was a way of life.
      My high school class was 24 people.
      I was related to half of them.
      I learned to be generous toward my neighbors, compromise without compromising my values, and to work for the common good.
      My dad was in the army, and with his encouragement, I joined the army national guard when I was 17. I served for 24 years.
      I used my GI benefits to go to college and become a public school teacher.
      I coached football and taught social studies for 20 years.
      And I tried to teach my students what small-town Nebraska taught me: respect, compromise and service to country.
      And so when I went into government, that’s what I carried with me. I worked with Republicans to pass an infrastructure bill. Cut taxes for working families. Signed paid leave into law. I codified abortion rights after Roe got overturned.
      Because I go to work for the common good.
      But enough about me.
      Let’s talk about you. Because that’s what this election is about.
      It’s about your future. It’s about your family.
      And Vice-President Harris knows that. She too grew up in a middle-class family. She too goes to work every day, making sure families can not just get by but get ahead.
      We believe in the promise of America. In those values I learned in Nebraska. And we’re ready to fight for them.
      Because as Kamala Harris says: when we fight we win.
      Outside Tim Walz’s residence in St Paul, TV cameras lined the street, with reporters doing live shots to explain how their governor had been tapped as Kamala Harris’s running mate.Earlier in the morning, some supporters gathered to send off Walz with cheers as a black SUV whisked him off to the vice-presidential campaign trail, the local CBS outlet reported.Midday, people on their morning walks and bike rides slowed down, trying to figure out what was happening that required so many cameras. Some took photos of the house, with grins on their faces. A car drove by, honking excitedly at the people gathered.Terryann Nash, who lives across the street from the residence, said she saw security details increasing in recent weeks and wondered what was going on. The residence Walz is staying at is not the state’s governor’s mansion, which is under construction, but a mansion that once housed the University of Minnesota’s president.Nash, a teacher, was excited to see a fellow teacher on the ticket. “Even as a governor, he’s always come back to the schools. He’s always been in touch with the teachers. I feel like we’ve got a well-represented voice and a very good heart to send us off,” she said.Tim Walz won plaudits from fellow Democrats for championing a new and surprisingly effective attack line against Republicans: they’re “just weird”.“There’s something wrong with people when they talk about freedom: freedom to be in your bedroom, freedom to be in your exam room, freedom to tell your kids what they can read,” Walz said recently on MSNBC. “That stuff is weird. They come across weird. They seem obsessed with this.”Speaking at a Harris campaign event before he was named as her running mate, Walz told supporters, “The fascists depend on fear. The fascists depend on us going back. But we’re not afraid of weird people. We’re a little bit creeped out, but we’re not afraid.”Other prominent Democrats, including Harris, have now embraced the attack line. Watch this video showing the many examples of Walz’s “weird” strategy: More

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      Tim Walz: charismatic running mate to help Harris make case against Trump

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      As Democrats weathered the upheaval caused by Joe Biden’s decision to end his re-election campaign and hand the reins to his vice-president, Kamala Harris, a party stalwart piped up with a suggestion: start calling Donald Trump “weird”.The pioneer of the attack, which was also deployed by Harris’s campaign, was Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who insisted to CNN that “it’s not a name-calling or tagging him with it. It’s an observation.”“And I didn’t come up with it,” he added, noting that he had heard “relatives and Republicans” use the adjective to describe the former president.Walz is now expected to spend the next three months telling the country all about the weirdness of Trump and his running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance, after Harris named the Minnesota governor as her pick for vice-president on Tuesday. Although the 60-year-old is one of the least nationally known of the options Harris was considering, and does not hail from a state viewed as crucial to deciding the election, he is expected to assist Harris in making the case for her policies, and convincing voters to reject the extreme remaking of the US government that Trump says is required.Now in his second term as governor, the former congressman and high school teacher brings to the ticket a record of progressive policymaking, a somewhat sympathetic view towards pro-Palestine protesters, and a distinctly Minnesotan style of communication the campaign could use in its efforts to win the nearby swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.“If Donald Trump and JD Vance are irritated that Kamala Harris smiles and laughs, they’re really going to be irritated by Tim Walz,” Melissa Hortman, the Democratic speaker of Minnesota’s house of representatives, told the Guardian.“He is a cheerful person, he’s a positive, upbeat person, he’s charismatic. He can get a crowd going.”Walz emerged as Harris’s pick after a search lasting two weeks that saw the vice-president also consider a group that included Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro and Arizona senator Mark Kelly. The choice of Walz drew praise from across the Democratic party’s ideological spectrum.Progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Harris made an “excellent decision”, while Joe Manchin, the West Virginia senator who recently left the party and is best known for hamstringing Biden’s proposals to fight child poverty and more aggressively combat climate change, said: “I can think of no one better than governor Walz to help bring our country closer together and bring balance back to the Democratic party.”Republicans responded to Walz’s selection by posting on social media images of the protests the rocked Minneapolis four years ago after George Floyd’s murder, reminders of the governor’s support for a law allowing undocumented migrants to obtain driver’s licenses, plus a massive Covid relief scandal that took place during his administration.With Trump making fears of crime and unrest a centerpiece of his platform, Amy Koch, a Minnesota Republican strategist and former state senate majority leader, said the unrest that followed Floyd’s killing will likely form a plank of the party’s counter-attack to Walz’s candidacy.“There’s a lot of video of five days of chaos in Minneapolis,” Koch told the Guardian. “There’s a lot of video of, like, literally, reporters covering it, saying: where is governor Walz?” The governor did deploy the national guard, but Republicans say he did not do so soon enough.Walz’s main competitor for the spot of running mate was Shapiro, who may have reignited tensions among Democrats over his policy positions on issues such as education, fracking and Israel-Gaza.Biden’s support for Benjamin Netanyahu and the invasion of Gaza sparked a backlash that some of his allies feared could have cost him victory in swing states such as Michigan, home to a large Arab-American population. Some pro-Palestine activists have signaled a willingness to give Harris a chance to win back their votes, but were wary of Shapiro, who took a hardline stance against pro-Palestinian protests.The backlash to his potential candidacy, which included the formation of a group called “No Genocide Josh”, itself attracted claims of antisemitism, with many pointing out that Shapiro, who is Jewish, has condemned Netanyahu and that Walz has a similar record of support for Israel and campus protests.Walz took a different rhetorical tack on other protests. When tens of thousands of Minnesotans voted “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary in protest against the Biden administration’s policies towards Gaza, his response was warm, with the governor calling them “civically engaged”.“They are asking to be heard and that’s what they should be doing,” Walz said at the time. “Their message is clear that they think this is an intolerable situation and that we can do more. And I think the president is hearing that.”After his selection, the pro-Palestine group IfNotNow said it remained “concerned” by Walz’s past association with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and votes in Congress to approve military aid to the Israel.Supporters of Shapiro had argued that putting him on the ticket would help Harris win Pennsylvania, perhaps the most crucial swing state this election. But Christopher J Devine, a political science professor at the University of Dayton, said his research showed there was no guarantee of that happening.The choice of running mate was the last major piece of unfinished business before Harris, who quickly consolidated the support necessary to become the presumptive Democratic nominee after Biden withdrew last month.As hotly anticipated as Harris’s decision was, Devine said it was unlikely to prove decisive in beating Trump and Vance.“VPs can have an effect on the election. It’s not always in the way we expect, and the magnitude of that effect tends not to be very large,” said Devine, the author of Do Running Mates Matter? The Influence of Vice Presidential Candidates in Presidential Elections.If elected, Harris would be the first female president and the first south Asian president, and only the second African American, after Barack Obama. Her shortlist of running mates was composed entirely of white men after the Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer said she was not interested in the job.While Devine said that may have been a calculation on Harris’s part – besides Obama, every US president has been a white man – he said it did not mean she had no choice but to select a running mate from that demographic.“Kamala Harris could have chosen Gretchen Whitmer if she believed that there was strength in that identity of being a woman running for the presidency,” he said. “But I suspect her calculation, or a lot of her team, they might have weighed on her to … say that it just can’t be done. It’s too much for people to handle.”Trump has made dissatisfaction with both the Biden administration and the country’s entire direction a theme of his campaign, going so far as to say that the country is being “destroyed”. William G Howell, director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government, said Walz will be put in a position to articulate the case against that worldview.“His is the language of us coming together and … setting to work on hard problems,” Howell said. “And so, both in tone and in substance, he’s going to be able to clearly distinguish himself from from the kind of rhetoric emanating from Trump.” More