Unburdened & Unbothered: A Look at Tim Walz
40:15 Share

Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Bea Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. And it's Tim Walls. I'm so excited. I'm in Paris right now. And I was like, Sammy, we have to hop on and talk about Tim Walls because it's like another opportunity to have joy.

Yeah, there's nothing more Parisian than Tim Walls, right? He's very Parisian, yes.

I am so excited about this pick. There's so much to there's so many reasons why I'm excited about this pick. And it seems like the response has been really positive. And the boulder is still running down the hill in terms of momentum. It feels good to me. The other thing I can tell you is like I'm on this TikTok trip and there's creators from Great Britain and France and like Spain and Mexico, all kinds of different places here for the Olympics.

And they all were waiting to hear who it was to and what the Americans response was. And they were like, it's good. It's good. Like you like him. He's good. And I was like, yeah, he's good. And you could tell that they were very relieved. And then, oh, yeah. So I think I think everybody's pretty happy right now.

The Europeans are deeply invested in this because ultimately it's a democracy election, but it's also a foreign policy democracy election because we're not the only country that has, that's facing these authoritarian forces and they're even closer to Russia. So what America does is,

you know, as Donald Trump will remind you, we are big contributors to NATO. So they really care. They really care who our president is and they want the Democrats to win. So, and they, they were pretty clear about that. They were like, do you think she'll win? Like, you know, I'd love to see her up against Georgia Maloney from the Italian creators that are here. I was like, yeah, I think it's, it resets, you know, the global conversation if it's Kamala. Totally. And she can do it. And the fact that she made this pick, I think,

underscores that she can do it and underscores that she is forward thinking. Ultimately, I think the biggest, you know, it was a sort of an upset because a few weeks ago, people didn't necessarily know who Tim Walz was. And I think that that's actually a good opportunity because a lot of people don't know who he is, don't know his name, don't know anything about his policies or what he's accomplished, which is a lot. And, and,

That gives the Republicans an advantage to... They get to define him as in the way that they want to. But I think that the reason he's the strongest pick is because they can attempt to define him, but he will show up as himself and it will be very clear. And I think he is...

has shown himself to be the most capable because of the way the grassroots support for him sprang up. His popularity rose organically for maybe like two TV hits where he was the one, the pioneer of calling the Republicans weird, talking about their policies and what they want to do in Project 2025. And that then became the entire messaging. So here's a few clips of what he had said. And I said it the other day, the He-Man Woman Haters Club, I don't know where this is coming from.

You know 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. That stuff is weird. They come across weird. They seem obsessed with this. They continue to try and tell you. And look, the thing that I find the most weird about it is they never do the things they say.

Yeah, I think a lot of folks who liked Mark Kelly are going to love Tim Walls for the same reasons that we were looking for somebody who's normal acting, who loves their wife and doesn't have a bunch of scandals, and who is going to be that head down workhorse for Kamala that won't

be a huge personality that potentially upstages her or causes drag on the ticket. He's just there to get to work and support her the way that the vice president is supposed to. And so I think, I think we'll see a lot of Mark Kelly voters come this way. Not my friend, Megan McCain, who is very disappointed in the Tim Walls pick saying that the Democrats never extended Olive Branch to independents or moderates like her. And she sees him as like, I think she said he was like the most radical progressive possible choice.

Well, we'll get into his entire record and what that actually means in practice, because I think that that is a misperception of him that will change because he is very skilled. And I think the way that he, the fact that his name was not mainstream, even three weeks ago, he was not the mix initially shows that he is a worker.

He keeps his head down and was not about making this about himself. His rise was fully organic and it was only bolstered as more people saw him. It's not like that knocked him out. It's like more people began to like him. He was not dragged down by many cuts to his reputation, which is pretty rare for a public figure on a quick rise. And I think that what will come through is,

when people see him is that he's not this radical guy. I think Meghan McCain was ultimately fooled a little bit. There's something he had said that I think will resonate very much with independents, swing voters, all people across the spectrum. And he has had a very effective run

as governor of Minnesota at passing legislation. And he had said, right now, Minnesota is showing the country that you don't win elections to bank political capital. You win elections to burn political capital and improve lives. So I think that he is really going to show himself just the way J.D. Vance showed himself. And even for Kamala Harris, this shows that she is listening to the electorate and being responsive to what people organically want.

She's also showing that bucking the conventional wisdom, which I think would have been to pick Shapiro, who people assume appeals to moderates, was actually working. But I think really what she did is listening to her party and not being beholden to the electoral college. I also think that we don't really know that much about the interviews or how they went at this point. But my sense is that even though Shapiro is a very popular governor and we had a great experience having him on the show,

Even though he's a very popular governor, he's only been in office for one year and he simply does not have as much experience and he has not been tested nationally in the way that Tim Walz has by the rise he had. You know, like Governor Shapiro could have gone on TV and seen the organic response, but

But this was really what seemed to roll out by the end. And by the end of this, he had gotten the support of people from all across the spectrum. Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders were both expressing before the pick was announced that they thought he was the best option. And then even since this morning, he's earned statements of support and endorsement from people all across the spectrum, including the Republican candidate for Maryland governor, Larry Hogan, as well as Joe Manchin and AOC.

He is very well liked by all accounts. So it's really an interesting choice. And a very important fact about Tim Walls that shouldn't be skipped is that he's an Aries and Kamala is a Libra. And according to the astrology girlies, Aries and Libra can make great friends and colleagues, especially if they have a cause or project to unite them. Both signs have a strong sense of justice and they'll inspire each other with their dedication to and passion for what matters to them. And I

You know, the astrology girlies have not led us astray yet. No, they haven't. I will note that I'm an Aries and my husband Avi is Libra. And here we are. And you have a beautiful marriage. See? Thank you. Here we are. Thank you. I think it's because we're opposite signs on the zodiac. So there's like a balance there. It works. It works.

I mean, other than being an Aries, in terms of the basic instinctual perception of this ticket, it's very much giving Obama-Biden that kind of formula. And obviously that worked before. Walz is also the first person on the presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan to have not attended law school, which is very interesting. And I imagine contributes to the idea that Walz is not your typical moderate Democrat. And Walz is being regarded as the preferred pick of progressives and like

the TikTok caucus, if you will. But when you talk to people from Minnesota, they're very surprised that he's seen as so progressive because they see him as a moderate, as like your regular Midwestern guy. So it's kind of interesting that he rose as this progressive darling.

And perhaps it really comes down to these labels just being inaccurate about him. We haven't known him that much on the national stage, and we're getting to know him. But as he said in his own words about his policies and things he's done in Minnesota, how Marxist of me wanting kids to have lunch. It's not even about the labels being misapplied to him. It's that these labels are not real. They're rhetorical. That is his point. And what I think is that...

Why she picked him and why this will work and why he has had such a quick rise is because this tone is going to prove a winning one. What has been so strong about the way he has appeared in public life in the past three weeks is that he has not allowed the Republicans to define him or the Democrats.

their terms. When you respond to you're a Marxist with, no, I'm not a Marxist. You're never, you're not owning the conversation. So what I think he's doing rhetorically and what I imagine that he'll do, what they'll do with a ticket is ultimately help to realign the party with common sense policies that may be called progressive, but are hardly actually radical because his record is full of policies that Americans want. Maybe

Maybe it's that Americans want policies that are labeled as so-called progressive or even radical, which I think is a good segue because we're about to get into Tim Walz's bio and his record and what he's gotten done. He comes from a small town, a farm town in West Point, Nebraska. There's only about 400 people. And he was born to a working class family, an actual working class family, not like what J.D. Vance likes to try and claim.

J.D. Vance was from a working class family, but the problem is he shunned the working. He shunned them and he used them for clout. And he had a rich grandpa in the end who like came to his rescue and gave him law school. Tim Walz didn't have anybody to do that for him. Tim Walz is a genuine salt of the earth guy. He's exactly the kind of person, and I believe you said this in a thread, that Republicans have been pretending to be for all of these years. That's Tim Walz.

His father was an Army veteran and Walls enlisted in the Army National Guard at 17, and he retired 24 years later as a command sergeant major. Before retiring, Walls served overseas with his battalion in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, and he is the highest-ranking enlisted officer to ever serve in Congress, having served Minnesota for 12 years before being elected governor.

Walsh is faced a little bit of criticism from people on the right who are desperately looking for something to be wrong with this man. And this criticism is that he abandoned ship before the war in Iraq, that he retired from the Army National Guard when his battalion was preparing for a deployment to Iraq.

And when somebody says something like that to you, I want you to push back the way that Walls has and say that he didn't abandon them when they were going to Iraq. He had already served 24 years at that point. For you to retire with the monthly payment benefits, which is considered like maxing out on your military career, it's only 20 years. So he really gave four more years than he had to. He didn't get any more benefit for doing those extra four years. And he had stopped

to go ahead and run for Congress and start his family and sort of like move into the chapter three or four of his life. J.D. Vance served five years as a combat journalist in the Marines. So I think we've got the Republicans on who has a longer, more maximized career. Not to mention Captain Bonespurs at the top of the ticket. Captain Bonespurs, yeah, I know. Maybe he was a lieutenant. I don't know. The other thing you might hear is that he got a DUI.

And I want to, again, like come around with the rest of the story. He was charged with a DUI in 1995, and that charge was later reduced to reckless driving when the court accepted that Walz's service-related temporary deafness injury was likely to blame for him failing a field sobriety test. He, in fact, could not hear the officer's commands, and that's why he was failing the sobriety test.

This is in 1995. There wasn't a whole ton of great science on DUIs back then other than the field test and a breath check. And the officers were. The officer was also in a bad mood when he pulled him over for the DUI because apparently, again, back to the service-connected temporary deafness,

He had the sirens on for a while and Tim Walls wasn't pulling over. And so he got out, he got pissed. And that's like typical cop behavior. You know what I mean? Like he was trying to pull him over. He couldn't hear the sirens. He pulled him over. He couldn't hear the commands. This guy was like, you're going to jail for DUI. You're messing up my night. But those charges were then later brought down by a judge who said they could not prove that he was drunk. So.

You can say that if somebody says something to you about that. Again, they are desperately circling for something to be wrong with him. You know what? Tim Walz doesn't have 34 felony convictions or anybody accusing him of rape. Right. It's true. He doesn't have that. And also the second to last Republican president had a DUI as well.

George W. Bush. He had a real one. So back to, you know, his, his early career, even before, uh, while he was, while he was serving in the, in the national guard, he was teaching in Mankato, Minnesota. He taught geography and coached the high school football team in 1999. He coached them to the state title. And that was actually the same year that he headed up the gay straight Alliance at his school. This was before that was considered the norm. Um,

And the Gay Straight Alliance had only started, I think, 11 years earlier in 1988 at one school in Massachusetts and spread very slowly because a lot of people were closeted. So he was absolutely on the early side for this. Another fun fact about him, he married the English teacher. Isn't that just so Americana, the history teacher marrying the English teacher? And they have two children that they conceived using IVF.

a daughter named Hope, who was born seven years after trying, and a son named Gus, who has a black lab named Scout. So we know he's going to protect IVF, and we know he's been very vocal about a woman's right to choose. Tim Walz first got his start in politics working for former Massachusetts Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, where he was hired to be the campaign's county coordinator and a district coordinator for Vets for Kerry. He

He said that he was inspired to join John Kerry's campaign after taking a group of high school students to a Bush campaign rally. And the security there interrogated one of his students because he had a Kerry sticker on his wallet. So he didn't think that was okay. And he was inspired to get involved in public service. He ended up being elected to Congress in 2006 in a red district that had only ever had two Democrats representing it. It was considered a massive upset.

And when he was sworn in, as we said, he was the highest ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in the U.S. House.

He ended up being reelected five times, serving in the House for 12 years. And when he was in Congress, more than half of the bills that he co-sponsored between 2015 and 2017, which was, I believe, his second to last term, were actually introduced by non-Democrats. So he's working across the aisle. I mean, I think that that's what we're all looking for is like a return to normal in collaboration. Totally. I'll also note that

So this vetting process for VP was run by Obama's former Attorney General Eric Holder. And I just want to say that when Eric Holder was the Attorney General under Obama in 2012, 17 Democrats voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the subpoena. If you remember, there was a gun trafficking controversy over the program Fast and Furious. Walls was one of the 17 Democrats who had voted to hold Holder in contempt.

And Walls apparently still won Holder over in this vetting process. So people seem to respect his integrity. Absolutely. That's a tough come around, right? You vote to hold this other guy accountable for something and then he's the one who's potentially got the keys to the castle when it comes to who's going to be vice president and is just so taken by your authenticity that he's like, you know what? This isn't about me, which also I think says a lot about Eric Holder and his character. So we love to see it.

Yeah. I mean, I think you make a lot of enemies working for this long in federal government.

So in 2019, Walls left Congress to run for governor of Minnesota, and he beat his Republican opponent by an over 11 point margin. This man doesn't just win. He like all star to the walls wins. And when he took office in 2019, he said, quote, I think people should have an expectation of a forward leaning anticipatory government. A lot of things people write off as accidents or chance is really just poor planning and anticipation.

Sounds like he could be competent as an executive. I'm here for it. Or trying to be. Everything I have learned about him has brought a smile to my face, as opposed to everything I learned about J.D. Vance, I have learned by force. Total grimace. Or RFK Jr., tell this to your European friends at TikTok. Oh my god. Seriously, does that quote not make you happy? It does.

In 2023, Walls was tapped to chair the Democratic Governors Association, which, as the name suggests, unifies all of the state governors who are Democrats to work towards the same goals and to get more Democratic governors elected. So it's just another point where I'm like, yeah, he knows how to organize and work within a team. It's definitely something I'm sure he learned in the Army National Reserve. If you are

are one of our military families that are listening, then you know, the army is a place where a lot of disenfranchised people end up going. And it ends up being a place where you learn a ton about collaborating with people who aren't like you or who you might've thought that you didn't like before. And him being in for 24 years, I mean, he's certainly seen massive changes, not just to the army and the national guard, but he's been serving with people who aren't like him the whole time. It's not, it's not as a,

homogenous as some of the other branches can tend to be. Can you talk a little bit about the distinctions between serving in various parts of the army? Because when we were speaking in our group chat, Preachy Females in Democratic Politics,

You had a very interesting take on his particular role in the military. Walls is an NCO, which is a non-commissioned officer, and then there are commissioned officers. So Ron DeSantis was a commissioned officer. He went to military college and then Congress assigned him a commission, which is like a job, you know, like an area to oversee. And then he sort of had like an office gig from there out.

Walls was an enlistment. He didn't come in with college education. He didn't come in as an officer. He came in as an enlistment and he worked his way up through the ranks. So becoming an NCO...

and becoming an officer are difficult in their own ways, respectively. But an NCO is really seen as like someone who came up through the ranks. So if we're looking at like how these people came to be, a commissioned officer is commissioned by Congress. An NCO is promoted oftentimes by their own battalions and their own groups. They both did a boot camp, but where I believe that J.D. Vance went to the Marines in Parris Island because he's a person who learns by fear and force.

The Army and Walls was somebody who learned through collaboration and a little bit more as one of the people. And so I think we're going to see a lot more from him that we would expect from somebody who served in the military, where J.D. Vance oftentimes doesn't feel like he fits in with military life or military family.

Also, he was in the National Guard. So he was one of the, you know, more of the reserves. He served the whole 24 years while also holding down a job and being a good neighbor and whatnot. He was deployed a couple times, Walls, but he also did not see direct combat because in the 80s and 90s, we weren't really like pulling from the reserves the way that we did, you know, after 9-11. I think folks are going to like him and see that kind of worked his way from the bottom up.

Totally. I think his career really embodies decades of service in various forms, whether it's as a teacher, whether it's in the military, whether it's as an elected official. So the Republicans, and you already hear J.D. Vance saying this today, they're going to try to paint him as a radical leftist, which is simply not the case. Throughout his career, he has long been thought of as a moderate, even though he was considered to be the progressive pick in this beef stakes.

His record has also made him a favorite pick for organized labor, as well as what is actually being perceived as a unity pick, because like we mentioned earlier, people across the aisle seem to be very agreeable to this choice. Again, these labels are really what's questionable. So let's look at his actual record in terms of the substance. So for context, right now, Democrats have a trifecta in Minnesota government, but by a very slim majority of just one seat in the legislature.

But in April of 2023, Governor Walz signed three very important bills into law. First, protecting people seeking or providing abortions in Minnesota. Two, banning the practice of conversion therapy. And three, protecting people seeking or providing gender-affirming health care in Minnesota.

Him and his wife also conceived through IVF, as we mentioned, which was highlighted in the VP announcement. So I imagine he's going to be a helpful messenger for sort of de-radicalizing those ideas in anyone's minds who might have any questions about that.

I think this IVF journey certainly also has given him compassion to folks who are like, I'm seeking puberty blockers or I'm seeking gender affirming care because he's a person who had something that he needed assistance with to, in his case, conceiving and in their case, achieving their gender. And so you can find companionship in those two quests.

And so I think that's what makes him so easily understood by the queer community and why he's such a champion because he's like, hey, I had something that I needed help with and there was a medicine that did it for me. If there's one that does it for you too, I want you to have it. He definitely does seem to be someone who's open to hearing new information or changing where he stands. One example is what he has done with gun laws. He is a proud gun owner and hunter.

But he passed a law in Minnesota requiring universal background checks. But what's interesting is that he had formerly had an A-plus rating from the NRA that was later downgraded to an F. After the Parkland shooting in 2018, he denounced the NRA and returned all of the donations that they'd given him, not that much, $18,000. But that is someone who's listening and capable of change. Here we have a clip of him speaking about it.

Hope woke up like many of you did five weeks ago and said, Dad, you're the only person I know who's in elected office. You need to stop what's happening with this. I'll take my kick in the butt for the NRA. I spent 25 years in the Army, and I hunt. And I gave the money back, and I'll tell you what I have been doing. I've been voting for common-sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. We can do CDC research. We can make sure we don't have reciprocal carry among states, and we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at. Thank you.

We won't do it by dividing us. Because you can change your mind, right? And this is an example of that. He can see the real world impact that it's having on the next generation, his daughter's generation, how she lives in fear, what the gun drills were like for her in school. And it's like, you know what? Actually,

I think we need to restore some normalcy to gun ownership and some responsibility to it. And I'm not going to take money from an organization, the NRA, that has been increasingly radical and has pushed so much for like guns, guns, guns at all costs with no regulations.

and don't care when kids get shot. So I can see that changing many people's minds. And I think it's one of the things I like about him, that he is willing to listen, learn, and change, and he can do it quickly. Right. And he got it done. There are now background checks. He's also not some far left socialist. His approach to business actually reminds me a lot about Kamala Harris's potential approach. Very pragmatic,

This year, a CNBC study ranks Minnesota sixth in the nation for business based on 128 indicators, including competitiveness, infrastructure, workforce, quality of life, and business friendliness. Walt has actually worked to invest in areas to make this happen, including job training, workforce development, childcare, broadband access, and

And Minnesota has strong industries in the healthcare sector, renewable energy, and manufacturing. So he is not some guy who is trying to just throw this all out the window. At the same time, he signed the largest tax cut in state history, $100 million, while also simplifying the tax filing system at the same time. So this is a guy who likes efficiency and productivity.

He did paid family medical leave benefits, tuition-free college for low-income students, free school meals for all kids. He didn't make it like a red ticket thing. You get free lunch, which eliminates so much of the stigma of kids who get free school meals. He was like, all kids need to eat. They should all eat the same thing. Even if you're a family that doesn't qualify as low-income, wouldn't it help you out a little bit if we fed your kid lunch? Like, that's a couple extra dollars in your pocket too. Great.

legalized marijuana. This is where it gets tricky. He's so great as the governor of Minnesota that a lot of our friends who live in Minnesota, shout out to Sharon says so, Sharon McMahon, are

are worried that now that he's going to go be the vice president, they really love him and they wanted him to stay in Minnesota. They understand that he's being called to a higher office and he'll be able to do this nationally. But they're like, wow, he's our guy. Like we wanted to keep him. I mean, that's the sign of a great governor and someone who should definitely get a promotion. And much like Katie Porter, he organized all of these goals on a whiteboard, which he was criticized by his Republican colleagues for

But he would write it like a teacher on the whiteboard. What's the goal? What's the status? What's the accomplishment? And literally put like gold stars next to it when they did it. Never underestimate the motivation of a gold star.

I mean, is that the biggest criticism his colleagues had for him? I'm telling you, they're desperate to criticize this man. And I don't think you can because I think what Tim Walz gives is like foundationally secure in himself as a person. And that is a powerful thing when you are foundationally secure as a person. I think that's actually the biggest difference between the two tickets this year. Yeah.

Well, yeah. And Donald Trump is wildly insecure and narcissistic. And so anything somebody says to him, he has to like, you know, go so crazy for. And when they're like, Tim Walz is a Marxist. He's like, yeah, it was so Marxist of me to want kids to have lunch. Whatever. Like, right. He's unburdened and unbothered.

That is the campaign slogan of the Democratic ticket this year. Tell us about his foreign policy experience, V. That's what I was going to say next. Where are we on foreign policy? Because that's going to play big right now, especially what's going on. You got Bangladesh stuff happening. You got the far right popping up over Europe and burning the cities and doing crazy stuff in the UK. You got obviously what's going on in the Middle East. So here's how he fares on foreign policy.

He was in Congress when Obama was president during potential escalations in Syria in 2012 and 2016. And Walz helped lead a larger group of House Democrats to urge Obama to not go to war in Syria. Quote, we have to challenge the administration. If we are being true to who we are, it's about the constitutional responsibility of the House. It should not matter who is the occupant of the White House.

After 12 years of war, the American public has every right to weigh in and expect that their views be represented in Congress. And the American view for as much war as we do is that we don't really want to do war.

He supports Ukraine, which we know is an important part of global peace. Walz has met with the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States to sign a letter of understanding that creates an agricultural partnership between Minnesota and the northern region of Ukraine, saying, quote, once we drive the Russians out, we will have some cooperation. It is a really important showing of friendship and a real important showing of ties for us to do this together. So we love that about him. And I know another thing that people

will really want to hear about is what is Tim Wall's position on Israel-Gaza. And while I think that's going to evolve and certainly be led by Harris, who's the top of the ticket when it comes to how we proceed forward, this is what he said about the situation. Quote,

You can hold competing things that Israel has the right to defend itself and the atrocities of October 7th are unacceptable. But Palestinian civilians being caught in this has got to end. Walls told Minnesota Public Radio in March.

Wallace has said in the past that he supports a working ceasefire in Gaza, signaling support for the Biden administration's efforts to secure peace and a ceasefire. We know that Kamala Harris has come out several times to say she wants a ceasefire, including when she met with Netanyahu and was very tough on him, saying like, yes, of course, Israel has the right to defend their self, but how they defend their self matters. So I think this will be an evolving situation, but I do know a lot of the

pro-Palestinian creators on TikTok were hoping for Tim Walz. They think that they have a better chance to be heard and they think that a peaceful solution is more attainable through the Harris-Walz ticket than maybe any other combination.

And I think that they're still a ticket that makes people feel safe because they stand against anti-Semitism in all of its forms. And so I'm hopeful that they can navigate this with better nuance and maybe a little bit more kindness and innovation than Biden had so far. And most interesting...

He speaks Mandarin, which I'm sure the Republicans will try and turn into something terrible. But he speaks Mandarin Chinese because he spent a year teaching in China after college before returning full time to the Army National Reserves. He traveled to China with one of the first government sanctioned groups of American educators to teach in Chinese high schools, which is.

And then he and his wife later had this, you know, educational exchange where they would bring American students over to China and back and forth. Is this man Forrest Gump? Like, is that what is he? How does he have the time? How does he have the time? That to me, this was actually the most...

stunning fact that I've learned about him because all of the other stuff really tracks but that he could maintain his Chinese keep how are you keeping that up well I guess he's still practicing between football championships and the gay straight alliance like for real he's got an IVF and everything else right

Seriously, seriously, but he does have a liability. I know we've sort of fangirled over walls this whole time and probably will continue to because I have already admitted that I'm coconut pilled and now I'm to the walls. I just want to be happy and have a democracy. And that's where we're at right now.

His biggest liability is viewed as the whole Black Lives Matter situation because he sent the National Guard in, the protesters, because, of course, George Floyd was killed in Minnesota. That was his state at the time, and he sent the National Guard in on him. Yeah, that is, like you said, I would say the way he handled that is his biggest liability.

liability, but that was a very complicated situation. I think some people thought that he took too long to send the national garden. Others thought that he sent them in too quickly or shouldn't have sent them in at all. But obviously that was an unprecedented situation at the time also with COVID going on. But what I think is more important is what he did in the aftermath of that situation. Um,

He took the George Floyd case from the local DA and ended up referring it to the Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, which is actually what led to the conviction of Derek Chauvin eventually. But also in reaction to that, he signed bipartisan police reform inspired by George Floyd, banning chokeholds and low-level traffic stops, mandating trainings, and a duty for officers to report and intervene when their colleagues use excessive force,

as well as creating a team to provide mental health services for police officers and other emergency responders, and an independent statewide investigation unit for deaths and sexual misconduct involving police officers. The legislation also created an independent statewide investigation unit for deaths and sexual misconduct involving police officers, and a database for public records related to police misconduct.

And while people were saying that they wanted to defund the police, this legislation actually increased funding to police departments in order to run these services and to hire cops and invest in body cameras.

Like we mentioned earlier, it is a pragmatic take and a pragmatic approach that doesn't necessarily fit cleanly along the rhetorical alignments that some people are used to. But he seems to be a solution-oriented executive. Yeah. One thing that I think is extra super cool that...

That isn't talked about a ton, but it is a bonus benefit to Tim Walz being selected is that his Lieutenant governor is Peggy Flanagan, who is a member of the white earth nation, a Chippewa tribe. And she is currently the highest ranking native American woman to ever be elected to office in the nation.

If the Harris-Walls ticket is elected, Minnesota will be the first state to have a Native American governor ever, which is incredible. And Peggy Flanagan is just as impressive as Tim Walls is. She's done incredible work with education. She will keep up his agenda. They've been together since I think 2018 was the first time. And I'm just so excited for all of these different glass ceilings that are breaking.

Groundbreaking on so many levels, turning over the conventional wisdom. It feels that a bottleneck has broken within the Democratic Party. This is a truly groundbreaking moment. And on the point of Peggy Flanagan, Walls was viewed as maybe being potentially less helpful for the Electoral College because Minnesota is usually already a blue state.

But it's really only blue because they organize and work for that every cycle. It's not necessarily going a given that it's going to be blue, maybe like California or New York might. They work to deliver the state every year. And as you can hear Tim Walz say, by burning political capital to improve people's lives. So I think this is what you can expect from the Harris-Walz ticket, unafraid to break barriers in order to do things for the American people.

And I am very excited to see what this ticket does together. I'm excited for it, too. It really energized me to see her continuing to make her own choices and not necessarily be burdened by like polls or like, oh, well, we want to get another state. And the only way we could do it is by picking that person as our as our running mate. I think that Governor Shapiro will go just as hard for her in Pennsylvania as ever.

And, you know, she's looking good in Arizona. There's a possibility she could get Florida if we keep working at it. I mean, the villages are running their golf carts for Kamala down there. So and abortions on the ballot there, abortions on the ballot there. We're picking Tim Walz to me said, like, I'm not trying to recruit Republican votes. I'm trying to dig deeper into my party and what my party has done and what they're looking for and who they love. And I think that made me feel seen in a way that often I don't.

Well, she also is trying to recruit Republican votes. They just launched Republicans for Harris. She's not having to try too hard. Yeah, they're coming on over. And I think that what this is really about is about breaking down these labels that what was used to be thought of as Republican or what Republicans are advocating is not what they used to advocate. They are no longer advocating for small government. So-

What the Democratic ticket is advocating for right now is very common sense, fulfills people's needs. And just because they're not the Republican ticket, I think that

That is a communications problem and can be solved with a communication solution. I'm telling you, I think we're more small government than the MAGA movement is certainly. So I'm sure that's what's getting the Nikki Haley voters and even the state of Arizona reps, Republicans came out to say that they're not going to support Trump. And you would have never thought that.

If you were to tell me in 2016 with Joe Arpaio and all the wacko stuff that was happening in Arizona that someday Arizona would turn on Trump, I would have told you you were a crazy person. And that Arizona would turn on Trump for Kamala Harris, I would have told you you were off your rocker.

There are no red states. There are only voter suppressed states. Never forget. And with that, we're going to end it. That's it. So this was our emergency to the walls episode live from Paris. If you guys have any more questions about Tim Walls, of course, write into us. Let us know what you think. Are you for him? Are you are you sad with somebody else? Are you excited to volunteer with the other 200000 members of Kamala's like force that's coming out?

And don't forget, we will be covering the DNC live from the DNC, too. We'll be getting our schedule pretty soon. But I think you can expect to hear interviews from us with folks like Pete Buttigieg. Maybe all the way up to the top, we could get Kamala. We're going to see. But a lot of Democratic superstars to just give you more information about what they're thinking. We'll get Tim Walls. We'll get Gwen Walls. Right now.

Oh, I want to interview Hope. Right now, I am on a mission to, because Tim Walls is a Swifty. I have many questions about his Swiftiness. I would like to do a full interview with him on his Swiftiedom. So that's what I'm trying to get in on. If you're listening, anyone who has the power to make that happen. Let's play us out with a clip of Tim Walls last night at their first rally together. Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, JD studied at Yale.

Had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community. Come on! That's not what middle America is. And I gotta tell you, I can't wait to debate the guy. That is if he's willing to get off the couch and show up. So, you see what I did there? I gotta tell you.

pointing out just an observation of mine that I made. I just have to say it. You know it. You feel it. These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell. That's what you see. That's what you see. So you know what's out there. So say it with me. We aren't going back. We aren't going back. Until next time, I'm Vita Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream.

American Fever Dream is produced and edited by Samantha Gatzik. Social media by Candice Monega and Bridget Schwartz. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Betches News and follow me, Sammy Sage at Sammy and V at Under the Desk News. And of course, send us your emails to AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com.