A break down on the the GOP's strategy against Harris and Walz

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to The Break Down with Brodkorb and Becky, a weekly podcast that breaks down politics, policy, and current affairs. I'm Becky Scherr.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Michael Brodkorb.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Earlier this week, we hosted a live podcast with two card-carrying members of the Walz Fan Club. So today, we are changing angles. Once again, we are here live, but this time we will focus on who Tim Walz is and how the GOP should run against him.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_03]: We are excited to be joined by two returning guests, John Rouleau and Michelle Benson. John is the Executive Director of the Minnesota Jobs Coalition and has long been active in Republican politics and campaigning.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Michelle Benson is a lifelong Minnesotan and former state senator from the Ham Lake area who spent 12 years fighting the good fight at the state capitol, where she served as Deputy Leader and Health and Human Services Chair.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_03]: She is a mother, a great messenger, and a good friend.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_03]: We will start by breaking down what Republicans think about Walz being tapped to join the Harris ticket.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Then we are going to lean into Walz's vulnerabilities and what America should know about its potential next vice president before voting for the Democratic ticket.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_03]: We will break down Walz's progressive resume as governor and how some of his far-left policies would impact families and businesses across the country.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Then, of course, we will hit on his failures during the George Floyd riots that led to portions of the Twin Cities in ruins.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_03]: We will be sure to get into Walz's previous election performance and what that could mean for the Blue Wall and also what it means down-ballot races in Minnesota.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show.

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_03]: So, John and Senator Benson, it's been Lights, Camera, Action on Minnesota this week.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, we've all watched Tim Walz for the past 10-plus years and arguably probably know him a little bit better than the national audience.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_03]: So, today we're going to try to help frame the narrative around who Tim Walz really is and how Republicans can message and campaign against him and Harris over the coming months.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I want to start by asking you guys, were you surprised when it ultimately became that it was Tim Walz as the pick?

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Were you surprised if you were on Team Harris, who would you have selected?

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_03]: John, let's start with you.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was surprised.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_00]: This was a pretty easy decision from my standpoint of what makes the most sense when you're trying to win a national election.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And Josh Shapiro is a very popular governor in a very critical swing state for the Democrats.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's a huge missed opportunity that they have kept that state really in play.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Historically, I think that there's this idea, and it's accurate, that the vice president can't deliver a state on their own.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: But there is precedent to say that a vice presidential nominee gets you about a half-point bump in their home state.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And when we're talking about a state like Pennsylvania, a half-point can really matter.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is that Harris has some very unique liabilities there after campaigning very far to the left in 2019 and 2020 before ending her presidential campaign.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Particularly with regard to the issue of fracking, which is very important to the state of Pennsylvania, particularly Western Pennsylvania.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And Josh Shapiro, while he has sought to regulate the fracking industry, has sought to hold bad actors accountable, has generally been pro-energy and supporting that industry in the state.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think keeping that vulnerability, not taking that extra half-point, as my friend Liam Donovan said, it's all fun and games until you end up 10,000 votes short in Pennsylvania.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was very surprised by this play, because I frankly don't see a path for the Democrats without the state of Pennsylvania.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Senator Benson, your thoughts?

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I wasn't surprised.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I watched the last legislative session, and he checked every progressive box.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_02]: He was Gavin Newsom, but quietly Midwestern.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And for the past several years, I've been surprised that national pundits who are conservative-leaning paid no attention to what was actually going on here in Minnesota.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But obviously, Kamala Harris was paying attention.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's step back.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_02]: The first decision a presidential candidate makes is who's going to be their vice president.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_02]: She's digging in hard on an agenda that she leaned into when she was running for president.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So Walls fits very well with her early message, the anti-fracking, the zero-carbon energy policies, massive tax increases, single-payer health care.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_02]: She's just diving all the way in with him because he delivered that in Minnesota or tried to.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Very few progressive agenda items were stopped here in the last two years,

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_02]: single-payer being the only one of those progressive items that really didn't get traction.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And so not surprised that she picked Tim Walls because he fits with what her agenda for the country will be.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_02]: This is a very strong message to people across the country of what kind of president Kamala Harris wants to be.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I would suggest Republicans take a deep look, not at the rural congressman he was, but when he got three branches, when he had the House, Senate, and the executive branch, what did he do?

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Because that's how he'll help coordinate Kamala Harris's agenda in Washington.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And frankly, I would have picked Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Frankly, they help with states they need.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_02]: They tone things down.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But if this is what she wants to do, she's being really clear about it.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And we're going to spend some more time diving into some of that progressive resume he has built up.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_03]: But Michael, I want to throw to you.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't surprised.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought it would come down to, if you go back and listen to the podcast, I was not rooting for it, but I guess I have a little affinity for astronauts.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was hoping maybe Kelly, because I think it's cool to be an astronaut.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I guess maybe in my past life, I would have loved to have been an astronaut.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But I certainly have the hair for her.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But I would say that it came down, I think, to Shapiro and Walls.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the reason why she did, and there's, I think a lot of the Republicans would like to say that a couple things.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_01]: She didn't pick Shapiro because of Israel, because of concerns with that.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think there's any evidence to support that.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And I also would say that I think Republicans were hoping that she needed to pick Shapiro

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: because it would be an indication that she would have to pick a vice president based on the electoral map.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And the reality is, if you look at polling today, Harris is tied, if not a little bit ahead, according to some polls in Pennsylvania.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: She was able to make a pick based on who she could best govern with if she was president of the United States.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's where Walls was successful.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He came into this, according to reports, and he wanted his role to be whatever it needed to be to help her out.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a very powerful message.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it doesn't surprise me that he succeeded in that environment because he has been value added to the entire Democratic national ticket or operation since Joe Biden stepped out.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And one more point I will also make is that I appreciate the perspective that Senator Benson is offering on his time as governor versus congressman.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_01]: But think about the fact that those terms that he had in Congress is also the same person who was governor.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_01]: He is able to what is what makes Walls so successful is his ability to win.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And if this VP race was a contest, he wanted to want it to.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm looking for some evidence to back up the fact that when Walls has the opportunity to speak with voters and make the case then that he doesn't come out successful because I think he does.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that is certainly one of the things that Walls does have going for him is his messaging.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I was appearing for this and just looking on Twitter in general.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you search Tim Walls and look at the top tweets, it is his likability.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_03]: It is all photos of him hugging children, playing with dogs, being a dad, being a husband, being a coach.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_03]: It is all those good things.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think that's what I think we hope to do today is to show some of the vulnerabilities that do come with governor Walls.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, will they be highlighted on a national scale?

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Yet to be determined.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think there are a lot of failures under Governor Walls.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of things to poke holes in his time as an elected official.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_03]: So let's try that a little bit.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_03]: We know that so far, Minnesota Republicans, Emmer, Stauber, Dameth, have been relatively cohesive in some of their messaging.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_03]: It's really hitting walls on what we know is important to voters right now, hitting them on the border.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Soft on crime, soft on border control, weak on economic policies that are going to lead to a prosperous and future for businesses and families.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Inflation's up.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Costs are up.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_03]: We're asking.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, we'll get into a little bit more.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_03]: But what we've seen in Minnesota right now under Governor Walls is certainly not sustainable on a national scale.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_03]: We can't be spending our $18 billion surplus, raising taxes another $2 billion.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Minnesota families are hurting.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_03]: American families are hurting.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And under Governor Tim Walls, that has been an issue.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's we're looking for relief from our next president and vice president to give us policies that are going to make our pocketbooks feel a little bit better, allow Americans to be able to plan and save for their future.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_03]: So one of the things we want to chat about a little bit, and I know you guys know this very well from your time at the Capitol this last couple sessions and just in general.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Walls does have quite the progressive resume.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_03]: His accomplished, quote unquote, accomplishments on the progressive policies have been impressive if you look at what he has gotten done.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_03]: But he's certainly not a moderate.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And Senator Benson, you alluded to that.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Let's chat first.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_03]: He was endorsed by Bernie Sanders.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_03]: So we'll take that for what it is.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_03]: But I just want to rattle off.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_03]: And this is a list I pulled from an episode we did after the end of the 2023 legislative session.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, spending surplus, raising taxes.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_03]: They passed license and health care for all, whether in the state legally or not.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Radical ethnic studies curriculum.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Gender affirming care free lunches.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Expanded election laws, including felon voting and gun control.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Carbon free by 2040.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Vias registry.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Paid family leave.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm not saying that some of these are not things that I personally agree with.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_03]: But it certainly is not what it's not on the moderate side of things.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_03]: John, you spent time up there.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_03]: You've been working on the campaign trail.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Tell us what voters feel about this and what kind of the issues are with this progressive walls.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is the first vice presidential pick who I can really think of who has everybody in the country pretty much thinking that it's good for their guy.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, whether you're on the far left with Bernie Sanders and AOC cheering for this or you are Trump world and Ted Cruz celebrating how great this is for Donald Trump's efforts to get elected.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And on election day, 50% of those talking heads are going to be right and 50% are going to be wrong.

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Normally, there's a little bit more agreement that you can find.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's really interesting for a couple of reasons.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And Michael alluded to it a little bit.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And Governor Walls is really a choose your own adventure book.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_00]: When he would love choose your own adventure books when I was a kid.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: God, I love that reference.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're sitting there and you're watching, you can be Bernie Sanders and look and say this is a guy who wins on big progressive issues and delivers for the radical ideology that they support.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_00]: If you are a center left voter, you may have fond memories of him serving as Blue Dog adjacent while he was in Congress.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_00]: He was never really a true blue dog, but definitely had a more moderate governing record there, including vote to hold Eric Holder in contempt, who was one of the people who was responsible for the vetting with his law firm.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And then if you're on the center right, I think this is a pick that really gets you pretty happy, right?

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_00]: This is we are back in our wheelhouse when we are talking about Tim Walls.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: We are talking about these massive tax increases, massive spending, government waste, fraud and abuse, all the things that we have a very defined playbook for and have done for a long time.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're the Trump campaign, first of all, you breathe that sigh of relief that it's not Josh Shapiro.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_00]: But then you also get to take a look at all of the other radical things that he proposed, things that they want to talk about.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Some of the things like putting tampons in fourth grade boys' bathrooms, things like making Minnesota a sanctuary state where they passed legislation that said, if you don't give your child gender affirming care as they define it, that the state would take your child away from you.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I think these are things that the Trump campaign is happy to talk about.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So there's really something for everybody except for, I would say, the pragmatic centrists who are in the never Trump standpoint, who really look at this as an analytical exercise and what can they best do to maximize their attempts to eat Donald Trump.

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And Tim Walls isn't it.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_00]: When you look at him, you see all of those things.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_00]: But when the veneer wears off, you're left with dollar store, Bernie Sanders and buffalo plaid.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_00]: He is not a moderate.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_00]: He does not govern like a moderate.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_00]: He has a radical left-wing agenda.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, the only time that he ever stood up to his party was when Uber threatened to leave.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And just imagining Tony West reading the Covington report and a little smile coming across his face as he sees that the one time that Tim Walls stood up to his party was over Uber.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Just makes me chuckle a little bit.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Tony West, obviously, is Vice President Harris's brother-in-law, who's the chief legal officer for Uber.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sure that hurt him in the vetting process.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_00]: But frankly, I look at this and they must have found a literal skeleton in Josh Shapiro's background in order to pick Tim Walls with all of the problems that he brings to the ticket.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I can't understand what they were thinking.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And really, it comes down to this is the pick that you make when you're overly confident and your strategy is to do no harm.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Don't stunt your energy heading into the DNC.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And pray to God that the Trump campaign keeps stepping on race because he brings nothing to the campaign in terms of winning those rural voters.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's this mythology about Tim Walls that he wins tough races and tough districts.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_00]: That's not true.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_00]: In 2016, he won his congressional district by 2,500 votes.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Jim Hagedorn ran against him that year and had enough money to spend one week of TV advertising in that race.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Tim Walls almost got beat by accident in 2016 against a non-existent campaign.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And when it came time to decide if he was going to run again, he headed for the doors and decided to run for governor instead.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: He barely got challenged in 2018.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_00]: He barely got challenged in 2022.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_00]: They outspent his opponents by massive amounts of money and won in a blue state.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is that Tim Walls hasn't had a tough race where he really got challenged since 2006.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And he was a very different candidate then than he is this time.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that those rural voters are going to say, we know this guy.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_00]: This is the liberal teacher from our kid's school.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_00]: He does not connect with them.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_00]: He does not run up the score there.

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_00]: He basically got what Biden got in the rural districts across Minnesota.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And he is not an asset for their campaign.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I would disagree if I could.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Tim Walls is head of the RGA.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_02]: He's got good fundraising resources.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_02]: He's obviously good at connecting with big donors who are just flooding in now to support the Harris Walls ticket.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And they can tell the story.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_02]: The advantage of him being relatively unknown across the country is they can do the football coach,

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_02]: nice dad, changes his own oil shtick and get this softness proving, which might not show up as key numbers.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But the Electoral College is what matters, folks.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Color districts around blue cities in red states matter.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And Tim Walls kicked Republicans butt in color suburbs in Minnesota.

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's not dismiss him.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Anybody on the Trump team who thinks that they got a win, stop doing dumb stuff, OK?

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Focus on where he's actually weak.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't fight him on things that don't matter.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Do not take this as a pass.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Because Kamala Harris never has to do another press conference because Tim Walls can take it all.

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Because he's good at press.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't answer questions he doesn't want to answer.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's get really serious about how he can step in where Kamala Harris is weak.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to beat him, you're going to have to tell stories of what happened in Minnesota.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'd say focus on kids.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Reading scores declined while our cities burned.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So he shut down schools.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're a fourth grader in Minneapolis in March of 2020, your school got shut down.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_02]: You lost all your stability.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_02]: If you have a mom who's a CNA at a nursing home, she's going to work and they're telling her that somebody is going to die every single day.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_02]: This is what that fourth grader's life looks like.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And then George Floyd gets killed in your city.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And everything starts on fire.

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_02]: The store where you bought your Christmas gifts burns down.

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what happened to that fourth grader in Minneapolis.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the real story of what happened in Minneapolis.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_03]: So, Senator Benson, I want to keep on you with this because you are just proving the exact point of why I was so supportive of your run for governor and why you were such a good messenger for the Republican Party and for just a messenger in general for families in Minnesota.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_03]: How obviously that we talked about this a little bit earlier this week.

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_03]: The biggest frustration with.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_03]: That I see is very similar to what you think there are a lot of really good opportunities when we talk about the crime and public safety in the state, when we talk about reading and education and our children struggling.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_03]: When we talk about spending and all of these different things right here in our state and how families are hurting.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_03]: If you had a direct line into Trump and Vance, talk a little bit about how we need to focus.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Continue on.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I want you to push a little bit further of why we need to focus.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_03]: There are so many.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, we can talk about all of these different social issues and so many things.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_03]: But we know that those get into really sticky situations and then distract from the actual true issues at hand that Americans cannot afford a Harris Walls ticket.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And a little bit more about that.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Republicans in Minnesota got really distracted in the last governor's race instead of staying on the things that mattered to actually moving the needle on Tim Walls.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's got to be the cost of everything for families.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very real.

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_02]: The border is obviously a huge concern.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know what?

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Frankly, Republicans have had a good position on it.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So stay on inflation, immigration.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And then education here in Minnesota has really suffered under the policies of Tim Walls.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_02]: You could throw that in.

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_02]: That's going to matter to a lot of families.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So have some empathy for what they have to deal with every single day.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_02]: You can do a big, soft message across the country on a vision for a greater, better United States of America.

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_02]: But you're going to need to reach the hearts and minds of suburban, particularly women, with something that's concrete for them.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Eggs at Aldi are ridiculously expensive.

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And there are a lot of people who used to shop at higher end grocery stores who are now shopping at Aldi just to make it work.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Energy policies absolutely going to matter.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_02]: How can you commute?

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you might get to work remote some days, but there are people.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Nurses have to commute.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_02]: They don't get to work remotely.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Mechanics have to commute.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_02]: They don't get to work remotely.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_02]: The price of gas is going to be a real concern.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Venezuela, and obviously we're not going to get into the whole global dynamics, but we're getting gas from a dictator in Venezuela instead of taking the reasonable approach that Josh Shapiro would have taken in Pennsylvania.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So can we head towards the Josh Shapiro message and try to pull some of those folks our way?

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I love that.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Michael, you've been pretty quiet.

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Can I get any thoughts or reactions here?

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to give everyone the floor.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_01]: This is an opportunity for other folks to speak.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I would say this.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the problem that I think Republicans have had so far with Walls is that it's look at him on the campaign trail.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And politics is, some of it, largely visual.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So this has been a campaign that has been smiling since this pick was made.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And I understand the attempt and I understand the strategy behind the attempt to create some division about the pick.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_01]: But the bottom line is, this is a campaign that message is working so far.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_01]: It's very difficult, I think.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And just a little, as I've disclosed on the podcast multiple times before, I rotate through CNN, MSNBC, and Fox on a pretty regular cycle through my house just to see what's on and get violence news.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01]: But a lot of times I'll have the volume down or in closed captions on.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the visuals of what I see.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And the visual that I've seen in the last couple of days is a smiling Tim Walls, a smiling Kamala Harris.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I've not seen Donald Trump anywhere.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And J.D. Vance kind of looking out of sorts and frustrated.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I just, I see all of the benefits so far just in the visual and how the campaign I think is gelling and working.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I think if you're looking for a campaign that's working right now, I think the Harris-Walls campaign is working.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_01]: The other thing I would say to all three of you and throw this back, Walls wins.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01]: When John was rattling off that statistic, I look at it from this side.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Walls had a close race in 16.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_01]: But you know what he did?

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_01]: He won.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_01]: He won.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_01]: He won.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And then when he went, the problem that I think that Republicans have with Walls is they say that they want to make the claim that he doesn't deliver, that he doesn't get results, he doesn't bring ticket people in.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I think people are trying to make the correlation on the vice presidential pick that they have to bring all these things.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I think John accurately said that what the vice presidential pick at the most does is help with that home state.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, if we get to on election day and Harris loses and she loses Pennsylvania, I think people will look back at this pick and say, if she picked Shapiro, she wouldn't have been in this mess.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's teed up for that.

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a landing.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_01]: There's the Harris campaign.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_01]: If they don't win, there's going to be, I think, a lot of second guessing at this pick.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But right now, I don't see that's the case that's working out.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_01]: We're, what, 89 days away from the election.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, I think the reason why Tim Walls was picked is because he is a winner.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And Becky, if we go back and look at one of our previous conversations that we had, particularly in 2003, I did accept the premise, and I stand by the premise,

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_01]: that when Walls was a member of Congress in the first congressional district and how he governs as governor, those are different.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_01]: He has evolved.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_01]: His positions have changed.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_01]: But one thing I did say to you is show me evidence that Walls, that what he's passed and what he's done, and his polling has been, his polling has dropped.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't seen any evidence, and I'll open it up for others to clarify.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't seen any evidence that Walls' personal brand, his polling numbers went down after he did all that stuff.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I defer to others.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, we can certainly look at the individual policy issues, but again, Walls, the person, was picked.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_01]: We get to, the public gets to litigate his record.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But what people see on TV right now is a Minnesota, a Midwestern dad, guy from Nebraska, came to Minnesota, who's got a huge smile on his face,

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_01]: and went in to the vice president's office at the Naval Observer, according to press reports, and said, how can I help?

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And that right there is an entirely different calculus and message than what I think is coming out of the Trump vans campaign.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't disagree about that.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_03]: However, I do think that there is still, from my perspective, one of the things that Walls brings to the ticket is a little bit of credibility on the messaging side and being able to talk.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I think we all can agree that he is a great orator.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_03]: He is good at connecting.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_03]: He's, that is a benefit.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And the credibility that he brings to Kamala Harris, who sometimes maybe struggles on that and stumbles quite a bit.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_03]: However, I don't like to put a whole lot of weight into these type of stories.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_03]: But when I think about the credibility side, I think we need to look back at a little bit of the credibility of Tim Walls and what he has said about himself over the years.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_03]: And so we won't spend a whole lot of time on this, but there are questions out there about his story about why he ran for Congress and his story about being a veteran, which I want to start by saying he did serve the state and the country.

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And I am grateful.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And that is true.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_03]: John, you want to hit a little bit on these stories that are spinning out there and how they make a little bit of a ding to Walls' credibility, even if a lot of the other things he can stand behind?

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that there's always been this mythology of Tim Walls and a lot of it really isn't accurate.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, there are rightfully questions about whether something is resume inflation or whether something is outright stolen valor.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm frankly waiting on the campaign to put out a statement so that we can get to the bottom of this.

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_00]: They keep calling him Coach Walls, but at best he was an assistant coach and I've seen him referred to as defensive coordinator.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, there's resume inflation across the board here and I'm really waiting to see what they do.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But at the end of the day, I think that it's important that we remember that Tim Walls is a vice presidential nominee.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_00]: The Trump campaign is going to run against Kamala Harris and her agenda.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_00]: They are going to run against everything that she touched and failed on in the Biden administration.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_00]: He is literal, she is weak, and she has failed.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_00]: That is what the Trump campaign is going to say.

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_00]: We're also talking about a couple of really swingy areas with a couple of swingy voters in a couple of swingy states.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not talking about this politics of joy that I'm still wondering if he has to pay Aaron Murphy royalties for stealing her line on.

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about what's it going to take to move those voters.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding from a lot of the people out there talking about how presidential campaigns and really statewide swing campaigns are run, won, and lost.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And at the end of the day, they can talk about how enthusiastic their base is.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_00]: When you look at a state like Georgia, when you look at a state like North Carolina, when you look at a state like Pennsylvania, frankly, that energy and that enthusiasm is not enough to get you across the finish line without swing voters.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And we are looking at the most radical Democratic ticket running for president of the United States that we've seen in decades.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be a referendum on Kamala Harris.

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_00]: As much as she wants to make this a campaign about change and optimism and hope and make promises about what she is going to deliver on day one.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Ma'am, with all due respect, you are the vice president today.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_00]: If you can fix inflation on day one, why are you waiting while families suffer and struggle under Bidenflation and Bidenomics?

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_00]: It really is going to ring hollow.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And they're going to be able to cobble together these attacks, whether it is on Tim Walz and his radical agenda, whether it is on Kamala Harris and her radical agenda, or whether it is on everything in the Biden administration that she has touched.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_00]: That all ties together. It all builds in the narrative. And, you know, right now, I think there's a rush to define Tim Walz.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_00]: But Kamala Harris is still the one who's running for president.

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Michael, you said that he can go to all the press conferences.

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_00]: With all due respect, Kamala Harris has to go to the press conferences.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_00]: She's the one running for president, or maybe it was Senator Bynes and something like that.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_00]: We're waiting to see her.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_00]: She hasn't had a press conference since she became the Democratic nominee.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And really, they are hiding.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And I understand that there's this desire to run a basement strategy where they hide and try and let Donald Trump step on rakes.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is that's the campaign you run when you're winning.

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And they're not winning.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_00]: They need to go and change this.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_00]: If anything, this has reset the race back to where it was before people found out that Joe Biden was not fit to serve another four years as president and he had to step out of the race.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_00]: We are back to early June.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_00]: We are not back to 2008.

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_00]: We are not back to Barack Obama.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_00]: We are in early June where the Democrats' policies and their failed agenda remain very unpopular.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Where Donald Trump is still trusted on the issues that are important to voters like the economy, like inflation, like jobs, like taxes, and like national security.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_00]: That is going to be their wheelhouse.

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And Tim Walls with his radical agenda of giving free government-funded health care and free government-funded college to illegal immigrants, giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, coupled with Kamala Harris' week on crime record as a prosecutor,

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_00]: coupled with her radical agenda when she ran for president, that all ties together.

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And the Republicans are absolutely excited about where they are.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_00]: They dodged a bullet with Josh Shapiro.

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that people are saying that Republicans would say this about anybody.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is Republicans were afraid that she was going to pick Josh Shapiro.

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Pennsylvania is such a critical state that there are a lot of paths for Republicans without Pennsylvania.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_00]: There's no path for Democrats without Pennsylvania.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_03]: There.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_03]: We talked a little bit earlier this week that I believe Harris could win, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, lose Pennsylvania, and Trump still gets the 270.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_03]: So the electoral map is really tough.

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's a good framing.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I like that it is.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_03]: We're back to June.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_03]: We're not back anything further.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Anything can happen, but it is neck and neck.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Senator Benson, I want to say, do you agree, disagree, or have anything to add?

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I would just say Republicans get overconfident.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, they should be joyful, hopeful.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I look at J.D. Vance's story.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, they need pictures of where he grew up.

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And frankly, mocking him for going to Yale when he grew up, kneeling by his mother's bedside, praying that she would wake up.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Begging God that she didn't overdose and ends up graduating from Yale.

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a mark of resilience and not something to be mocked by, frankly, Governor Walz and his campaign.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And so let's tell some stories that connect with people.

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's be happy that we're in this country and not somewhere else in the world because we have these opportunities.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Republicans need to be cheerful, but they don't need to be overly confident.

[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Kamala Harris doesn't have to answer questions as long as the press doesn't ask them.

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're not pushing hard.

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_02]: They might be starting now, but you've all grown up with the Minnesota press politically.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Did they ever push Tim Walz really hard?

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Until Julie Nelson got on TV the third night of the riots and asked where the governor was.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the first time I ever saw political press in Minnesota push on Governor Walz.

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And with all of the policies that he moved through, there wasn't any critical analysis of it.

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And so they're used to the press being easy on them and they're going to keep going down this road until the press isn't easy on them.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're 89 days.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_02]: The longer they can delay having one-on-one contact with the press or with, frankly, J.D. Vance,

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I am concerned that former President Trump will get off message.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_02]: He did a pretty good job staying disciplined in the first debate.

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I hope he can continue to do that.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But frankly, until the press decides to engage, what's to change the dynamic here?

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Michael.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Michael.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to say that I think on this podcast in the last 36 minutes that the three of you have offered,

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I think, the most cohesive message on the race for president so far on how to go after Walz.

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_01]: As someone who endorsed Walz in 2022 and think he is a great VP pick, I think the three of you articulated a very substantive message.

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_01]: The problem is that's not what the Trump campaign can do.

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_01]: The Trump campaign has shown an inability to stay on message and be disciplined.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_01]: We saw what happened last week at the National Association of Black Journalists press conference when Trump came in.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the lack of discipline.

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And the struggle that I think that they're having right now is that they have smart people and there are smart Republicans.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_01]: You are incredibly talented.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But the problem is they have smart Republicans.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Then they have Donald Trump going out there and just messing everything up.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And the question is, who can be disciplined, the most disciplined over the next 89 days?

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I stand by my position that Walz was a good pick because what we've already seen from a value-added standpoint.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_01]: The other thing I would say, again, I would just go back to you, is Walz can win.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think the challenge right now is we've had Trump has largely, and I think, let me also just say, I do believe that the vice president needs to get out and answer some questions.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I think they've gone through this.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_01]: They were given some grace, I think, because of Biden getting out in this process.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_01]: But I do think before the Democratic National Convention, very soon there needs to be a sit-down Q&A with the vice president on issues related to this race and do that Q&A.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I do think there needs to be that element of transparency in those discussions.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd be very curious if Trump will do that in the aftermath of what happened at the National Association of Black Journalism meeting.

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_01]: He will do a Q&A.

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_01]: The problem that I think the Republicans have right now is message discipline.

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the real issue is message discipline.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's very difficult, I think, to paint Governor Walz in the frame that the Republicans want to when he is smiling on stage,

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01]: when he's kneeling down and talking to Girl Scouts, and when they're on the tarmac,

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_01]: when we have these stories after stories about who he is.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_01]: The memes and kind of the discussion point that came out after he was picked,

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_01]: people are like making jokes about the fact that he'd be out there fixing the White House lawnmower

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_01]: or fixing the beast to make sure that the oil was changed in there.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_01]: That's great branding.

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's developed that.

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that when it comes to his background, he's going to have some discussion about that.

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But the bottom line is, I think it's pretty difficult for Republicans right now, working with what they have,

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_01]: to go out there and say that this is working.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_01]: To the enthusiasm point, I'll just say this in closing on this section.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_01]: What we saw in Minnesota was a perfect example.

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_01]: There was an enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats in this state when Biden was in the ticket.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_01]: The minute the introduction of Kamala Harris to this race, that shifted.

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And that tells me two things.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_01]: There was enthusiasm.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_01]: There was an enthusiasm gap above the top of the ticket.

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's been wiped away.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_01]: The other thing is that I think a number of people who are, I think, would be called double haters,

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_01]: even though I don't like the term hating, but the double haters, the people who didn't like Harris,

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_01]: didn't like Biden and didn't like Trump, are giving this race a second look,

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_01]: particularly in support of Biden, excuse me, in support of Harris after Biden got out.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that it's really one thing I just want to remind Republicans.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_01]: 46.8%.

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the highest poll.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the highest Donald Trump ever got on a national election.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_01]: 48, 46.8.

[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, I understand that we don't have a national election system, but we have a common,

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_01]: we have 50 state, 50 local elections to elect president.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But after what happened with Donald Trump did in Georgia, where he left that in a mess,

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_01]: in tacking Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, I think Georgia is going to be a real opportunity

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_01]: for the Harris camp, the Harris walls campaign.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important to see if Trump is out on the campaign trail, how can he leave these states

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_01]: better for the Republicans to come back?

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it seems like he's going on is a little bit of a vengeance tour.

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And why go to Georgia and say what he did about Brian Kemp and leave that state in disthreat?

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_01]: If there's a responsible messenger on the Republican side and up against the Harris walls campaign,

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_01]: this can be a real foot race.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_01]: It is a real foot race, but there needs to be some responsible messaging on the Republican side.

[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I absolutely agree.

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's my biggest concerns with the Trump Vance ticket.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_03]: I think there can be discipline.

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I also would say two things.

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_03]: One, we've talked about a lot over the last two years of this podcast,

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_03]: and I think that John and Senator Benson would agree.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Clearly, Senator Benson, you understand the gift that storytelling can be to really,

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_03]: to share the examples of the children, of the families, of the businesses, of the farmers,

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_03]: whatever it might be.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Actually putting some of these things, these talking about the policies in ways of how they

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_03]: impact real Americans is something that Republicans, I don't think, do as well as Democrats.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I want to see more of that.

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_03]: But I also think we have to, I don't always love to jump on my media bias, but I think,

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Senator Benson, as you chatted about a little bit, what we've seen in the state of Minnesota

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_03]: from the Minnesota press and what we're seeing, we are seeing a little bit more of people

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_03]: really diving in on the national level.

[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_03]: One prime example, Governor Walz in his introductory speech at the first rally in Pennsylvania made

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_03]: a couch joke about J.D. Vance.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Had the roles been reversed here, I feel like the press would come out and say, that was poor

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_03]: form.

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_03]: That was an inappropriate joke.

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_03]: We don't need to go there.

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_03]: That was too low.

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_03]: But Tim Walz did it.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And because he is so likable, it was funny.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And we laugh and we move on.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I think there is something to that.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I've said this before, and I will say it again.

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Trump and Vance get in their own ways.

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_03]: They continue to cause themselves some troubles.

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I think that one thing, we obviously are not on the Trump-Vance team here by any

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_03]: means.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think that we do have access and conversations with Republicans working on the campaign trail

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_03]: here in Minnesota.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess maybe a plea.

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think, I'm hopeful that our Republicans in the state of Minnesota can stay on message

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_03]: to make sure.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_03]: I want to get into a little bit of what this is going to impact down ballot here in Minnesota.

[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think we have some really good leaders up at the Capitol right now, our congressional

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_03]: delegation.

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_03]: I think we have, and obviously staff and operatives.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_03]: We have really good people here that can focus on the jobs and the cost of eggs and the

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_03]: cost of fuel.

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_03]: We have folks that can talk about energy policies and what that looks like under Tim Walz

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_03]: and Kamala Harris versus a Republican presidential ticket.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I think there are a lot of really good opportunities that we can hit the Democrats on the failures

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_03]: of their policies and how it is not going to get us back on the right track.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_03]: It is not going to right side that number of what 20% of Americans that think we're on

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_03]: the right track.

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_03]: The Democratic ticket under Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is not the path to changing that.

[00:40:31] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that we can focus on that.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm hopeful that Republicans here in the state do not focus on the social issues,

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_03]: do not focus on all of these different name callings and things of the Trump-Vance ticket,

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_03]: but instead focus on the policies that are impacting our daily lives.

[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's the key to a winning message here in Minnesota.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_03]: We have the Republican House or the House is up.

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Hopeful that Republicans are going to take this.

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Senator Benson, you spent a decade plus in the legislature.

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Chat a little bit about what this might mean down ballot.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_03]: We do, as Michael said, we had the enthusiasm gap before.

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_03]: That has closed.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_03]: So while we know that we probably are going to get a lot of Minnesota Democrats who maybe

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_03]: were not, you know, because Walz wasn't on the ticket, we're not going to vote midterm.

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_03]: They might are now going to get out and vote for Vice President Walz in November.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_03]: We also know that Republicans in the state have been watching progressive Walz over the last six

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_03]: years, that they know who he is and what his policies in the White House would look like.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_03]: So we know that they are motivated as well.

[00:41:33] [SPEAKER_03]: What do you think this is going to do down ballot?

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Is it going to impact it one way or another?

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Or what are your takes?

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So I have a number of progressive, I would say liberal friends outside of government.

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_02]: They were shoulder shrug and voting for Biden.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yay.

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Harris moves in and now they're buying t-shirts and they're posting things on social media

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_02]: and they are all in.

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a little bit of the girl glory and that's fine, but that's changing suburban races because

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_02]: they were disengaged and maybe not donating and now they're engaged.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I am concerned about the targeted seats in the House in particular and what that changing

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_02]: enthusiasm gap does to the prospects for the Minnesota House, the prospects for the Minnesota

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Senate.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_02]: When we look at Senate District 45, great candidate there in a very swing district, concerned about

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_02]: what this does in Senate District 45.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And so what looks like a lot of hope for Republicans is now down and dirty.

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to have to fight, get to every door.

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_02]: However, candidates connect authentically with the person at the door.

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Let them know that you hear their concerns.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't make it about you, make it about them.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Draw them to you so that the noise of the top of the ticket is less impactful, frankly, because

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_02]: you're going to win votes door by door.

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_02]: This isn't the big swing that we saw in previous elections.

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_02]: This is going to be in the streets, door to door type battle.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I believe the House and the Senate Republicans can get their candidates to that place.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to need money and they're going to need staff, but it's going to have to be

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_02]: a door to door.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_02]: The enthusiasm gap changing is a huge factor in how easy or difficult it will be to win

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_02]: and flip those majorities.

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_03]: John, you spend a lot of time working with candidates up and down the ticket.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Thoughts?

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I think I don't want to ignore the shift in enthusiasm because I do believe that is real,

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_00]: but I want to make sure that we don't overstate what that means in a state like Minnesota.

[00:43:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Minnesota consistently has the highest turnout of any state in the country, especially when

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_00]: it comes to presidential elections.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_00]: When you look at the competitive legislative districts and competitive congressional district

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_00]: in Minnesota, they're already turning out at massive numbers.

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And we expected to see that regardless of who was on the ticket.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I think Donald Trump really is the single best motivator for the Democratic base to turn

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_00]: out to vote that the Democrats could ever have.

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_00]: There was no question that those Democrats, as reluctant as they might have been to get

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_00]: excited about Joe Biden or to really go out and cheer him and defend him, given the opportunity,

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_00]: they will crawl over broken glass to vote against Donald Trump.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think where we see the enthusiasm shifting things is in things like the donations, in things

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_00]: like going in door to door and door knocking, filling up to rallies, putting up a lawn sign, buying a shirt or a

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_00]: camo hat, whatever it might be from the Harris and Walls campaign.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to the actual election itself and turnout, really nothing has changed here.

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing that I would say is that the districts that we're talking about are very competitive.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_00]: In the Minnesota state legislative races, every district that we're looking at, I don't think

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Tim Walls adds a particular wrinkle to this.

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_00]: They're still going to be very competitive.

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_00]: He maxed out at 51% in the most Democratic leaning targeted legislative race, right?

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not talking about places that Tim Walls ran up the score.

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, that 51% was against Scott Jensen.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Scott Jensen was not some excellent candidate, right?

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_00]: He gave the Democrats a selfie style video saying that he would ban abortion in a year that

[00:45:51] [SPEAKER_00]: abortion became the number one issue and everybody was afraid that they were going to ban abortion.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that this really shows that Republicans can compete and win in these districts.

[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_00]: As I look at it, I think that there are things that we can go talk about.

[00:46:08] [SPEAKER_00]: We can talk about the Feeding Our Future scandal that Tim Walls still to this day has refused

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_00]: to have anybody from his administration take responsibility on.

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_00]: You can take a look at dozens of examples of waste, fraud, and abuse.

[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Even his attempts to send out those pandemic era employee bonuses, what?

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_00]: $200 million of the half billion dollars that they sent out went to people who weren't

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_00]: eligible to get them because they didn't run an eligibility check.

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of stuff there that I think will be interesting.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_00]: The one thing that I'm really watching is that as we do talk about those swing voters,

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and Michael kind of hit on this a little bit, nobody has really ever defined Tim Walls in the

[00:46:49] [SPEAKER_00]: state of Minnesota.

[00:46:49] [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't happen organically through the press.

[00:46:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that Republicans did their best with the leaders in the House and the Senate and trying

[00:46:57] [SPEAKER_00]: to really define him.

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But there was no sustained effort when he was on the ballot in 2022 to really define who he

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_00]: was.

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Republicans were on defense that race.

[00:47:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But the other thing that I take away from that, even when Republicans were on defense,

[00:47:12] [SPEAKER_00]: even with as weak of a candidate as Scott Jensen was, Tim Walls has very thin skin.

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_00]: You could see him starting to bubble up.

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_00]: You could see him especially when he is challenged on his track record of what he believes is

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_00]: delivering on what he thinks are his successes.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_00]: To the extent that J.D. Vance gets to go toe-to-toe with Tim Walls, I think that we're going to

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_00]: see a very different Tim Walls than the politics of joy.

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that mask is going to slip.

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_00]: The Democrats cannot avoid doing media.

[00:47:46] [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking, really talking about what does this look like for the next 89 days?

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And as we go out there, Tim Walls is going to, and Michael, you said, is Donald Trump

[00:47:59] [SPEAKER_00]: going to do another forum where he does a Q&A because of how the National Association of

[00:48:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Black Journalists went?

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_00]: First thing I would say, good on Donald Trump for going.

[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought that the performance was not good.

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_00]: It was not great.

[00:48:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But he showed up.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_00]: That's more than I can say for Kamala Harris and Tim Walls.

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And today, Donald Trump is going to go have a press conference at 2 Eastern.

[00:48:22] [SPEAKER_00]: He's going to go stand in front of reporters and take questions.

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yesterday, when their planes were side-by-side in Eau Claire, J.D. Vance walked over and did

[00:48:31] [SPEAKER_00]: a gaggle with the press corps following the vice president around.

[00:48:35] [SPEAKER_00]: That is going to start to hit.

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And really, I'll be curious to see as Tim Walls gets defined by the national media, as

[00:48:43] [SPEAKER_00]: voters start to pay attention and define him and start to look at his record, what does

[00:48:48] [SPEAKER_00]: that mean back at home where for a decent-sized chunk of these voters, they know about Tim

[00:48:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Walls.

[00:48:56] [SPEAKER_00]: They know about things that he did.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's really ever had a sustained effort outside of these targeted legislative races

[00:49:04] [SPEAKER_00]: where the state House and state Senate candidates defined what happened under him.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think looking beyond that, I'll be very curious how his image changes in Minnesota

[00:49:15] [SPEAKER_00]: over the course of the next three months.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to respectfully push back.

[00:49:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I think J.D. Vance can do a good job if he's one-on-one with Tim Walls.

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I think trained as an attorney, as an investor, he's got discipline and facts.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_02]: We saw he wrote a book and had a movie to tell the story.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's a real strength.

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Donald Trump is capable of staying on message.

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Why he chooses not to continually baffles me.

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_02]: He could win this if he could just stay on message and understand who his audience is.

[00:49:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So absolutely.

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Tim Walls is a moldable Midwestern governor.

[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And the Harris team's going to love being able to do the, here he is riding in a combine when he was six years old.

[00:50:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're going to love to be able to do that.

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're very online.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_02]: We follow Twitter.

[00:50:12] [SPEAKER_02]: We get the inside baseball.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_02]: The funny little jokes that David Hogg, who's an influencer evidently for Tim Walls.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Most voters, I'll tell you, the people who are really trying to just get through the day, they might see something on social media for a fraction of a second.

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_02]: The rest of this doesn't matter.

[00:50:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So the soft story of an affable Tim Walls and Kamala Harris, as long as she never has to do an off script interview, they're okay for now.

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So Donald Trump, like if anybody on Trump team wants advice from somebody who's no longer in politics, he can be a message.

[00:50:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Get him there.

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Tell him to stay there.

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Let J.D. Vance debate Tim Walls because that will help.

[00:50:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And frankly, stick with some core message that's going to move the people you need to move.

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I love it.

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Michael, any thoughts on the topic?

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that the challenge that I think that Republicans have right now is what we're seeing on TV.

[00:51:19] [SPEAKER_01]: The easiest message to deliver right now is what's on TV.

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And Walls is smiling, having fun, having a great time.

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And the Harris campaign is having fun.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Harris, the vice president is having a great time.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Walls is having a fun time.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not seeing a lot of laughter and cheering out of Trump or Vance right now.

[00:51:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And I understand that they're frustrated because the dynamics of the race has changed.

[00:51:44] [SPEAKER_01]: But let me tell you something.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_01]: People can simultaneously recognize that there's problems that need to be fixed and also feel good about this country.

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And the problem that I think that Republicans are going to have in Minnesota is that in order for in order for in order to be loyal to the Trump Vance ticket, you have to go out and say that Minnesota is bad.

[00:52:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to go out there and say that things aren't working here in Minnesota.

[00:52:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a really tough thing to do.

[00:52:12] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a really tough thing to do.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And then say that's where I think Minnesota could become battleground.

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I have questions as to whether Trump comes back here or not.

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I could see him coming back a bunch of times.

[00:52:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I can see him saying, I'm not coming back.

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_01]: But if he comes back, what's his message going to be?

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_01]: That Minnesota is failing?

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that most Minnesotans think that this state is failing.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Do I think that there is room for improving Minnesota?

[00:52:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course they do.

[00:52:34] [SPEAKER_01]: But my calculus has always been about Walls is that it's one of the reasons I supported him.

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I supported him in 2022, particularly on COVID.

[00:52:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I think Walls, I don't blame Walls for COVID.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And I also would say to you, I think he tried to be as best he can part of the solution.

[00:52:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the question on some of these problems that people are going to tag on Walls, is he part of the problem or part of the solution?

[00:52:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think when it comes to Walls, I think Minnesotans have made the determination so far that there are issues, there are concerns.

[00:53:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But they think that Walls is part of the solution, at least in this state.

[00:53:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I don't think any of these hits on him have really stuck.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think he is someone who is accessible, is talking, is engaged.

[00:53:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that the Minnesotans have made the determination, yeah, there's some things that could have been gone better.

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_01]: There's things that could have been done better.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_01]: But was Walls part of the problem or part of the solution?

[00:53:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I think Minnesotans have decided that they want Walls in there trying to fix some things.

[00:53:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, if I can just speak about the press for a second.

[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I absolutely agree that there, and this has been a little bit of a pattern with, in some ways, the Minnesota press.

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And as someone who was formerly a blogger and an independent journalist, a lot of the reasons why I had material to post and to write about was because, in some ways, that was not being looked at by journalists in Minnesota.

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's the reality of it.

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_01]: That's why we have long, Minnesota has long had a vibrant independent journalist group of independent journalists that are doing work.

[00:54:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think sometimes the traditional press corps misses out on things.

[00:54:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And I do think it's going to be interesting to see because I do think there's going to be some national stories written about Walls, about some of his origin story.

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that Walls is going to have to answer some questions about that.

[00:54:27] [SPEAKER_01]: But honestly, I think he's going to succeed in that because I will also say this to you.

[00:54:33] [SPEAKER_01]: If we look at the next 89 days, I think Republicans are going to wake up for the next 89 days and say, great, what is Trump and or Vance going to screw up now?

[00:54:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think that they need, I think, and we said this a week or so ago, Becky, when we were previewing who could potentially be the pick.

[00:54:50] [SPEAKER_01]: We were discussing with Senator Aramain Quaid and with Will Davis about the enthusiasm on the Democratic side.

[00:54:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And my point back then was to say, if the election were held today, I think Donald Trump would win.

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_01]: That was a week or so ago, 10 days ago.

[00:55:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And I, but I said, every day we get past today, I think isn't it going to be an advantage to Harris?

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I stand by that even more now that I think the Trump campaign needs the camp election to have today because there's 89 days to the election.

[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_01]: There are 89 more days for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance to do exactly what they did, what Trump did at the National Association of Black Journalists, which was walk into the room, pull a pin on a grenade and throw it in there.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what he's going to do and not have these discipline type events.

[00:55:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's 89 more days for the Harris Walls campaign to have the to have there be exuberance and enthusiasm and smiles on faces.

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And there and that's why I think this is fundamentally changed the race.

[00:55:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that the Trump Vance campaign has a lot to be happy about right now because I think they're losing.

[00:55:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that they're frustrated that they're losing and they don't know what to do.

[00:55:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see how that works out.

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_01]: But if I was a betting person today, I think that Harris and Walls win.

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to push back.

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'd like to reframe a little.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Minnesota doesn't matter in the Electoral College.

[00:56:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Trump tried to expand the map here when it was Biden.

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's shift back to reality in Minnesota.

[00:56:23] [SPEAKER_02]: If Trump pulls out of Minnesota, maybe it impacts some down ballot and some election integrity stuff.

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But it doesn't gain Harris Walls anything.

[00:56:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So our very Minnesota, aren't we super excited?

[00:56:36] [SPEAKER_02]: The Vikings almost made it to the Super Bowl again.

[00:56:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Attitude is really not what the rest of the country is feeling right now.

[00:56:44] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, so let's talk about the rest of the country.

[00:56:47] [SPEAKER_02]: If Tim Walls is this cheerful, wonderful asset, which he can be for the Harris team.

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And J.D. Vance gets him off a little bit, then that sort of becomes a national story because the rest of the country isn't as enthralled with Minnesota as we like to think.

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, everybody.

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I've actually.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_02]: How dare you?

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_02]: West Coast.

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Like they're most of the journalists.

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to look up on a map.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_02]: They're like Minnesota or Michigan.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Which one is it?

[00:57:15] [SPEAKER_02]: That's how little.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_02]: How dare you?

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I love this.

[00:57:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm joking.

[00:57:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I know.

[00:57:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Back here.

[00:57:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I had the option to live anywhere.

[00:57:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you're not from here.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, interesting.

[00:57:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not from Nebraska either.

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm from a very tiny town.

[00:57:28] [SPEAKER_02]: My family still lives there.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I actually have cemetery plots at the church where I was baptized and married.

[00:57:35] [SPEAKER_01]: There's our pull quote.

[00:57:36] [SPEAKER_02]: You want to Minnesota me all day long, dude.

[00:57:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll hot dish you any day, but the rest of the country is going to see Tim Walz as a cheerful, affable until they get him a little bit off his game.

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he won't matter anymore.

[00:57:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And that'll be Trump versus Harris.

[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And if Trump can stay on message about the things that people care about, he can actually win the states he needs to win.

[00:57:59] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what this comes down to.

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Michael, you said it before.

[00:58:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Winning is what matters.

[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Election certificates are completely digital.

[00:58:07] [SPEAKER_02]: You either have one or you don't.

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And so in the end, you either win the state or you don't.

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_02]: How you hurt yourself is by doing things you don't need to do.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So Donald Trump, you're saying things he didn't need to say.

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't waste your time and money on it.

[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Go say the things you need to say to the people who need to hear them.

[00:58:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Focus on the states that matter.

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you can actually win this.

[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Push back a little bit on the idea that there's this level of happiness and optimism that's coming from the Democrats that's completely unprecedented and the Republicans didn't see.

[00:58:47] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just not true.

[00:58:49] [SPEAKER_00]: We've all been on so many campaigns.

[00:58:52] [SPEAKER_00]: It's weird because we're in August, but this is the kickoff of a campaign.

[00:58:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And if you think back to the campaigns that you've been on, when you go do that fly around the day after you get the nomination and you go barnstorm the state and you're excited that you've got a new candidate and you've got a new vice presidential nominee, those are the easiest, happiest days of a campaign.

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course they look happy right now.

[00:59:21] [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't look happy on the first day of your campaign, that's like the one good day of your campaign that you're guaranteed good press is the first day of your campaign.

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_00]: We're 72 hours into Tim Walls and they're just starting to dig into them.

[00:59:36] [SPEAKER_00]: They're just starting to look at them.

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_00]: We haven't even made it to the DNC yet.

[00:59:41] [SPEAKER_00]: There is a lot of campaign left.

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_00]: We're on a short runway, but there's a lot of time for paid media.

[00:59:47] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of time for Kamala Harris to go back to mashing up all of her weird things that she says, getting off message and to be held accountable for all of the very, very liberal things that she promised in her failures with the Biden administration.

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_00]: There is a long time to examine the record of Tim Walls and we're just getting started.

[01:00:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a really incredible point that we hadn't discussed because you're right.

[01:00:14] [SPEAKER_03]: This is the honeymoon period.

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Everybody's happy.

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Everybody's excited.

[01:00:17] [SPEAKER_03]: They're so new.

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_03]: They see, again, it is adorable photos and videos of Tim Walls and all of his highlight reel.

[01:00:25] [SPEAKER_03]: That is true.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think you're right.

[01:00:28] [SPEAKER_03]: We've talked a lot.

[01:00:29] [SPEAKER_03]: We have talked a lot about how since the RNC convention, right after that Biden dropped out, it became Harris.

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_03]: And then it was about Harris.

[01:00:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And then it was about the beep stakes.

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And now it's Tim Walls.

[01:00:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And now we're going to lead into the DNC convention.

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think there is a lot of opportunity for missteps as we move through the next two weeks.

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And the DNC convention, I think, is going to be really interesting to watch because, like you said, we're going to get a speech from Kamala Harris.

[01:00:58] [SPEAKER_03]: She is not known for being extremely said and articulate in her ways of communicating.

[01:01:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And she gets a little silly and looks a little ridiculous.

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, I think Tim Walls is probably going to deliver a banger of a speech.

[01:01:13] [SPEAKER_03]: I would expect nothing less from him.

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's going to be...

[01:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a speech writers writing this.

[01:01:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Wait a second.

[01:01:22] [SPEAKER_00]: The DNC, I believe...

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not against teleprop.

[01:01:24] [SPEAKER_00]: No, of course not.

[01:01:24] [SPEAKER_00]: This is...

[01:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It's the DNC, right?

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a five-day-long infomercial that we put on TV.

[01:01:31] [SPEAKER_00]: That's another week that's pretty much guaranteed good press.

[01:01:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But what happens after that?

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: But she's going to have to do interviews there.

[01:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[01:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_00]: When she is on the ground, when she's taking questions,

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I think the run-up into the DNC, we've got a week kind of between now and when everybody starts thinking about Chicago.

[01:01:49] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of time while she's out barnstorming for something to go.

[01:01:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And really, there's a lot of opportunity for them to make some missteps.

[01:01:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And if their objective is to read off a teleprompter, to hide in a basement,

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_00]: that's a great strategy if you're Joe Biden and it's COVID and you don't have to go in public.

[01:02:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Or if you're winning an election, they're not winning the election.

[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll...

[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no.

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_01]: You go on.

[01:02:18] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to say...

[01:02:19] [SPEAKER_01]: The ifs and buts were candy nuts and every day would be Christmas, John.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the problem, I would say, is if the reality is...

[01:02:25] [SPEAKER_01]: The reality that you're predicting for the Harris-Walls campaign is happening right now in Trump world.

[01:02:31] [SPEAKER_01]: All the concerns, all the missteps, all the mistakes you think that you're predicting are going to happen

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_01]: in the Harris-Walls campaign are happening on quite a regular basis with the Trump-Vance campaign,

[01:02:43] [SPEAKER_01]: which is why Trump has been basically incommunicado for the last week

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: because of the disastrous performance he had at the National Association of Black Journalists.

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, I go back to...

[01:02:53] [SPEAKER_01]: We just said he's having a press conference at 2 o'clock this afternoon.

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Congratulations.

[01:02:57] [SPEAKER_01]: The election is this November.

[01:02:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He is coming out and having a press conference.

[01:03:00] [SPEAKER_01]: But the point I'm saying to you is...

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And where's Vice President Harris having hers?

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And what did I say on this podcast?

[01:03:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I would say, she doesn't have to.

[01:03:09] [SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't have to.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, she's growing her project.

[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm sorry.

[01:03:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Until a major news anchor...

[01:03:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Until all the White House press corps says,

[01:03:22] [SPEAKER_02]: you know what?

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_02]: We're not covering any Harris stuff until she starts giving us one-on-ones or has a gaggle.

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Until they all decide they're going to have some discipline.

[01:03:31] [SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't have to.

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And Tim Walls will give a better speech than Kamala Harris at the convention

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_02]: because he's going to sense the energy in the room

[01:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: and he's not going to do any silly laugh or any funny hand gestures.

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_02]: He's just going to smile and take it in and build the energy

[01:03:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and give a better speech at the convention.

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that Republicans right now are projecting.

[01:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I think they're projecting on what they're projecting

[01:03:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and they're also hoping.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_01]: They're hoping that the flubs and mistakes and the fumbles

[01:04:02] [SPEAKER_01]: that have been happening with the Trump campaign

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_01]: and the Vance campaign happen with the Harris campaign.

[01:04:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, there's 89 days between now and election day.

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, there's going to be mistakes.

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be missteps.

[01:04:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But if you were in Vegas right now asking

[01:04:14] [SPEAKER_01]: how many of these days are going to be occupied by Trump,

[01:04:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Vance mistakes versus Harris and Walls campaign,

[01:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I know where I would put my money.

[01:04:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And so the question is, what is, as we all know from aspects

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_01]: where we've worked on campaigns in the past

[01:04:28] [SPEAKER_01]: or wherever we've done stuff, it's about message discipline.

[01:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And right now, I think the Harris-Walls message is a heck,

[01:04:36] [SPEAKER_01]: it's more of a disciplined operation than the Trump-Vance operation.

[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And to John's point, yes, it is the rollout.

[01:04:43] [SPEAKER_01]: This is the honeymoon phase.

[01:04:44] [SPEAKER_01]: But look at the map, look at the calendar.

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_01]: This honeymoon phase is happening in August.

[01:04:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's 89 days before the election.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: The Democrats found a way to revive, revitalize their ticket,

[01:04:58] [SPEAKER_01]: energize them away.

[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the rollout of Walls was flawless.

[01:05:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the Harris-Walls operation today has been nearly error-free.

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there's going to be a real introduction

[01:05:12] [SPEAKER_01]: at the Democratic National Committee.

[01:05:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And the point of the matter is, the points that Republicans would get an off-ramp

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_01]: a little bit or an opportunity to reset, they don't have those built in.

[01:05:21] [SPEAKER_01]: There's questions as to whether there's going to be debates between,

[01:05:24] [SPEAKER_01]: we don't know what the Trump campaign is going to do about debates,

[01:05:28] [SPEAKER_01]: and with the Democratic National Convention.

[01:05:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Imagine where this ticket is.

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: If they can make it to the Democratic National Convention,

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER_01]: imagine where this ticket can be if they springboard out of the Democratic National Convention.

[01:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Because what didn't happen with the Republicans was that springboarding effect.

[01:05:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Because what happened on the Sunday after,

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Joe Biden announced he wasn't going to run for re-election.

[01:05:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And so he took the oxygen out of the room.

[01:05:52] [SPEAKER_00]: The big thing that you have to deal with, though,

[01:05:55] [SPEAKER_00]: is that Kamala Harris is still Kamala Harris, right?

[01:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a person who was minus 15 and fave on faith.

[01:06:01] [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that she has changed since Joe Biden got out of the race

[01:06:05] [SPEAKER_00]: is that her name's not Joe Biden.

[01:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: That moved her to favorable.

[01:06:09] [SPEAKER_00]: But that's going to come back to reality.

[01:06:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Voters will remember why they don't like Kamala Harris.

[01:06:15] [SPEAKER_00]: One of the most unliked vice presidential candidates and vice presidents in modern time.

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that has changed is that she's not Joe Biden and you're on a honeymoon.

[01:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Honeymoons end.

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to have to be reminded,

[01:06:31] [SPEAKER_02]: and with early balloting and broad mail-in balloting strategies,

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_02]: they're going to come out of the convention.

[01:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to get a free week.

[01:06:39] [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be Labor Day.

[01:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And then it's two weeks till ballots start coming out in some of these states.

[01:06:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And the Democrat machine is going to get as many votes banked as they possibly can

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_02]: before any mistakes happen.

[01:06:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm going to, and then, and like, eventually the real Kamala Harris will stand up

[01:07:03] [SPEAKER_02]: unless the Trump team doesn't make mistakes and actively moves a message about how bad

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: the Harris Biden team was.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_02]: They've got an uphill climb.

[01:07:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm not living in the land.

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I've been a Minnesota Republican and Vikings fan longer than,

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm pretty sure longer than anybody on this call.

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, this is not easy.

[01:07:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't take this lightly.

[01:07:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And any Republican who thinks that there's any layup in their future is wrong.

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_03]: We're nearing the end of our time.

[01:07:33] [SPEAKER_03]: So I am going to wrap up by putting you guys on the spot the way Michael put me on the spot

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_03]: earlier this week, but I think you guys are primed and ready for it.

[01:07:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Give us a one minute, why not walls?

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_03]: A one minute of why he is not the best choice for vice president,

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_03]: why he is not the best choice to serve in the White House,

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_03]: and how it will be disastrous for families and businesses.

[01:07:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Senator Benson, you go.

[01:07:57] [SPEAKER_02]: He pushed Minnesota to the highest tax rate in the country for entrepreneurs.

[01:08:02] [SPEAKER_02]: He has overseen a massive decline in reading scores and huge disparities.

[01:08:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And those kids' lives are changed forever because of it.

[01:08:13] [SPEAKER_02]: He's loose on the border.

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_02]: He's right in line with Kamala Harris.

[01:08:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Those are the three big things that I would,

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_02]: and suburban voters don't care about high taxes,

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: but they do care about employers in their district.

[01:08:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what I'd go for.

[01:08:29] [SPEAKER_02]: John, final words.

[01:08:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Tim Walls is just more of the far left that you've come to expect from Kamala Harris,

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and her campaign is wrong for the United States.

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: It would raise taxes.

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: It would make Americans less safe.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_00]: It makes our country weaker.

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And if you liked Joe Biden, you're going to love Kamala Harris.

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Fantastic.

[01:08:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Great job, guys.

[01:08:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Michael, all you.

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to thank you.

[01:08:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to thank everyone for doing this today.

[01:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: This was a wonderful exercise in just the way campaigns are run and messaging.

[01:09:01] [SPEAKER_01]: We hope to do this again.

[01:09:03] [SPEAKER_01]: The viewership was great.

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I do want to take just a brief moment to acknowledge.

[01:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It's my wedding anniversary today.

[01:09:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to say happy anniversary to my wife, Sarah, who's allowing me to do this podcast today on our anniversary.

[01:09:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But I just want to say thanks to you guys for doing this.

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do this again soon.

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just really appreciate the dialogue.

[01:09:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We come from this from different perspectives.

[01:09:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But Becky and Senator Benson, and of course, John, who came really throwing the heat.

[01:09:25] [SPEAKER_01]: This is what we need to do more.

[01:09:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Just have these discussions and find a way to disagree without being disagreeable.

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And I can't think of a better crew in which to do this with.

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So I just want to say thank you all for spending that time with us this morning.

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to appreciate our listeners for participating and watching another episode of The Breakdown with Brad Corbin Becky.

[01:09:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Before we go, show us some love for your favorite podcast.

[01:09:46] [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, you can just review an Apple podcast or podcast where you listen.

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_01]: The Breakdown with Brad Corbin Becky will be back next week.

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for doing this.

[01:09:54] Thank you.