Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart sneaker
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Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's
Speaker 1: on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Friday, August nine.
Speaker 1: Medical experts are calling for Australia to overhaul its plastics regulations.
Speaker 1: New research indicates there are chemicals in some plastics which
Speaker 1: are linked with the development of autism. That's a big
Speaker 1: health story with implications for all of us. Breaking now
Speaker 1: on the Australian dot com dot AU. Disability service providers
Speaker 1: say they're going broke because of a multi billion dollar
Speaker 1: accounting problem with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. They say
Speaker 1: the NDIS is underpaying the providers who look after Australia's
Speaker 1: most needy people. There's a new player in American politics.
Speaker 1: The former high school football coach Kamala Harris has picked
Speaker 1: as her new vice president. He's a straight talking Midwesterner
Speaker 1: and the gun lobby hates him. Today we meet Tim Walls,
Speaker 1: a social studies teacher, a high school football coach, and
Speaker 1: once he became a prominent Democrat politician. Tim Walls was
Speaker 1: a hunting, fishing, gun rights advocate. I'm Tim Walls. You know,
Speaker 1: growing up hunting taught me a lot.
Speaker 2: About responsibility and respect, lessons I hope to pass on
Speaker 2: to my kids. I'm proud to stand with the NRA
Speaker 2: to protect the rates of sportsmen and gun owners.
Speaker 3: Until this, Oh my god, Oh my god, oh my god,
Speaker 3: we're still shooting.
Speaker 1: Shooting animate.
Speaker 2: They scored this that we have actual to the shooter
Speaker 2: in room three two.
Speaker 4: One five three two sustained automatic gunfire at the concert.
Speaker 3: Fifty nine now dead, more than five hundred injured.
Speaker 1: The most deadly massacre of civilians by a loan shooter
Speaker 1: in the United States is sorry. History of gun violence.
Speaker 1: The twenty seventeen Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas. It
Speaker 1: turned Tim Walls away from guns.
Speaker 2: The time for hiding behind thoughts and prayers is long gone.
Speaker 2: What we need is action, and we need it now.
Speaker 2: So here's what's going to happen. Here's what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: We've got gun safety bill on the table, and we're
Speaker 2: going to get it passed and.
Speaker 1: I'm going to sign it. He donated all the money
Speaker 1: he'd ever received from the NRA, the most powerful lobbying
Speaker 1: organization in the States to charity. After the Parkland High
Speaker 1: School massacre in twenty eighteen, Walls had a confronting conversation
Speaker 1: with his daughter op walk up like.
Speaker 2: Many of you did five weeks ago, and Debt said, Dad,
Speaker 2: you're the only person I know who's an elected office.
Speaker 2: You need to stop what's happening with this. I'll take
Speaker 2: my kick in the butt for the NA I spent
Speaker 2: twenty five years in the army, and I.
Speaker 1: Hunt As governor of Minnesota. He dramatically tightened gun restrictions,
Speaker 1: and now he's Kamala Harris's running mate. He welcome the
Speaker 1: next Vice President of the United States, Tim Wall. There's
Speaker 1: been lots of speculation that Kamala Harris would choose a
Speaker 1: straight white Midwestern dude to reassure the voters. Well, she did,
Speaker 1: But Tim Walls is more complex than the cliche might suggest.
Speaker 2: Some of us in here are old enough to remember.
Speaker 2: I see you down there, I see those all white guys.
Speaker 2: Some of us are all remember when it was Republicans
Speaker 2: who were talking about freedom. It turns out now what
Speaker 2: they meant was the government should be free to invade
Speaker 2: your doctor's office.
Speaker 1: On the keystone issue of abortion rights, something the Democrats
Speaker 1: are pinning their hopes on this election cycle. Walls is
Speaker 1: loud and proud in Minnesota.
Speaker 2: We respect our neighbors and their personal choices that they make,
Speaker 2: even if we wouldn't make the same choice for ourselves.
Speaker 2: There's a golden rule, mind your own damn business.
Speaker 1: Wolves is derided by the Republicans as a political wed
Speaker 1: of vean, someone who can't be trusted. The Democrats say,
Speaker 1: over a long career in the federal House of Representatives
Speaker 1: and in state politics, he's just changed his mind. Wolls
Speaker 1: hits all the progressive notes from the Democrats' dreams in
Speaker 1: an accent that's meant to tell you he's not part
Speaker 1: of the East Coast liberal elite.
Speaker 2: When Vice President and I talk about freedom, we mean
Speaker 2: the freedom to make.
Speaker 1: Your own healthcare decisions.
Speaker 2: And for our children to be free to go to
Speaker 2: school without worrying they'll be shot dead in their classrooms.
Speaker 2: By the way, as you heard, I was in the
Speaker 2: best shots in Congress. But in Minnesota, we believe in
Speaker 2: the Second Amendment, but we also believe in common sense
Speaker 2: gun violence laws.
Speaker 1: It's only been a few days since Walls was named
Speaker 1: as Harris's running mate, and he's already on the attack.
Speaker 1: One person firmly in his sights Donald Trump's running mate JD. Vance.
Speaker 2: Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland.
Speaker 2: JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley billionaires, and then wrote a best seller trashing that community.
Speaker 1: Come on the crowd at Walls's debut speech to the
Speaker 1: Democratic faithful in Pennsylvania. Loved Walls's shtick, and there was
Speaker 1: one line in particular that brought the house down.
Speaker 2: And I gotta tell you, I can't wait to debate
Speaker 2: the guy. That is, if he's willing to get off
Speaker 2: the couch and show up so.
Speaker 4: You see what I did there.
Speaker 1: If you didn't see what he did there, then this
Speaker 1: moment needs a bit of explaining. You might need a
Speaker 1: coffee for this one. Soon after JD. Vance was nominated
Speaker 1: as Trump's running mate, someone put out a tweet saying
Speaker 1: there was a very strange passage in the first edition
Speaker 1: of Vance's autobiography, Hillbilly Elegy. It said that on pages
Speaker 1: one nine to one point eight one, Vance wrote about
Speaker 1: having well carnal relations with a couch. Those aren't the
Speaker 1: words that we used by the way, you get my drift.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's nothing like that in Hillbilly Elergy, which
Speaker 1: was actually a lyrical exploration of poverty and what it's
Speaker 1: like to be an outsider. This couch stuff is completely
Speaker 1: made up. It's ridiculous, but the Internet being the Internet,
Speaker 1: people ran with it. The fake story was all over
Speaker 1: social media, Instagram, TikTok x, even Fox News referenced it.
Speaker 2: It seems like the Republicans are getting a big ged
Speaker 2: Vans should.
Speaker 1: I say couch sized? Wake up hod he or didn't he?
Speaker 1: It got so weird that the Associated Press released a
Speaker 1: story with the headline no, JD. Vans did not have
Speaker 1: sex with a couch, But the horse was out of
Speaker 1: the gate, and the fact Wolls invoked it crystallizes something
Speaker 1: Wolls brings to the Harris campaign. He's a little bit
Speaker 1: daggy dad, a little bit vicious political street fighter. He's
Speaker 1: rolling out a line. The Democrats have been working hard
Speaker 1: since Kamala Harris stepped up as candidate.
Speaker 2: Just an observation of mine that I made. I just
Speaker 2: have to say it. You know it, you feel it.
Speaker 2: These guys are creepy and yes, just where its hell JD.
Speaker 1: Vance hasn't dignified the couch thing. Why would you? But
Speaker 1: he has returned fire and it's Wolls's military history. He's
Speaker 1: coming after coming up next things get even more personal.
Speaker 1: And if you're interested in the US election, make sure
Speaker 1: you subscribe to The Australian. You'll never miss a moment
Speaker 1: with all the latest news and analysis. We're at the
Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au and we'll be back after
Speaker 1: this break. Jdi Vans is doing a press conference. He's
Speaker 1: talked about law enforcement, his policies, the usual campaign trial stuff,
Speaker 1: but the press aren't so interested in that.
Speaker 4: Last night, doctor Wallt suggested that because of your height,
Speaker 4: league education and your Silicon backing, your political career and
Speaker 4: tho yourself are part of the elite water.
Speaker 1: A reporter asks Vance to respond to Walls's digs about
Speaker 1: his Yale education and Silicon Valley patronage, the very elite
Speaker 1: Vance is so vocal about taking down.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I came from a family where nobody in
Speaker 4: my family had ever gone to law school. I grew
Speaker 4: up in a poor family. The fact that Tim Waltz
Speaker 4: wants to turn it into a bad thing that I
Speaker 4: actually worked myself through college and made something myself. To me,
Speaker 4: that's the American dream.
Speaker 1: JD. Vans is good at this. He didn't actually dress.
Speaker 1: The accusation is morphed into part of the elite. But
Speaker 1: before anyone can follow up, he's on the attack.
Speaker 4: When Tim Waltz was asked by his country to go
Speaker 4: to Iraq, you know what he did. He dropped out
Speaker 4: of the army and allowed his unit to go without him.
Speaker 4: What bothers me about Tim Waltz is the stolen valor garbage.
Speaker 4: Do not pretend to be something that you're not. And
Speaker 4: if you want to criticize me for getting an Ivy
Speaker 4: League education, I'm proud of the fact that my mammoll
Speaker 4: supported me, that I was able to make something of myself.
Speaker 4: I'd be ashamed if I was him and I lied
Speaker 4: about my military service like he did.
Speaker 1: Wolls spent twenty four years with the Army National Guard,
Speaker 1: that's the part of the US armed forces made up
Speaker 1: of civilian soldiers. Over that time, he responded to natural
Speaker 1: disasters and deployed to Europe in support of operations in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Eventually he rose to the position of command sergeant major.
Speaker 1: Then in two thousand and five, Wolls retired so he
Speaker 1: could run for Congress. This was two months before his
Speaker 1: unit received orders to deploy to Iraq. The stolen valor
Speaker 1: line of attack is compelling, but it might backfire. JD.
Speaker 1: Vance went to Iraq, but he wrote in Hillbilly Elegy
Speaker 1: he never saw combat. Instead, he worked as a military
Speaker 1: journalist for the Marines. Famously, Donald Trump received a medical
Speaker 1: exemption from the military for bone spurs in his heel
Speaker 1: during the Vietnam War. That diagnosis has previously come under
Speaker 1: serious scrutiny, but Walls's military history isn't the only thing
Speaker 1: from his past under the microscope. Here's a Republican ad
Speaker 1: from this week.
Speaker 3: What could be weirder than signing a bill and the
Speaker 3: law that requires schools to stock tampons in boys' bathrooms,
Speaker 3: or weirder than signing legislation allowing miners to receive sex
Speaker 3: change operations. Try electing the man who signed those bills
Speaker 3: vice President of the States. Enter cheef weirdo Tam Walls
Speaker 3: as governor of Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Ooh, the tampons go with me. Last year, Walls signed
Speaker 1: a bill requiring Minnesota schools to supply menstrual products to
Speaker 1: students so far, so unremarkable. But some Minnesota Republicans took
Speaker 1: exception to the wording of the legislation, which said sanitary
Speaker 1: products should be available to all menstruating students in restrooms
Speaker 1: regularly used by students. The Republicans said, shouldn't this be
Speaker 1: about female students and the girls' bathrooms? Maybe the gender
Speaker 1: neutral bathrooms too, Why would you implicitly include boys' bathrooms?
Speaker 1: An amendment was drafted, but the original wording remained. Now
Speaker 1: the Republicans are calling Walls tampon Tim. Gender identity is
Speaker 1: a hot political issue in the US, and the Republicans
Speaker 1: sniff a weakness. So will Tim Walls be the next
Speaker 1: Vice President of the United States of America. If there's
Speaker 1: something the past decade of global politics has taught us,
Speaker 1: it's that you can't fully trust the polls, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't hurt to have a little peak every now and then.
Speaker 1: With Tim Walls on the Democratic ticket, it's still shaping
Speaker 1: up to be another razor thin election.
Speaker 4: A new poll from PBS News and PR and Maris
Speaker 4: shows Kamala Harris with a three point lead over Donald
Speaker 4: Trump nationally. That's within the poll's margin of error.
Speaker 1: A number of recent polls indicate there's been a tipping
Speaker 1: point for the first time. Kamala Harris is slightly ahead
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, but there's a long way to go.
Speaker 1: The US election is on November five, but the next
Speaker 1: big set piece is the Democratic National Convention, kicking off
Speaker 1: on August nineteen. We'll have a team at the DNC
Speaker 1: bringing you all the news twenty four to seven at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au. Thanks for joining us
Speaker 1: on the front. Our team is leat Sannaglau, Stephanie Coombs,
Speaker 1: Kristen Amy at Jasper League, Tiffany Dimak, Joshua Burton and
Speaker 1: me Claire Harvey.