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Speaker 1: On this episode of Newts World, I am talking with

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Speaker 1: a friend of forty four years, former Minnesota Congressman Vin Weber,

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Speaker 1: who was one of the founders of the Conservative Opportunity Society,

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Speaker 1: and while I was with him in Congress, who was

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Speaker 1: clearly one of the wisest and smartest members of the House,

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Speaker 1: and somebody who I have enormous respect and affection for.

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Speaker 1: He's from Minnesota, grew up in Minnesota politics, knows an

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Speaker 1: immense amount about it, and has been a real student

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Speaker 1: of the Minnesota system. And I thought, with Governor Tim Waltz,

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Speaker 1: the current governor of Minnesota, as the Democratic vice presidential nominee,

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Speaker 1: that Vin could help us understand the context of Minnesota

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Speaker 1: politics and the rise of Waltz, And now we should

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Speaker 1: be thinking about it. You've done a lot of things,

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Speaker 1: I think, at the Humphrey School and elsewhere in Minnesota.

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Speaker 1: Could you take just a minut or two and talk

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Speaker 1: about the mechanism or the pattern that has this continual

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Speaker 1: shift to the left, which he's also seen in Seattle,

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Speaker 1: in Portland, et cetera. But when you look at Minneapolis

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Speaker 1: and Saint Paul, why have they been steadily moving further

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Speaker 1: and further.

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Speaker 2: Left well I trace it back to the late Paul Wellstone.

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Speaker 2: He was a good friend of mine, even though we

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Speaker 2: agreed on nothing. He died the plane crash, and his family,

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Speaker 2: instead of deciding to ask for a statue or a

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Speaker 2: building or something to be named after him, formed something

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Speaker 2: called Wellstone Action, which had the explicit goal of training

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Speaker 2: progressive activists across the state of Minnesota. And they have

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Speaker 2: done so very very successfully. And the progressive movement, if

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Speaker 2: you want to call it that, particularly in the Twin Cities,

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Speaker 2: is very strong, very well organized, very well trained, and

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Speaker 2: uncompromising because they had stronger words and mindless to say uncompromising.

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Speaker 2: You know. I was at the Humphrey School on the

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Speaker 2: stage the morning after ehan Omar was elected the first time,

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Speaker 2: and she had been in our program at the Humphrey School,

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Speaker 2: the one that Mondale started and I took over later,

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Speaker 2: and so we interviewed her and a couple other people,

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Speaker 2: and she talked about the progressive movement and I have

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Speaker 2: to say, and I said to her at the time,

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Speaker 2: the progressive movement in Minnesota is the only well organized,

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Speaker 2: comprehensive political movement in the state. It doesn't mean I

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Speaker 2: agree with them on anything, But the people that I

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Speaker 2: agree with are kind of not well organized, not well motivated,

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Speaker 2: and not well trained. And I shouldn't say well motivated.

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Speaker 2: They are well motivated, but they're not well trained, and

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Speaker 2: the progressives are. I think that conservatives like us have

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Speaker 2: to recognize that that's a reality. And I hear you

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Speaker 2: say other people in twin cities are crazy. You know,

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Speaker 2: if that's our attitude, we're going to lose. We have

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Speaker 2: to recognize they are well organized, well trained, and highly

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Speaker 2: motivated and uncompromising. And it shows in every election. Every

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Speaker 2: election is a referendum for them on whether or not

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Speaker 2: they can move a given city or state to the left,

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Speaker 2: and they very often or usually succeed.

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Speaker 1: To what extent was the rise of this kind of

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Speaker 1: militant progressism, to what incent did that feed into the

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Speaker 1: scale of the riots in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 2: I think it fed into it considerably. You can still

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Speaker 2: get arguments about that, but I noticed a lot of

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Speaker 2: the police that tried to cope with it without any

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Speaker 2: help from at least initially, without any help from the

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Speaker 2: mayor of the city or the governor. For about four

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Speaker 2: or five days, they all believed that there was considerable orchestration.

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Speaker 2: I don't even want to say outside activists, because they

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Speaker 2: may well have been local residents, but considerable orchestration of

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Speaker 2: the events that took place on those few days. And

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Speaker 2: by the way, none of this is to excuse the

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Speaker 2: conduct of the cop Chauvin. We all saw the pictures

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Speaker 2: of what he did to George Floyd, and I don't

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Speaker 2: excuse his behavior at all. But the fact that we

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Speaker 2: had four or five days of continual rioting in Minneapolis

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Speaker 2: resulting in what is the second largest economic toll attributable

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Speaker 2: to social unrest in American history, after the Los Angeles

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Speaker 2: riots of nineteen ninety two, five hundred million dollars in

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Speaker 2: property damage. Then this is not just some little small

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Speaker 2: thing that we could sweep away. It is massively damaging.

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Speaker 2: And you can still drive down the neighborhoods in South

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Speaker 2: Minneapolis and see the damage not been repaired yet. I

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Speaker 2: believe it was considerably attributable to orchestrated activity and to

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Speaker 2: the intimidation of the political leaders, notably the at first

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Speaker 2: and then Governor Walls for sure, for four days in

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Speaker 2: doing nothing.

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Speaker 1: Why was Walts so slow in being willing to use

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Speaker 1: the National Guard even though the city was literally burning.

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Speaker 2: I don't know that we'll ever know the answer to

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Speaker 2: that question. I think that he has an aversion to

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Speaker 2: police authority and the sympathy for protesters, and that's how

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Speaker 2: his governorship was being defined. He just failed to act.

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Speaker 2: Failing to act for twenty four hours is maybe understandable,

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Speaker 2: not desirable, but understandable. But for four days, you don't

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Speaker 2: even have to go to see it. You can watch

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Speaker 2: it on the news. It was constant, and there's no

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Speaker 2: excuse for not calling out the Guard to stop that

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Speaker 2: horrendous destruction, which has left Minneapolis in a much poorer place.

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Speaker 1: Ever since, what's your sense of the whole argument about

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Speaker 1: Waltz as a National guardsman and the fact that apparently

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Speaker 1: he exaggerated his final rank. He exaggerated whether or not

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Speaker 1: even in combat, and he managed to retire and away,

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Speaker 1: which some members of his unit thought was a deliberate

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Speaker 1: effort to avoid being mobilized. Having watched it from a Minneapolis,

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Speaker 1: Minnesota perspective, what is your take on that whole National

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Speaker 1: Guard story.

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Speaker 2: I have to tell you, since I didn't serve in

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Speaker 2: the military myself, I'm just a little reluctant to criticize

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Speaker 2: too much on that, but I listened to the people

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Speaker 2: that served with him, and they're pretty much uniformly appalled

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Speaker 2: by his behavior. The one that I don't want to

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Speaker 2: get into this too much, but the one that I

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Speaker 2: really struck me was the chaplain of the Minnesota National

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Speaker 2: Guard at that time, who is now a pastor in

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Speaker 2: North Dakota, issued a statement calling him a coward, A

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Speaker 2: pretty strong statement coming from a man of the cloth.

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Speaker 2: This wasn't his commanding officer or anything like that. This

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Speaker 2: was the chaplain who gave spiritual advice and council to

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Speaker 2: the members of Minnesota National Guard.

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Speaker 1: Walt says, this strange, not strange. He's had a continuing

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Speaker 1: relationship with China, where he apparently has traveled like thirty times.

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Speaker 1: He's taken high school students on visits. Apparently some of

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Speaker 1: them partially funded by the Chinese government. Does that matter

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Speaker 1: or is it just design that he happened to get

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Speaker 1: into a good pattern. And China's an amazing country, so

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Speaker 1: you can understand why somebody would be interested in going there.

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Speaker 2: See, I don't know anything the farious about it. It

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Speaker 2: would bother me a little bit. I do observe though,

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Speaker 2: that the attitudes toward China in this country, as you

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Speaker 2: know NWT, have changed rather considerably over the last twenty

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Speaker 2: plus years. I remember one example, and it's not to

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Speaker 2: be critical of him, but when Mitt Romney ran for

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Speaker 2: president the first time, his stock speech included the line,

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Speaker 2: some people look at China and see a billion and

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Speaker 2: a half competitors. I look at China and see a

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Speaker 2: billion and a half customers are very optimistic of the

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Speaker 2: United States relations with China. Four years later, the same

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Speaker 2: Mett Romney ran again and called for China to be

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Speaker 2: labeled the currency manipulator. And I don't see that as

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Speaker 2: so much a sign of a flip flop on Romney's

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Speaker 2: part as it does a recognition of the fact that

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Speaker 2: American attitudes start China changed very dramatically. So Walls may

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Speaker 2: well have simply been interested in China at the time

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Speaker 2: when the United States was hopeful about China. It's obviously,

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Speaker 2: as the oldest civilization on the planet, probably a very

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Speaker 2: interesting place to go. But the question is has he

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Speaker 2: caught up with the change, Because the change in American

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Speaker 2: attitudes starts China, I think you'd agree with me, is

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Speaker 2: not fleeting. It's rooted in reality, the reality of a

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Speaker 2: military threat, the reality of a political threat, the reality

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Speaker 2: of the fact that the Chinese want to dominate in

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Speaker 2: a way that would put us at an extreme disadvantage.

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Speaker 1: I have to confess I was pretty embarrassed to realize

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Speaker 1: I had completely misunderstood what Dung Chopeng was doing. And

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Speaker 1: I was part of the sense that maybe China was

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Speaker 1: going to open up, and that when he called for

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Speaker 1: a more market oriented economy, maybe that was the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the opening up. And only when you dug into

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Speaker 1: it for a while did you realize that Dunk Chopeng

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Speaker 1: was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, has

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Speaker 1: spent a year at Lenin University in Moscow in the

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Speaker 1: late twenties, and what he actually said was we have

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Speaker 1: to open up the market economy so people feel good

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Speaker 1: enough that they'll preserve the dictatorship. Yeah, it was exactly

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Speaker 1: the opposite of how virtually everybody in the West had

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Speaker 1: interpreted it.

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Speaker 2: Now, you're totally right. I had a similar eye opening experience.

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Speaker 2: I was a part of a project many years ago.

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Speaker 2: It was shared by Madeline Albrighton was bipartisan. I think

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Speaker 2: four Republicans and four Democrats, and we did exchange this

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Speaker 2: for two years with Chinese and met with leaves of

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Speaker 2: the Chinese Communist Party and they come over here and

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Speaker 2: met with us. And it was just before Jijingping came

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Speaker 2: to power. In fact, we met with him just a

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Speaker 2: matter of weeks before send it to power. But I

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Speaker 2: said the last session that we had to Secretary al Rise,

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Speaker 2: if this whole two year experience was designed to make

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Speaker 2: me feel better about our relationship with China, it failed.

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Speaker 2: Everybody you talked, you talked about dominance, dominating us, the

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Speaker 2: fact that the last two hundred years of history have

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Speaker 2: been simply a blip, and the Norman history is for

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Speaker 2: the Chinese to dominate, and they really believe that. And

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Speaker 2: we met with a bunch of young kids once and

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Speaker 2: I just asked, like probably the equivalent of fifty to

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Speaker 2: sixth graders. I said to the group, who here wants

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Speaker 2: to visit the United States? Well, every hand went up

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Speaker 2: and I said, tell me why. And young man said, well,

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Speaker 2: if we're going to dominate the world, we need to

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Speaker 2: know it. And I thought, okay, that tells me a lot.

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Speaker 1: It was a preparatory program so they could dominate us.

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Speaker 1: I don't have any idea where Waltz is and all

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Speaker 1: of that. And of course their current strategy, which is rational,

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Speaker 1: is to hide and hope that nobody ever gets around

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Speaker 1: asking him any serious questions. But you know it is

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Speaker 1: interesting waltson a white Dude's for Kamala Harris call on

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Speaker 1: August fifth. Yet you can't make this stuff up, said quote,

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Speaker 1: don't ever shy away from our progressive values. One person's

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Speaker 1: socialism is another person's neighborliness. I can sort of imagine

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Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders saying it, but I get a sense that

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Speaker 1: Waltz is probably to the left of Sanders.

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Speaker 2: I think that's right. And if you want to put

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Speaker 2: it in historical context, you have to remember one hundred

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Speaker 2: years ago, Minnesota had a very overtly socialist party, the

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Speaker 2: Farm Labor Party. We were a three party system at

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Speaker 2: that time, Republicans, Democrats, and Farm Labor Rights and the

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Speaker 2: Democrats were the third party. The Farm Labor Rights elected

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Speaker 2: governors and the United States senators and congressmen, and they

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Speaker 2: were quite overtly socialistic. There is that tradition in this

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Speaker 2: state going back a long time. Now. I can't link

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Speaker 2: that all to Tim Wallash. I saw the same quote

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Speaker 2: when you said anybody that he quates socialism with neighborliness

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Speaker 2: is a threat in my mind.

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Speaker 1: Humphrey, as you'll remember, actually ran for mayor to defeat

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Speaker 1: a communist in nineteen forty eight, and Ronald Reagan actually

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Speaker 1: made a commercial supporting Humphrey in nineteen forty eight. But

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Speaker 1: the fight was literally between the very hard left and

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Speaker 1: traditional Democrats.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. Just as an aside new Humphrey

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Speaker 2: and Reagan, I believe were born the same year and

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Speaker 2: they had the same hundredth birthday, and on their hundredth birthday,

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Speaker 2: the Humphrey School put together a little program where they

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Speaker 2: wanted to pay tribute to Reagan and Humphrey and their friendship.

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Speaker 2: And I did a lot of research, including with our

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Speaker 2: mutual friend Jean Kirkpatrick, who had worked for both both

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Speaker 2: of them, and I found out that throughout his governorship,

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Speaker 2: Reagan had an open standing invitation to Hubert Humphrey to

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Speaker 2: stay at the Governor's residence and Sacramento anytime he was

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Speaker 2: in California. They may have parted ways in terms of party,

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Speaker 2: but they were united and the thing that mattered most

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Speaker 2: of them, which was keeping the communists out.

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Speaker 1: In that sense, Waltz really represents the to the left

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Speaker 1: of Humphrey wing of the progressive movement in Minnesota, and

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Speaker 1: people it's easy to forget how deep that tradition was.

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Speaker 1: Waltz signed a bill that expanded access to drivers' licenses

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Speaker 1: without regard to immigration status, which means that if you're

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Speaker 1: here illegally, you can get a driver's license in Minnesota.

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Speaker 2: Also free health care and college tuition. If the government's

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Speaker 2: going to say to you, even though you're illegal, you

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Speaker 2: get free health care and college tuition. I guess you

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Speaker 2: should be able to drive well.

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Speaker 1: And if you think about it, how many of those

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Speaker 1: folks are going to write or call home and say,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you can get here, here are all

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Speaker 1: the goodies you're going to get. Yeah, it's like setting

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Speaker 1: up a big billboard that says, you know, please come

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Speaker 1: to Minnesota. We'd like to give you money.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right, exactly right.

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Speaker 1: Does any of that affect his popularity?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, his popularity has dropped considerably. He did win reelection.

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Speaker 2: Part of the problem that we have in Minnesota's the

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Speaker 2: Republican Party is a bankrupt shell and the Democratic Party

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Speaker 2: I have to say, led by a guy named Ken

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Speaker 2: Martin that I know pretty well, is one of the

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Speaker 2: most robust political organizations in the country. We nominated not

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Speaker 2: a bad guy for governor, but a flawed candidate who

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Speaker 2: did not handle a whole bunch of things well. And

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Speaker 2: Walls won, but he won by a reduced margin, and

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Speaker 2: he lost most of rural Minnesota, which is where his

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Speaker 2: roots originally were.

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Speaker 1: My sense is the Waltz is very strong in the

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Speaker 1: Twin Cities and then rapidly loses ground the further you

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Speaker 1: get from the two cities.

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Speaker 2: I think that that's exactly right. I'm right now in

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Speaker 2: our home in northern Minnesota, and it's hard to find

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Speaker 2: a Walls supporter in northern Minnesota. I don't say there

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Speaker 2: are none, but it's hard. Part of it has to

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Speaker 2: do with his handling of the COVID issue in Minnesota

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Speaker 2: was an extreme lockdown state in these small towns throughout

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Speaker 2: rural Minnesota. That was the death knell for all sorts

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Speaker 2: of small businesses. I know business people that went out

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Speaker 2: of business in the town that I'm near because of that,

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Speaker 2: and there's a depresentment of the wake that he handled it.

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Speaker 2: People went to jail for violating the lockdown of governor

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Speaker 2: walls order. They didn't just get to find they went

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Speaker 2: to jail. So there's a depresentment of that, particularly throughout

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Speaker 2: rural Minnesota.

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Speaker 1: I'm hoping that JD Events will ask him this if

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Speaker 1: they debate. He had this rule that said churches could

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Speaker 1: not meet, but the Mall of America could be open

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Speaker 1: for retail therapy. If you think about that for a

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Speaker 1: little while, makes no sense. Well it does of your

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Speaker 1: total secular left winger. I mean, you hate churches anyway

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Speaker 1: and you love shopping. I think he also established a

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Speaker 1: hotline where you could call and report if your neighbors

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Speaker 1: were gathering illegally during COVID.

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Speaker 2: It was encouraging people to report any activity that they

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Speaker 2: found suspicious, not just related to COVID, but related to diversity, equity,

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Speaker 2: and inclusion. Anybody that questions the social movement, And some

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Speaker 2: of it's been backed off, but it was a frightening,

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Speaker 2: chilling thing, you know, an example of the an unrestricted

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Speaker 2: reach of government.

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Speaker 1: Sounded a lot like the Stasse in East Germany or

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Speaker 1: the social Coercion program in China. I mean, it may

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Speaker 1: have been the most aggressively repressive system in the country

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Speaker 1: during COVID.

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Speaker 2: I believe that.

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Speaker 1: Waltz signed HF one forty six into law in April

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, which says that the state of Minnesota

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Speaker 1: will not enforce existing laws from other states that quote

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Speaker 1: authorized a state agency to remove a child from the

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Speaker 1: child's parents or guardians because the parent or guardian allowed

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Speaker 1: the child to receive gender affirming healthcare. Now I don't

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Speaker 1: fully understand that, but Waltz described it basically as creating

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Speaker 1: a sanctuary for people who want transgender medical help for children. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's exactly what the policy is. It's a very adverse

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Speaker 1: to parental rights. It's arguing that the state has the

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Speaker 1: ultimate responsibility for your children, not the parents, because you

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Speaker 1: can't trust the parents, particularly on these transgender treatment issues,

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Speaker 1: which I believe is a raging controversy is going to

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Speaker 1: be come more raging as time goes on. It has

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Speaker 1: really surprised me that it has not blown up more

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Speaker 1: on the Democrats because they are almost universally committed to

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Speaker 1: imposing the power of government on behalf of transgender behavior.

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Speaker 1: How do you think Waltz will wear with the American

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Speaker 1: people over the next fifty or sixty days.

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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it's to state the obvious. He's

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Speaker 2: not without political skills, and that will get him a

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Speaker 2: long way. But they're going to find out the things

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Speaker 2: that we've been talking about here, and I think that's

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Speaker 2: true of the whole Harris Walls ticket. If anybody can

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Speaker 2: get to the left of Harris, it's Tim Walls. And

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Speaker 2: when people realize that, I think they're going to understand

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Speaker 2: that the change that they want is going to be

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Speaker 2: a sharp left turn if they vote for Harris Harrison Walls.

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Speaker 2: I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect Tim Walls. He

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Speaker 2: has more experience legislatively with a broader range of issues

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Speaker 2: than she does. And that's not to put her down,

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Speaker 2: but she was an attorney general. Well has been a

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Speaker 2: congressman for twelve years, governor of a state for six years.

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Speaker 2: He will drive the agenda domestically more than any previous

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Speaker 2: vice president in recent memory.

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Speaker 1: I believe, and he'll drive it all to the left.

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Speaker 2: All to the left. That's his entire experience. There's no

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Speaker 2: exception to that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's really kind of remarkable. I think when

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Speaker 1: you and I first met, we could never have imagined

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Speaker 1: how either the country or your state would have evolved.

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Speaker 2: I think that's right, but we have to keep hope.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think in some ways we're winning and

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Speaker 1: other ways it's just a mess. But then to thank

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Speaker 1: you for joining me, I am very grateful that you

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Speaker 1: would spend time as a Minnesotan talking about your governor.

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Speaker 1: It is always a joy to be with you.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for inviting me to it. I have to

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Speaker 2: make one little thing at the end, back have you.

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Speaker 2: All of this does not mean I don't love Minnesota.

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Speaker 2: Anybody listening, come to Minnesota. Visit Minnesota. Minnesota is a

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Speaker 2: great place.

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Speaker 1: Thank you to my guest, Congressman Vin Weber. You can

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Speaker 1: learn more about Governor Tim Wats on our show page

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Speaker 1: at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by Ginglish three

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Speaker 1: sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our

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Speaker 1: researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was

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Speaker 1: created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at

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Speaker 1: Gingridge three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope

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Speaker 1: five stars and give us a review so others can

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Speaker 1: learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld

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Speaker 1: can sign up for my three free weekly columns at

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Speaker 1: gingwichtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This

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Speaker 1: is Newsworld