Speaker 1: Alone Media Welcome back to It could Happen Here?
Speaker 2: A podcast about Tim Walls, And in this episode, Garrison
Speaker 2: and I are going balls to the Walls. Are you
Speaker 2: happy with that? Garrison?
Speaker 3: What's skivitying your Biden?
Speaker 2: What does that even mean?
Speaker 3: All right, let's get going some fucking.
Speaker 2: Ging z bullshit Garrison, because I won't take part in it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm excited to hear about how Walls is either
Speaker 3: great or terrible or probably a mix of both.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's I mean, he's a politician and a pretty
Speaker 2: successful one, so it's definitely got to be a mix
Speaker 2: of both. For jd Vance, I figured the most relevant
Speaker 2: thing to do is to talk about, like what does
Speaker 2: he actually believe and where does he come from in
Speaker 2: the right, because people had gotten pieces of that, but
Speaker 2: I feel like unless you put it all together, it's
Speaker 2: not as useful. So I hope we did that with Walls.
Speaker 2: He's not a guy where if there's anything sinister for
Speaker 2: you to know, So I think the useful thing is
Speaker 2: kind of going through his whole political biography and just
Speaker 2: kind of talking about like what is this guy done
Speaker 2: in his public life? Right? That's kind of what I
Speaker 2: wanted to do here. So that people actually know, you know,
Speaker 2: whether or not you are making your mind up about
Speaker 2: whether or not to vote. You're voting for harm reduction,
Speaker 2: you're anti electoral. Here's this guy who may or may
Speaker 2: not wind up being the vice president, and here's what
Speaker 2: he's actually done in the past when he's had any
Speaker 2: kind of power. It's worth noting that kind of at
Speaker 2: this point here Walls is maybe the most popular politician
Speaker 2: at his level in the country. This has happened very suddenly,
Speaker 2: but he's got something like can a plus sixteen net
Speaker 2: favorability among moderates, which is insane.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's wild.
Speaker 3: As someone who's looked at a lot of the favorability
Speaker 3: ratings the past six months, Yeah, that is astonishingly high,
Speaker 3: especially got pared to where we were like two months
Speaker 3: ago with Skibbity Biden, which was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very low, quite dire. He's incredibly popular with the
Speaker 2: normies because basically every everyone in the country has positive
Speaker 2: memories of a guy like Tim Walls, like whether it
Speaker 2: was like your favorite social studies teacher or your dad.
Speaker 2: There is like a kind of rotund, balding, very mechanically
Speaker 2: capable man, probably somewhere in your life that you have
Speaker 2: fond memories of and walls dredges those up.
Speaker 3: We are of a very Freudian country.
Speaker 2: Yes, for an idea of how like rapidly people have
Speaker 2: gone from not really knowing who this guy is to
Speaker 2: loving him. On August eighth, a Ugov survey should him
Speaker 2: with a net favorability rating of plus eleven, which was
Speaker 2: up from plus one, and a survey conducted in late
Speaker 2: July in the same timeframe, jad Vance has seen his
Speaker 2: approval ratings steadily drop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, isn't he like at like negative points?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, yes, yes, by any stretch of the imagination,
Speaker 2: at negative points. And if you're just kind of looking
Speaker 2: at Tim's life, which we're not really getting into because
Speaker 2: we have limited time here and it's not the most
Speaker 2: important thing I thought we could be talking about. But
Speaker 2: he has a long history of doing decent things in
Speaker 2: his personal life kind of most notably in the early nineties,
Speaker 2: like ninety three to ninety four, he sponsored the Gay
Speaker 2: and Lesbian Alliance at his high school. And his reasoning
Speaker 2: was that, you know, he was a soldier in the
Speaker 2: National Guard and the football coach at that point, and
Speaker 2: he decided you know him sponsoring the club in particular
Speaker 2: would have the biggest impact, and I honestly I think
Speaker 2: that's the kind of thing that might have saved lives. Yep,
Speaker 2: good thing to have done. Anyway, this isn't an episode
Speaker 2: about his life and background. We're not going to litigate.
Speaker 2: We're not going to always any time litigating the attacks
Speaker 2: on his military career, which seemed to confusingly say that
Speaker 2: after extending his time in the Guard by four years
Speaker 2: to participate in Operation during Freedom, he owed his soldiers
Speaker 2: staying on even longer to fight in Iraq. I could
Speaker 2: make the point that no grunt in any US war
Speaker 2: ever found themselves in the shit and said, boy, I
Speaker 2: wish the commands Sergeant major was here. But given that
Speaker 2: JD Vance was played onto stage at the RNC to
Speaker 2: a song with the refrain we got to get out
Speaker 2: of Iraq and take our country back, I just don't
Speaker 2: think these attacks are worth acknowledging it. All right, the
Speaker 2: right has already acknowledged that was a stupid war to
Speaker 2: fight in walls decided not to fight in it. Good
Speaker 2: for him now when it comes to the current war
Speaker 2: that is on everyone's minds or one of the wars
Speaker 2: that's on everyone's minds. Walls is fine on Ukraine, but
Speaker 2: when it comes to the war that he's not fine
Speaker 2: on the genocide in Gaza. Walls is in no way
Speaker 2: that I can find really better than Kamala Harris. But
Speaker 2: he did take a stand against the Iraq war back
Speaker 2: when that mattered, which is I guess a little bit
Speaker 2: of a point, but again doesn't really matter today and
Speaker 2: in any case, we're far afield from the subject, which
Speaker 2: is what has Tim done in politics. So Tim's political career,
Speaker 2: he came late in life to that. He was a
Speaker 2: social studies teacher. For a couple of decades he was
Speaker 2: a coach. He lived in Nebraska, then moved to Minnesota,
Speaker 2: and in two thousand and six, after retiring from the
Speaker 2: guard he was elected to Minnesota's first congressional district. Now
Speaker 2: this was a tough campaign. His opponent in this race
Speaker 2: was a six term Republican incumbent, Gil Gutneckt.
Speaker 3: Wait wait wait wait, good Neckt.
Speaker 2: Good Neckt. I'm guessing his family were knights, and it
Speaker 2: was used to be like good Knight or something like that,
Speaker 2: like gut k n Eca. But I don't know enough
Speaker 2: about ancient German to tell you if that's really where
Speaker 2: his last name came from. Yeah, yeah, But Walls came
Speaker 2: in that he kind of goes against this guy who
Speaker 2: had promised not to run for another term and then decided, actually,
Speaker 2: I don't want to give up power. Not a thing
Speaker 2: that's ever happened again. And Walls kind of came in
Speaker 2: both when this guy had violated his promise to not
Speaker 2: run again and near the peak of disillusionment and exhaustion
Speaker 2: with neo cons Right, this is kind of the twilight
Speaker 2: of the Bush years. Even conservative Americans are pretty fucking
Speaker 2: tired of the Republican Party right this second, and Walls
Speaker 2: exhibited a notable ability to connect with rural Americans who
Speaker 2: mostly voted red. He did so with basically no funding
Speaker 2: or larger national operation behind him. From a write up
Speaker 2: in the New York Times, he had no money, no nothing,
Speaker 2: said Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, who that cycle worked
Speaker 2: on House Democrats recruitment team under their campaign chief Rama Manual.
Speaker 2: He had a grassroots campaign that he had put together
Speaker 2: that I just knew was going to be Dynahite. So
Speaker 2: I went back and I told Rom Emmanuel this guy's
Speaker 2: going to win. He's great, and rom looked at me
Speaker 2: like I was crazy. Walls was a dark horse candidate
Speaker 2: and would claim around that time that his whole inspiration
Speaker 2: for getting into politics was when he tried to take
Speaker 2: two students to a rally for President George Bush and
Speaker 2: they were kicked out because one student had a John
Speaker 2: Kerry button. Now I found a blog by the Republican
Speaker 2: staffer who kicked them out where he admits he made
Speaker 2: a dumb call. He was kind of trying to be
Speaker 2: a dick. He had seen Walls out protesting against Bush
Speaker 2: like the day before, and he knew he was going
Speaker 2: to kick them out of the rally, but he made
Speaker 2: them stand in line for a long time before he
Speaker 2: kicked them out, and he was like, I shouldn't have
Speaker 2: done that. But his angle was that Walls wanted to
Speaker 2: get denied and kicked out so that he could make
Speaker 2: a big deal about it and use it as a
Speaker 2: line on the campaign trail. That's probably what happened.
Speaker 3: Regardless, This is a very funny little domino leading to
Speaker 3: big domino.
Speaker 2: Everyone likes Walls who tends to meet him. Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: for the last year or two has seems been trying
Speaker 2: to get him to do Morbons with Walls just because
Speaker 2: he put Biden in a good mood. I think that's
Speaker 2: a big reason why Kamala picked him. He just seems
Speaker 2: to be a very likable guy. But he's very okay
Speaker 2: with lying to get what he needs. I mean, he's
Speaker 2: a politician.
Speaker 3: He's a politician.
Speaker 2: Another good example of this would be his duy. Right
Speaker 2: when he was thirty one, he got a duy, and
Speaker 2: he is at times claimed basically that's why I decided
Speaker 2: to like, I stopped drinking, I changed my life, I moved,
Speaker 2: you know, I got my shit together. But his campaign
Speaker 2: manager made a statement recently, Oh, he wasn't drunk. He
Speaker 2: just couldn't hear the cop. I don't know who to trust,
Speaker 2: politician or cop in this case, but the CoP's attitude
Speaker 2: is like, well, I would be fine if he had
Speaker 2: just like fixed his shit up. But he definitely was drunk.
Speaker 2: And I don't have any trouble believing that a man
Speaker 2: in rural Nebraska, a football coach in rural Nebraska, drove
Speaker 2: drunk once.
Speaker 3: Right, No, that is not the most surprising thing in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 2: So I think he's a guy who's certainly he's not
Speaker 2: naive political actor, right, He's not one of these guys
Speaker 2: who's so so good and pure that he's not willing
Speaker 2: to like fudge in order to make shit work for him.
Speaker 2: And that's probably what he did at this Bush event
Speaker 2: right now. That said, it would be hard to overstate
Speaker 2: what a difficult task he picked for himself and trying
Speaker 2: to unseat Gutneck. At the time that Walls ran, Minnesota's
Speaker 2: first district had been held by one other Democrat in
Speaker 2: the last hundred years, so he was the second Democrat
Speaker 2: in a century to win in that district, and as
Speaker 2: soon as he left, by the way, a Republican took
Speaker 2: back over. During his six terms in Congress, he was
Speaker 2: one of the more interesting legislators in the country. Walls
Speaker 2: was a risk taker, supporting liberal votes on major issues
Speaker 2: even when he was politically vulnerable. He opposed Republican legislation
Speaker 2: to make doctors vulnerable to criminal penalties for performing abortions.
Speaker 2: He supported a climate cap and trade bill on greenhouse
Speaker 2: gas emissions that failed, and this really pissed some folks off.
Speaker 2: He supported the Affordable Care Act, and kind of one
Speaker 2: of the more notable things about him is there's stories
Speaker 2: of when he was running for reelection, he would do
Speaker 2: town halls in southern Minnesota and he would get attacked
Speaker 2: by these red voters who had supported him early on
Speaker 2: for backing the Affordable Care Act, and rather than like
Speaker 2: backing off, he would lean into it and argue with
Speaker 2: them and try to convince them. And you know, his
Speaker 2: numbers with conservative rural Republicans got worse and worse every
Speaker 2: cycle basically, so you could argue how good he was,
Speaker 2: but it is worth something to me that he didn't
Speaker 2: back off, he didn't do the well this might, you know,
Speaker 2: fuck up my chances of re election. Like he's never
Speaker 2: really been that kind of guy. There's things that he
Speaker 2: believes and he will just kind of like jam his
Speaker 2: flag into the mud over them. That said, Tim was
Speaker 2: a pragmatist. He voted for a resolution calling for the
Speaker 2: withdrawal of US forces from Iraq within ninety days, but
Speaker 2: when that failed, he voted in favor of continuing funding
Speaker 2: for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tim also received
Speaker 2: an a from the NRA during much of his time
Speaker 2: in office, voting against gun control based on what seemed
Speaker 2: to be a natural inclination to firearms and hunting. Walls
Speaker 2: may have been the best shot in the Minnesota National
Speaker 2: Guard during the time when he was there. He's apparently
Speaker 2: a very good shot. He is an avid and skilled
Speaker 2: turkey hunter, and if you talk to people who want
Speaker 2: game in the US, turkey is one of the more
Speaker 2: difficult game to hunt. He developed a reputation as a
Speaker 2: guy who wouldn't apologize for voting with Liberals, but who
Speaker 2: would go across the aisle when it mattered. During his
Speaker 2: time on the Veterans Affairs Committee, which he ultimately chaired,
Speaker 2: he voted with Republicans to make it easier for the
Speaker 2: VIE to fire employees, even with union opposition, and he
Speaker 2: also pushed through changes to improve GI Bill college access
Speaker 2: for veterans post nine to eleven. One of the things
Speaker 2: I find interesting about his record is that in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: he voted against most of his party opposing an overhaul
Speaker 2: of the VA healthcare system. He agreed everyone agrees that
Speaker 2: the system needed to be overhauled, but he argued the
Speaker 2: proposal in place would force the VIA to cannibalize itself,
Speaker 2: basically starving the organization to try and fix it, and
Speaker 2: his attitude was, well, it needs to get fixed. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to vote for a change that might be
Speaker 2: worse than what we currently have. While chairing this committee,
Speaker 2: Walls made strong connections to Nancy Pelosi, who like basically
Speaker 2: everyone really came to like Walls, and she's going to
Speaker 2: be one of the people who's one of the strongest
Speaker 2: voice is for picking him as VP. And we will
Speaker 2: be back to talk about more of that. But first, Garrison,
Speaker 2: you know who else loves Nancy Pelosi?
Speaker 3: Probably these products and services. If they come from San Francisco.
Speaker 2: They're based in the Bay Area. She will break their
Speaker 2: kneecaps if they don't like her enough. Ah, and we're back.
Speaker 2: So one of the big shifts for Tim during his
Speaker 2: time in Congress was away from the NRA. This started
Speaker 2: after in twenty seventeen, after the Las Vegas mass shooting,
Speaker 2: and then after the Parkland mass shooting, and then in
Speaker 2: February of twenty eighteen, he writes an op ed supporting
Speaker 2: what he calls common sense gun reform and donates the
Speaker 2: NRA contributions to his campaign that cycle to some sort
Speaker 2: of I think gun control cause. Walls's common sense gun
Speaker 2: regulations include an assault weapons ban, and he's currently in
Speaker 2: line with the Democratic Party on that, if you were curious.
Speaker 2: That same year, twenty eighteen, he launched his campaign for
Speaker 2: governor of Minnesota. By this point, Walls had bled much
Speaker 2: of his ability to win rural red votes. It is
Speaker 2: accurate to say he was only really good at this
Speaker 2: during his early years in Congress. His margins grew a
Speaker 2: lot narrower over time, and once he hit the governor's office,
Speaker 2: his support was largely in the cities. Now it's one
Speaker 2: of those things where I think there's been debate, like
Speaker 2: some people have arguable he's not maybe not the best
Speaker 2: VP pick because he actually isn't all that good at
Speaker 2: getting these red rural votes. But I just don't see
Speaker 2: that as where the elections coming down to. Walls has
Speaker 2: great favorables with like suburban white people and particularly suburban
Speaker 2: like moderates, and that is like one of the most
Speaker 2: important demographics to win. So I don't believe the fact
Speaker 2: that he's he's kind of bled his support with rural
Speaker 2: conservatives is really necessarily a mark against him in an
Speaker 2: electoral sense. One thing I do appreciate about Walls is
Speaker 2: how direct he is to people. I dislike. He decides
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen to run for governor, and during that run,
Speaker 2: he has a meeting with a bunch of business leaders
Speaker 2: at a luxury hotel. The president of a machining company
Speaker 2: asks if Walls felt corporate taxes hurt workers, and Walls replied,
Speaker 2: we're not taxing people, We're taxing corporations. And I want
Speaker 2: to quote from a CNBC write up for Jeff Baker,
Speaker 2: it was a bit of an O shit moment. That's
Speaker 2: not what I wanted to hear, said Baker, president of
Speaker 2: McFarland truck Lines. There's a lot of stories like that.
Speaker 2: He's been very willing to tax the wealthy and to
Speaker 2: tax corporations to pay for things like children's lunches. This
Speaker 2: is a consistent Walls move and it's something that he
Speaker 2: absolutely is unapologetic about, and I think that's fine. Minnesota
Speaker 2: currently taxes corporate income at nine point eight percent, the
Speaker 2: highest rate in the nation. Walls did not back down
Speaker 2: on this during his time in office. In fact, that
Speaker 2: CNBC report found that quote Walls's policy battles have a
Speaker 2: common theme. Walls supported either higher taxes on the rich
Speaker 2: or businesses, and corporate leaders fought back. One of their
Speaker 2: fights was over a one percent ser tax on passive
Speaker 2: investment income over a million dollars. Another was a tax
Speaker 2: on the wealthy Walls signed into law that limits standard
Speaker 2: and itemized deductions for households with gross incomes over two
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Due to Republican control of
Speaker 2: the legislature, Walls's first term was not hugely eventful up
Speaker 2: until the COVID nineteen pandemic. This is because Republicans retained
Speaker 2: control of the state legislature and were able to stop
Speaker 2: much of his plan perform. We did get to see
Speaker 2: more of the politician Tim Walls during COVID when he
Speaker 2: stood up against Republican resistance or common sense pandemic safety regulations.
Speaker 2: He earned a lot of hate from the right for
Speaker 2: some of the more extreme COVID restrictions in the country,
Speaker 2: which were put in place in Minnesota. In particular, Walls
Speaker 2: threatened citizens with up to ninety days in jail during
Speaker 2: the shelter in place period and threatened twenty five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars fines for meeting in public. Minnesota instituted a COVID
Speaker 2: hotline where people could inform on their neighbors if they
Speaker 2: saw rules being broken. And I get why the right
Speaker 2: is uncomfortable with this. I'm not fully comfortable with this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff either, But given what was going on
Speaker 2: at the time, I'm not going to slam the man
Speaker 2: for trying to save lives in a very uncertain and
Speaker 2: desperate situation. You know, it beats the nothing that a
Speaker 2: lot of state governors did, so I guess that's kind
Speaker 2: of where I stand on that shit. Not long after
Speaker 2: the pandemic lockdown started, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis.
Speaker 2: Walls mobilized the National Guard after three days of riots,
Speaker 2: earning praise from President Trump on June first, who said
Speaker 2: what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in
Speaker 2: and dominated, and it happened quickly. And this is you know,
Speaker 2: the National Guard do a lot of very violent shit
Speaker 2: coming into crackdown on these protests. I know a lot
Speaker 2: of people who were the ones cracked down upon. It's
Speaker 2: one of those things where, yeah, he's a governor, you know,
Speaker 2: I think pretty much any governor in this situation would
Speaker 2: have sent in the National Guard in that sort of situation.
Speaker 3: Especially after the burning of the Third Precinct.
Speaker 2: Especially after the prison got burnt, which doesn't excuse it.
Speaker 2: It's just like, well, yeah, he's not He's not an anarchist,
Speaker 2: right like, he's not your communist like revolutionary hero. He
Speaker 2: is the governor of Minniso. So I'm just really not
Speaker 2: surprised that this happened. It's, you know, a pretty normal
Speaker 2: thing for a guy in his position to have done. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 2: like every other dim in creation. During the height of
Speaker 2: the uprising, Walls voice support for a wide host of
Speaker 2: police accountability reforms. He even voiced some degree of support
Speaker 2: for Indian qualified immunity, but this did not last long,
Speaker 2: and as the backlash against police reforms swelled up after
Speaker 2: the election, Walls joined many ims and pulling back and
Speaker 2: even quashing moves for greater police accountability. When he ran
Speaker 2: for reelection, he did so as a tough on crime,
Speaker 2: law enforcement friendly democrat. Right many such cases. Now, he
Speaker 2: did push through some accountability measures. He used fifteen million
Speaker 2: in COVID funds to pay for grants for community violence prevention.
Speaker 2: He pushed through some requirements to increase data sharing from
Speaker 2: the Police Licensing Board. He pushed through a demand for
Speaker 2: state law enforcement to share footage of police killings with
Speaker 2: the family of the victim within five days. These are,
Speaker 2: I think we can all say, minor accountability moves, very
Speaker 2: very minor, very minor, he said. Of these moves, they
Speaker 2: build trust in police, they build trust in the systems,
Speaker 2: They build trust among communities, and they provide the community
Speaker 2: with some basic closure and understanding for families. Nothing builds
Speaker 2: trust like a video of your cousin getting shot in
Speaker 2: the back.
Speaker 3: Yeah. If the biggest accountability thing is that you get
Speaker 3: first look at the murder video.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Okay, I like, yes, I do think
Speaker 2: you probably have to legislate that, because otherwise police just
Speaker 2: won't give it up at all. But like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't hang my hat on that.
Speaker 3: It is ignoring the main issue at play, Yeah, which
Speaker 3: is the fact that we have murder right videos. It's like,
Speaker 3: come on now.
Speaker 2: There were some bigger reforms, including limitations on no knock warrants,
Speaker 2: although again not like a ban or anything, but it
Speaker 2: lacked a lot of the stuff that activists in the
Speaker 2: state had pushed forward, including limits on police stops of motorists,
Speaker 2: and Walls had agreed that there needs to be more
Speaker 2: movement in this direction, particularly after the murder of Philando Castile.
Speaker 2: It also left out and asked for end to the
Speaker 2: statute of limitations for wrongful death cases against officers. Walls
Speaker 2: had personally voiced support for a ban on officers with
Speaker 2: white supremacist gang affiliations, but this was also left out. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: State Rep. John Thompson said to Walls at the time,
Speaker 2: you have the power to do something, and all I've
Speaker 2: been getting from your office is lip service. And I
Speaker 2: mean that we don't need a news conference from you, governor.
Speaker 2: We need a leader. So you're not gonna get a
Speaker 2: lot of police reform under Tim Walls. That's just a
Speaker 2: pretty consistent reality of the guy that said he can
Speaker 2: be forced to do some things if you scare him enough.
Speaker 2: So you know, keep that in mind. I guess first,
Speaker 2: keep in mind these ads, and then we'll talk about
Speaker 2: the environment and stuff, which is a happier story for Walls.
Speaker 2: We're back. So Walls ran for re election under the
Speaker 2: slogan one Minnesota, and he managed another solid victory. Up
Speaker 2: to this point, you would say he'd been a pretty
Speaker 2: standard dim governor in a swing state. But something happened
Speaker 2: in the twenty twenty two midterms that changed the course
Speaker 2: of Walls's career in maybe the nation, the Democrats won
Speaker 2: a slim majority in the state legislature. As David Schultz,
Speaker 2: a political science professor at Hamlin University, told CNN, Walls's
Speaker 2: message immediately jerked away from one Minnesota to damn the
Speaker 2: torpedoes and fuck the Republicans quote. That agenda included codified
Speaker 2: protections for abortion access, restored voting rights for felons who've
Speaker 2: completed their sentences, driver's licenses for people regardless of their
Speaker 2: legal status, a state child tax credit, free public college
Speaker 2: for families making less than eighty thousand annually, protections for
Speaker 2: gender affirming care, a paid family and medical leave program.
Speaker 2: Walls signed legislation to move the state towards achieving one
Speaker 2: hundred percent clean energy by twenty forty and to establish
Speaker 2: a universal free school meal program that provides breakfast and lunch.
Speaker 2: And that is a real solid spate of shit for
Speaker 2: a governor to get done. And all of this is
Speaker 2: about in a year, right, Like most of the shit
Speaker 2: that Walls has gotten done as governor has been very
Speaker 2: recently because the Dims had just taken back control, right,
Speaker 2: and it's very narrow control. Amy Koch, a Republican and
Speaker 2: former Minnesota Senate majority leader, said Walls definitely had not
Speaker 2: governed like a moderate, and, unlike other governors with trifecta control,
Speaker 2: had not emphasized in making deals with Republicans. Everything that
Speaker 2: went forward was signed. She said, I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: that says about him, but it definitely puts a dent
Speaker 2: in his argument that he's just this moderate Democrat from
Speaker 2: the Midwest. And this is why progressives, many of them,
Speaker 2: are excited about Walls, is that when he actually had
Speaker 2: the opportunity, he was willing to say, fuck the Republicans,
Speaker 2: let's get some shit done. I don't care that we
Speaker 2: only have one vote right now. Walls has stated that,
Speaker 2: in his opinion, political capital exists to be spent improving
Speaker 2: people's lives, and this is an area where you can
Speaker 2: say that he's put his money where his mouth is, right.
Speaker 2: This is how he actually governed now, it's worth noting. Obviously,
Speaker 2: he also promised to burn political capital on major police reform,
Speaker 2: and he gave that up. So you know, the fact
Speaker 2: that he says he's going to do something like any politician,
Speaker 2: not a guarantee it's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Well, and some of one of the more kind of
Speaker 3: upsetting things but not surprising things is now that Kamala
Speaker 3: has basically secured the nomination, she has ruled back many
Speaker 3: of the progressive policies that she ran on in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty when those seemed to be more popular. Right, you know,
Speaker 3: that's not necessarily Walls, that is that that's Kambala. But
Speaker 3: but they're running on the same ticket. And again, like,
Speaker 3: it's not surprising that she's not advocating for medica for
Speaker 3: all now that she is the actual nominee, right, but
Speaker 3: it still is, you know, disappointing for people who are like, hey,
Speaker 3: her actual policies four years ago were actually relatively progressive,
Speaker 3: and now they are slightly more kind of in line
Speaker 3: with like the mainstream Democratic Party views on you know,
Speaker 3: most of these issues.
Speaker 2: Right. And again one of the reasons, maybe for a
Speaker 2: little bit of hope, is that Walls has not really
Speaker 2: been that guy during his time with the executive power, right,
Speaker 2: and kind of the area where he's been best maybe
Speaker 2: actually is climate change. Right, This is the thing Dim
Speaker 2: seemed to like to compromise on the most. And Tim's
Speaker 2: history here is interesting to me, particularly because he's got.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have a perfect record, but it's genuinely pretty positive.
Speaker 2: His major achievement was a policy passed in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three that required Minnesota to have a carbon free electric
Speaker 2: grid by twenty forty. Now this is the kind of
Speaker 2: legislation that could just be virtue signaling, but Walls didn't
Speaker 2: just say yep, we'll get it done by twenty forty
Speaker 2: when I won't be the fucking governor anymore. He backed
Speaker 2: it up by approving a historic amount of state spending
Speaker 2: on energy. The legislation included rebates on climate friendly technology
Speaker 2: like air source heat pumps and electric vehicles, as well
Speaker 2: as spending to improve home insulation and one hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars for city extreme weather preparedness. Walls also signed a
Speaker 2: bill to cut red tape for wind in solar farms
Speaker 2: and transmission lines, and the speed up permitting for infrastructure
Speaker 2: needed to replace colon gas plants. So it was not
Speaker 2: just a yeah, we'll definitely do this. It was a well,
Speaker 2: there's certain things that need to happen for this to
Speaker 2: be possible, and I am going to work to make
Speaker 2: it easier to do those things. I'm going to make
Speaker 2: sure that we're passing legislation that makes it easier to
Speaker 2: do those things, and that that shows me someone who
Speaker 2: sees this as important as not just a thing that's
Speaker 2: virtue signaling, but as we need to figure out what
Speaker 2: the actual concrete steps are to make this doable, and
Speaker 2: that's something that gives me a little bit of hope.
Speaker 2: The more questionable side of his environmental history is the
Speaker 2: Inbridge Line three pipeline, which he and state regulators approved
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty. This angered a lot of local environmental
Speaker 2: groups and several indigenous tribes in the area. The pipeline
Speaker 2: was argued to be necessary because the old one was
Speaker 2: corroding and a spill risk, and of course, when the
Speaker 2: new pipeline was constructed, workers punctured multiple aquifers. This seems
Speaker 2: to have been a case of Walls being the politician
Speaker 2: that he is. Trade unions supported the project because jobs,
Speaker 2: and it's also worth noting this is twenty twenty, so
Speaker 2: the dims do not have a majority in the legislature,
Speaker 2: and there's just a lot less of a stick available
Speaker 2: to Walls at this point. So you know, maybe he
Speaker 2: would have ruled differently, or maybe he would have acted differently,
Speaker 2: you know, have been in a more friendly situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I reported on this back in twenty twenty one. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we did a two part series on Stop Line three
Speaker 3: where I traveled to the pipeline. Yeah, like it's not surprising,
Speaker 3: especially with pressure from trade unions to approve this pipeline.
Speaker 3: From what I've seen, he did not have much to
Speaker 3: do with the police crackdown on protesters. I've seen that alleged,
Speaker 3: and I'm not finding much to back that up. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of like county sheriffs and other task forces
Speaker 3: working directly with the pipeline company, Like you know, Walls
Speaker 3: never used National Guard against these people. I don't see
Speaker 3: much from him being personally involved in suppressing these protests
Speaker 3: beyond the fact that he's the governor, Like he's the
Speaker 3: top guy in charge. He could shut that all down
Speaker 3: if but he also doesn't need to be like actively
Speaker 3: involved for that to happen, right. Police will do it themselves, right,
Speaker 3: And that seems to be mostly what took place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems fair to say.
Speaker 3: And most of the extreme charges that Stop Line three
Speaker 3: protesters were getting, like a felony theft for locking down
Speaker 3: onto construction equipment mostly have since all been dismissed in
Speaker 3: the courts or at least taken down to a lower
Speaker 3: and more appropriate charge.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So again, like with everything about this guy, he's
Speaker 2: not perfect. He's not without some fucked up things in
Speaker 2: his background. He's a politician, but on ballots a better
Speaker 2: history on environmental stuff than most governors in the country.
Speaker 2: I should also note here under Walls, Minnesota passed the
Speaker 2: nation's most comprehensive ban on PFAS chemicals, a category of
Speaker 2: industrial compounds that do not break down and run off
Speaker 2: and have been associated with a bunch of cancers and
Speaker 2: other health risks. It is a ban that rolls out
Speaker 2: over an eight year timeframe, so you know, maybe it's
Speaker 2: not like who knows how well it will actually get executed,
Speaker 2: but literally no other state has passed a ban this strong.
Speaker 2: So I'm putting it in the ups for Walls category. Now,
Speaker 2: that is kind of what I had to say. I
Speaker 2: didn't want to end talking a little bit more about Palestine,
Speaker 2: because again, Walls has a very mixed record here at best.
Speaker 2: While he was in the House, he received APAX in
Speaker 2: endorsement and spoke at the group's twenty ten conference, where
Speaker 2: he said this Israel is our truest and closest ally
Speaker 2: in the region, with a commitment to values of personal
Speaker 2: freedoms and liberties, surrounded by a pretty tough neighborhood. You know,
Speaker 2: I might quibble with me most of that. Well, except
Speaker 2: for with our closest ally in the region. That's kind
Speaker 2: of hard to argue with. After October seventh, he ordered
Speaker 2: state flags flown at half staff and condemned the Hamas attacks.
Speaker 2: In early March, he began endorsing calls for a permanent
Speaker 2: working ceasefire, a few days after Harris called for a
Speaker 2: six week ceasefire. He's made statements about how the uncommitted
Speaker 2: protesters should be listened to, same thing about college protesters.
Speaker 2: But he's not backing an embargo, right, He's not you know,
Speaker 2: pushing any kind of like stick to actually force Netnahu's
Speaker 2: hand in any way. You would not say he's the
Speaker 2: worst democrat on Gaza, but he's not, you know, particularly
Speaker 2: good either.
Speaker 3: He didn't lie about volunteering with the IDEA.
Speaker 2: He did not lie about volunteering with the IDF as
Speaker 2: a teenager. That's that's one thing we can say.
Speaker 3: But unfortunately the bar is quite low these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know that's Tim Walls, a political biography.
Speaker 2: I hope you now can walk away being like, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's that's more or less who Tim Walls is.
Speaker 3: I do. I do feel it's important to end with
Speaker 3: one more kind of anecdote about Tim Walls that I
Speaker 3: learned this morning, Okay, is that on I believe his
Speaker 3: first date with his with his soon to be wife,
Speaker 3: when he was teaching geography, he took her to see
Speaker 3: the movie Falling Down, the nineteen ninety three Michael Douglas masterpiece,
Speaker 3: incredibly based, which I feel like every single politician should
Speaker 3: be forced to watch.
Speaker 2: I would make it a mandatory part of graduation. You know,
Speaker 2: that was that was an important movie for me.
Speaker 3: It is a pretty funny first date movie. It's not
Speaker 3: the worst, you know, It's not like it's not like
Speaker 3: American Psychoach, which is also a great movie, but you
Speaker 3: know it is. It is a curee his first pick.
Speaker 3: But I think it is important that whoever is sitting
Speaker 3: in the White House is familiar with Falling Down. Yeahs,
Speaker 3: as it kind of displays American male violence.
Speaker 2: It predicted a kind of guy who was just starting
Speaker 2: to like yeah, creep, up into public consciousness when the
Speaker 2: movie came out, and who now commits a mass shooting
Speaker 2: every four weeks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so I think that is a very funny anecdote.
Speaker 2: Watch Falling Down, folks. It's a great date movie, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe double Parrot with Event Horizon and really really gets
Speaker 2: an act in Christ. All right, Garrey, that's the end
Speaker 2: of the episode. How are you feeling pretty good?
Speaker 3: Pretty good? Honestly, well, you know, not great. You know,
Speaker 3: actually the whole situation politically in the country is kind
Speaker 3: of a nightmare.
Speaker 2: It's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 3: Somehow, I feel slightly better than I did two months ago.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you, this is the best it's been
Speaker 2: in a while, and maybe maybe the best in all
Speaker 2: ever be again.
Speaker 3: Which also just points to how low the bar is
Speaker 3: at the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Look, best case scenario, Matt Walsh
Speaker 2: is mad. It is a little further than mad. We'll see,
Speaker 2: we'll see if we can get like a welfare check
Speaker 2: over at his house. Anyway, that's the end of the episode.
Speaker 2: Good night and good luck.
Speaker 3: Carl Walls.
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