Donald Trump and allies moved quickly on Tuesday to identify them Minnesota Governor Tim WaltzThe Vice President has chosen Kamala Harris’s new running mate as an agent of the far left.
Walz completes the Trump campaign’s “team of radicals,” according to a list of talking points obtained by NBC News. Dave McCormick, the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania supported by Trump, Harris-Walz brand as “the most liberal presidential ticket in history.” Others took similar steps.
It’s a playbook that won’t work so cleanly against the Democrats many Republicans fear Harris will choose: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Before President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Harris as his successor, GOP insiders envisioned a Harris-Shapiro partnership, and those estimates It led to Trump picking Senator JD Vance As a Rust Belt-enhancing running mate from neighboring Ohio.
“Instead of choosing a candidate with charisma and a moderate record, Kamala turned to the Hamas caucus and chose a charisma black hole with a history of supporting ultra-liberal policies and closeness to China,” he said. Trump, who did not want to be named, made a special note to share candid views of the campaign left view over Shapiro’s remarks about Israel and his condemnation of pro-Palestinian protesters.
A senior Trump adviser added: “Hamas has jumped on Harris Shapiro and made him knee-jerk against anti-Semitic, anti-Israel radicals on the left. He chose someone as dangerously liberal as himself.”
One Morning post on Truth SocialTrump appeared cheerful, though it was not immediately clear if his two-word message was in direct response to the news that Harris had chosen Walz.
“THANK YOU VERY MUCH!” the former president wrote.
Other reactions in Trump world and the party at large were a similar mix of relief and disbelief, with GOP advisers arguing that it was much easier to pull off a Harris-Walz ticket than Harris picking Shapiro. decisive swing state.
“He got carried away,” said Matt Gorman, a longtime Republican operative and veteran of presidential campaigns who did not work for the Trump campaign. “In a must-win state, a popular and charismatic governor was sitting right there. Passing by him, I just don’t understand.”
Another GOP strategist, Zack Roday, called Harris’ selection a “total failure.”
“Thought [Walz] “He was a useful person for progressives to have in the energy mix,” added Roday, who is not working with the campaign.
Speaking to reporters in Philadelphia on Tuesday before an event intended to draw attention away from Walz’s official debut as Harris’ aide in the city, Vance said he left a congratulatory voicemail for the governor. When asked if he believed concerns about anti-Semitism swayed Harris from choosing Shapiro, who is Jewish, Vance turned to Democrats.
“Well, that’s not what I believe,” Vance said. “A lot of people have said over and over that the reason Kamala Harris walked away from Josh Shapiro was because she was worried about anti-Semitism. They were worried about certain voters. They were worried [that] some leaders and local activists in their parties would not accept a Jewish candidate. I think it’s mean.”
Later, during appearances in the sports and entertainment arena, Vance made more pointed criticisms of Walz.
“The biggest problem with Tim Walz is what’s been said about Kamala Harris — that given the opportunity, she’ll kneel down to the most radical elements of her party,” Vance said. “That’s exactly what he did here. He will continue this as the president.”
Harris described Walsh, whose husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish, as a fighter for the middle class.
“It’s personal,” Harris said in a statement. “As a governor, a coach, a teacher and a veteran, he has reached out to working families like his own. We are going to build a great partnership. We start as a weak party, but I believe that together we can win this election.”
The Trump campaign released the first of several statements describing the ticket as a double dose of liberalism in a statement shortly after word of Walz’s selection broke.
“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast candidate Tim Walz as her running mate — Walz has tried to rebrand Minnesota as the Golden State,” Trump press secretary Caroline Leavitt said in an emailed statement. which came up again 2017 records where Walz observed that rural Minnesota was “mostly rocks and cows.” “When Walz claims to support Americans in the Heartland, when the cameras are off, he believes rural America is ‘mostly cows and rocks’.”
The campaign also a 30 second video He describes Harris and Waltz as “failed, weak, and dangerously liberal.”
Trump’s campaign has long been collecting research on Harris’ potential running mates, and his dossier of talking points excludes Walz from almost every eventual position.
“Kamala Harris has built policy on policy by electing a radical liberal,” said Taylor Budovich, CEO of the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC.
Republicans plan to attack Walz as weak on immigration, in part because he supports sanctuary cities and is open to making Minnesota a sanctuary state. Trump’s team is also likely to highlight Walz’s recent work CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, where the governor joked about investing in a “ladder factory” that builds ladders taller than any border wall Trump has built. Walz’s point was that a border wall alone would not solve the immigration problem.
“You stop it by using electronics, you stop it by using more border control, and you stop it by having a legal system that allows people like my relatives to come here and have a tradition that allows them to work and build. The American Dream,” Walz said.
Crime and public safety will be another line of attack. Trump’s campaign message will touch on one theme 21% increase in violent crime rate in Minnesota in 2021, Walz’s third year in office. However, since 2021, Minnesota’s overall crime rate has fallen to a modern-day low.
Another flashpoint could be Walz’s fight against protests and riots in the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. A police station was set on fire during the riots in Minneapolis. The Walz administration estimated the damage at $500 million.
“They make an interesting group because, of course, Tim Waltz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in the summer of 2020, and then a couple of people who got caught, Kamala Harris, helped them get out of jail,” Vance said, referring to Harris. ‘ social media push He told reporters on Tuesday that raising money for the bail fund meant benefiting the protesters.
Darren Beattie, former Trump speechwriter, Wrote a post on X Harris’ choice of Walsh over “Arizona astronaut,” referring to Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Shapiro, referring to “a Jewish guy from PA,” was “surprising.”
A source close to Trump’s election campaign compared Harris’s choice to the choice made by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who fought against Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia 8 years ago.
“Walz is Tim Kaine again,” this person said. “It adds nothing to the ticket.”