Kamala Harris and Tim Walz's chemistry was on display for the first time last night as they held a rally in Pennsylvania, the same state that is home to the VP candidate Josh Shapiro. We re going to take a deep dive into why she chose him.
00:06:12.660If I'm on, if we do win, what's my role as vice president?
00:06:16.040These are questions people like John Edwards and Al Gore, when they were up to be on our ticket, they asked.
00:06:21.540You know, there's this famous thing now that if you're vice president, you demand that you're the last person in the room with the president.
00:06:28.000When a decision is being made, the staff clears out and you and the president talk about it.
00:07:32.400I've been thinking about Walls since yesterday.
00:07:35.560And he's the most radical they could find on the trans issue.
00:07:40.520I mean, as I said yesterday, he's another Gavin Newsom.
00:07:43.480There's just almost no daylight between those two, if any at all, which is an issue very important to me personally and my audience as well.
00:07:53.080And all I could think, Mark, and here's a spoiler for the people who have not seen the movie, The Usual Suspects.
00:07:58.520If you have not seen that movie, you should turn down the sound for the next two minutes because there's a big spoiler.
00:08:04.220In that movie, Kevin Spacey plays this kind of sweet, maybe slightly off character who finds himself part of this gang of ne'er-do-well criminals.
00:08:19.820And the whole movie, you know that there is a big boogeyman lurking named Kaiser Soze.
00:08:27.400And Kevin Spacey's character gets dragged into the police station early on, and they are really tough on him.
00:08:32.980Chaz Palmitari does a great job of cross-examining him.
00:08:35.580And he seems kind of slightly duncy and kind of walks him through some facts around the alleged crimes, but tries to avoid becoming the center of attention.
00:08:44.700And at the end of the movie, you find out that this guy doesn't have the limp he pretended to have, doesn't have like a bent hand that he pretended to have, that he's perfectly fine.
00:08:56.840He struts off into the sunset, and we learn he was the bad guy all along.
00:09:02.200And I have to tell you, Mark, that is how I'm feeling today about Tim Walz.
00:09:27.360He had that rally in the palm of his hand.
00:09:31.080He's way more effective than she is or Joe Biden is.
00:09:35.260And I genuinely feel like for the first time that I can remember, had like a feeling of fear rise up in my throat because I know what he's permitting in Minnesota when it comes to children.
00:09:50.940Which, you know, we talk about one of the defining issues of our time is that the way we treat our animals, you know, our livestock, the way we kill them because we're going to eat them.
00:10:00.520Nothing compares to what we are doing to minor children.
00:12:20.640And I I the depth of emotion that you feel is something I've heard from others.
00:12:25.220And anyone who doesn't respect that and anyone who's not eager to understand it, if they don't understand it on the face of it, should be eager.
00:12:32.740This is a guy who was chosen in part because he has a record and a reputation for caring about reaching out to Trump voters and people who disagree with him on issues.
00:12:43.020I would hope that he would he would make himself available to try to explain this position and related positions related to kids that maybe are misunderstood.
00:12:55.040Maybe he's changed his mind on things as the vice president has started to do on a range of issues.
00:12:59.260But if he really is legitimately concerned about being vice president for all the people and legitimately concerned about clearing up any misconceptions about where he stands on issues, where he has past positions that are deeply upsetting to folks, he should speak out about it.
00:13:15.200Because right now he's allowing himself to be thought of as having positions that are not only offensive and troubling to people, but out of step with the majority of the American people.
00:13:27.920Like allowing children to be taken away from the custody of their parents because the parents don't want to give them so-called gender affirming care, which is really sterilization and cutting off body parts.
00:13:50.140But now but now that he's putting put himself on a national ticket and now that he's got a pass that's being scrutinized, my preference is to not put you and others in a position of wondering what he really believes, wondering if he understands at a minimum the other side of these difficult issues.
00:14:07.460And and is willing to address them, not just because it's upsetting to people, but because he's new to the national stage, he's asking to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
00:14:18.100And we don't really have a clarity about where he is.
00:14:21.880We know in looking at his record that he's got some positions on issues related to kids that people want to know more about.
00:14:29.260And and it would be a shame if the dominant media's attempt to sequester these two away from any serious questions on any topic for the duration of the campaign won the day.
00:14:39.620Because I think it's in everybody's interest, including his really, I have to be honest, I don't I don't have questions about it.
00:14:55.340But I'd like to hear him address your concerns and at least express an intellectual and emotional and a parental sympathy for them.
00:15:03.000If that's his position, let him let him enunciate it.
00:15:05.500But let's have a dialogue. So because because his position on this issue, again, it's not the majority view and it's deeply upsetting to a lot of parents.
00:15:14.080And if he'd like to have the possibility of winning their vote, it'd be great if he explained it.
00:15:19.720He can disagree. Take the issue of abortion.
00:15:22.500Lots of Americans disagree with his position on abortion.
00:15:24.900Lots agree. But I'd like to know, when does he think life begins?
00:15:28.980What does he think about third trimester abortions?
00:15:31.540What does he think about the rights of the unborn?
00:15:33.720I'd like to hear him discuss that in a context of putting himself forward for the job.
00:15:39.140Even if he ends up disagreeing with a lot of Americans on some of these positions, whether he's taking the popular position or not.
00:15:45.540Right now, it's just a matter, as you said, of familiarizing yourself with the record.
00:15:50.080But he needs to talk about it in the national context because he's upsetting a lot of people.
00:15:53.980And I'd say the same thing about the three other people on the national tickets.
00:15:57.140They should do the same thing as well.
00:15:58.500Yeah. I mean, but you have to give it to J.D. and Trump.
00:16:02.560They'll talk to anybody. Trump showed up at the NABJ.
00:17:45.580Or do we need to put her on 60 Minutes where she can typically you can typically get a pretty friendly interview if you give them the first exclusive?
00:17:53.380So they're they're measuring it every day and the clock is running.
00:17:57.280And it's not really in their interest to have a policy debate.
00:18:00.840This election to me now is pretty simple.
00:18:02.820The Republican, the Democrats want it to be about personality, vibes, momentum.
00:18:14.440They want it to be about the Biden-Harris record on immigration, inflation, crime.
00:18:19.480And so for her to do interviews or put policy positions on the Web site is to play right into the hands of what the Republicans want the race to be about.
00:18:30.340I think she can unless the press decides, you know, that she has to.
00:18:34.240And right now the press is back to rooting for her.
00:18:37.500Yeah, they're they're in on it in a way, you know, not openly conspiratorial, but they're totally fine with running cover for her.
00:18:43.980So now this will be the third election of Kamala and or Joe Biden, where we've been prevented from really hearing from and seeing them and seeing them pressed on their policy positions.
00:18:56.920He was the basement campaign in 2020 thanks to covid.
00:19:17.260We need somebody who we trust, who we understand, who's we we can get behind their policies or we can't.
00:19:23.680It's I don't know what this says about us, Mark, that we seem to be ready to allow this.
00:19:30.360Well, every every election is different.
00:19:32.340Why would we, quote, we be, quote, ready to allow it?
00:19:35.660Part of it is because the other candidates, Donald Trump and all the press and a very high percentage of the American people will take any steps, including ignoring the mental and physical decline of the incumbent president to make sure Donald Trump is beaten.
00:19:49.880That's just a reality of the mindset of the Democratic Party and its allies in the dominant media.
00:19:55.420Right now, as I said, they know exactly how to calibrate, whether she needs to answer any questions and whether there'll be debates or not, whether she'll do interviews or not, press conferences.
00:20:07.960Now, I will say if she does those things, don't assume it's going to cause her political damage.
00:20:13.420She's always been underrated because of the public image she's developed as vice president.
00:20:17.100But leaving aside the questions of whether it would hurt her political chances, obviously, as you've suggested, it'd be great to know where she stands on, say, China or tax cuts or anything else beyond just saying, well, she's got the same positions as Joe Biden.
00:20:33.200But I'm not optimistic about it because it's not in her interest at this point and may not be till after the election for her to talk and answer questions.
00:20:43.120We'll have no idea what the policies are.
00:20:45.120At best, we've had a campaign spokesman issue a paper statement saying she disavows this position from 19 and that position from 19, all of which she could get out of and say the person was confused that she didn't speak for me.
00:20:57.320I never said I mean, we have no idea what we're looking to elect.
00:21:02.000Let me go back to Tim Walls for a second, because one of the roles of the vice presidential candidate is to be the attack dog.
00:21:09.680And he was, including some very low blows.
00:21:15.020There have been low blows on the other side as well.
00:21:17.580Very aware of that, including from the top of the ticket.
00:21:21.860Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, J.D. studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community.
00:22:53.160No dad, drug-addled mom, man after man in the house, including very abusive domestic violence, things he witnessed and was potentially part of.
00:23:03.780And somehow, after joining the Marines, found himself at Ohio State and managed to do so well because he was a smart kid, he got a break and got into Yale, where Amy Chua took him under her wing.
00:23:59.220As you said, the Republican Party under Donald Trump is in no position to be on their fainting couches over personal attacks from the Democrats.
00:24:13.140I think it's not a purposeful Democratic plan, but the Republicans are burning up days on social media and from the Trump campaign going after Governor Walz.
00:24:23.180I don't believe they'll win the election after Governor Walz.
00:24:26.880Most Republican strategists I know with records of winning would like every remaining day the message from Donald Trump on down to be the record of Harris and Biden on the economy, inflation, immigration.
00:24:40.280And so as a political matter, a lot of people are upset about that lame joke from last night.
00:24:45.420But a lot of Republicans tell me we got it.
00:24:48.700We got to avoid getting caught going after the little shiny object every day, particularly from the bottom of the ticket, as opposed to the top of the ticket.
00:25:11.960I don't purport to understand all of Trump's decisions.
00:25:17.320Was it like ego just needs to do it because he doesn't like Kemp and Kemp doesn't like him and he just needs to express his loathing for the man and his wife, who's also said something negative about Trump.
00:25:30.380But, I mean, it's not surprising given all the things he said about her husband.
00:25:45.180Well, that's a three day story so far.
00:25:48.960And it's really annoyed a lot of people in the Republican Party who like Governor Kemp and think, as your question suggested, that they'd probably be better off working in tandem rather than in opposition.
00:26:00.400I'm not great at math, but that's a pretty high percentage of the days remaining.
00:26:03.340And again, most Republican strategists I know, including the ones working for Donald Trump, say every day we're not talking about the Biden-Harris record on crime, inflation and immigration and America's role in the world.
00:26:16.300If Kamala Harris can skate through with the media's help and get to Election Day and early voting and voters say she can be a good steward of a good economy and she can be a tough and intimidating commander in chief, I think she'll win.
00:26:29.040The only way to undermine that is to talk about the record and to kind of smoke her out on it and talking about Brian Kemp.
00:26:45.300But even if true, even if they'd invited him and said, you know, the former president would like you to be his personal guest, it is just madness to waste the news cycle plus two additional ones going after the guy and his wife.
00:27:16.760But but I will say I will say all that notwithstanding, he still has more electoral college paths today and a better chance of winning Georgia than Vice President Harris does.
00:27:26.500So he's still got a better a better positioning than she does, but he's not helping himself.
00:27:32.380And I don't know, his interview on Fox and Friends this morning was just a classic sprawling mess where he talked about a million different things and barely talked about what the campaign thinks he should be talking about.
00:27:42.560He has a high incentive, not just to win the presidency, but to stay out of prison.
00:27:46.980And yet he's he's not he's not currently on top of this game.
00:27:50.900Now, maybe there'll be debates and they'll do well.
00:27:53.020Maybe he'll find a way to start being on message.
00:27:55.080But but but the the the experience of I agree with you about the black journalists event.
00:28:01.240I think he purposely wanted to change the topic and it worked.
00:28:04.780But there's no upside that anyone in the world could invent, even Ivanka and and Don Jr.
00:28:27.340The main point is he's beloved in a state Trump must win.
00:28:30.740And Trump owes his fans and supporters better than to F with Georgia yet again that that this feud has already cost Republicans in Georgia enough.
00:29:02.800He likes personality contests because when he ran against Hillary Clinton, that served him well.
00:29:07.260A personality contest against Kamala Harris.
00:29:10.160And as you yourself acknowledge this, this very talented communicator on the ticket with him with her, it's going to be difficult to win that personality contest.
00:29:19.240In fact, probably I think he can win against her, but she needs to be fronted.
00:29:23.960Not this version, not this version of her, not the version of her.
00:29:26.520Now, the press is now, you know, I mean, yes, the profile version, too.
00:29:30.580The press is creating a false caricature.
00:29:32.840Can I can I read you one thing that was in the New York Times that I just find so hilarious.
00:29:37.500So all this coverage of her is so fawning about her cooking and her going to restaurants.
00:29:42.900And but so this is from the New York Times story about the buddy buddy relationship between her and the vice president.
00:29:47.920Ms. Harris, a black woman in the unrelenting spotlight of national politics, wears broad shoulder suits, pearls and heels, sometimes crisps chucks.
00:29:58.200She marshals an arched brow, a studied hand flip, carefully curated sentences.
00:30:39.640So when you say she he can't win a personality contest against her, he can't win a personality contest against the Julia Louise Dreyfuss deep real life deep version of her.
00:30:48.480But the version of her who's performed exceedingly well, again, not a partisan statement, a factual one in the controlled settings where she's the candidate of the future who now has rallies that rival his in terms of enthusiasm and crowd size and that they become cultural events, transcending political events.
00:32:45.120I'm quite certain, at least in the hall.
00:32:46.940Relief, as you said, same kind of feeling.
00:32:49.640Phew, we dodged a bullet, a figurative bullet that Joe Biden is no longer heading a doomed ticket.
00:32:54.620A sense of unity fostered in part by the party, a historic top of the ticket, and a new vice president who's universally popular within the Democratic Party's elite level.
00:33:06.800And then again, a sense of purpose of, we can win this thing.
00:33:10.480In Milwaukee, they were sure they were going to win.
00:33:12.980Now, Republicans are less confident than Democrats.
00:33:15.320She's taken two things away from Donald Trump.
00:33:23.680And he's going to have to figure out how to get those back because she's probably going to have that this week with all the events she's going to do.
00:33:30.040Cookie cutter from last night in the battleground states.
00:33:32.560And then during the week of the convention.
00:33:34.520So he needs to figure out how to take it back from the end of August into September.
00:33:38.740Confidence and enthusiasm have been Donald Trump's hallmarks.
00:33:41.380And I'm sure he's more than a little bit confused and frustrated that those have been taken away from him by someone who even Joe Biden and Barack Obama wouldn't have said a few months ago had any chance of being the confident and enthusiasm candidate.
00:33:55.180Even they underestimated this media and what it will do.
00:34:04.820Back with a very interesting guest on Tim Walz's military history.
00:34:08.820At the rally last night in Philadelphia, Governor Tim Walz also spoke about his military career and how he, quote, proudly wore the uniform of this nation.
00:34:22.280Governor Walz joined the National Guard when he was 17 years old and served for 24 years.
00:34:26.780But some veterans who served with Mr. Walz say when the nation and his fellow soldiers needed him most, Mr. Walz retired instead of being deployed to Iraq.
01:08:42.440Well, there's never been anybody out on that side that I vote for, especially him.
01:08:47.120I mean, just with his policies that have happened in Minnesota, he doesn't give a dang about the 49 percent that lost the vote.
01:08:54.340I mean, it's all about who the 51 percent were.
01:08:57.860And he rams all of all of his radical policies down that side of the down that side of everybody's throat, which is a sad thing.
01:09:07.400I mean, if you're going to be a leader, you know, you can't just lead for the side that you're on.
01:09:12.840And, you know, there's no way I could vote because I don't I they're like the party of chameleons.
01:09:18.740Right. I mean, if they if they go to Georgia, they want to talk like a Georgia person.
01:09:23.660And if they if they come and talk to if Tim comes and talks to veterans of Minnesota, he acts like, well, I'm doing everything for the veterans.
01:09:30.940And then when the vote comes down, then he then he slams the door on them.
01:09:33.880And wherever they stick, you know, that's the color they change.
01:09:36.920And then all of a sudden they know where they go to the next one.
01:09:40.020And then then they they jump on them and they say what they want to hear there.
01:09:46.140Well, listen, it takes some courage to tell this story publicly so many times as you have trying to make sure it gets out there, not to mention.
01:09:53.460And that to pick up the gun and actually go into combat, as you did and lost fellow servicemen.
01:09:58.400Thanks so much, Tom, for all of it. We respect you. We appreciate you.
01:10:32.020Um, and it's, you know, trying to maintain my objectivity because I'm definitely not going to vote for this man, but those are disturbing allegations.
01:10:39.240And we certainly hope that he will respond to our request for comment, especially on why his story of having a four year reenlistment does not jive at all with his actual documents as obtained by Alpha News.
01:10:52.180Um, we'll follow up on it if and when they get back to us up next, two of the best follows on X, Red Steez, Stephen Miller and Receipt Master Drew Holden.
01:11:03.960I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM.
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01:26:51.200And I really do believe that was deployed to neutralize anybody pointing that stuff out.
01:26:57.020And so like what Drew said, they can pull this.
01:26:59.480These guys are just weird card all they want.
01:27:01.640But, you know, these are the guys who are appearing in leather dog masks on segregated Zoom calls.
01:27:06.300And I guess if you guys want to do this joy election, I don't know how much joy people like me have having to chase down a clerk at a grocery store because laundry detergent is now locked up.
01:27:52.400Tell it to the family of Lake and Riley how joyful it is to have this woman in office.
01:27:56.540You know, tell it to the to Chloe Cole, who had her breast chopped off at age 15 by a medical community that's been captured by by social craziness, pushing this stuff without any appreciation for the fact that a minor cannot give consent to that kind of a procedure in the name of gender affirming care, which he's on board.
01:28:20.720But they picked him, Drew, because they think he's going to help with working class Midwesterners, that he's got that, you know, John Mellencamp in, you know, real life, like a song, a John Mellencamp song, which I object to as a John Mellencamp fan.
01:28:34.360And here's Steve Kornacki, however, of NBC, with a hefty dose of realism for them on exactly how well Tim Walz does when it comes to actual working in middle class voters in Minnesota.
01:28:49.820Listen, I think that background is a small town background, the military background.
01:28:55.360Democrats are hoping it's going to help them.
01:29:39.120That big margin, that margin, you got eight points there statewide.
01:29:41.880He owes it to the Twin Cities area here, the area where Democrats in Minnesota and all these other states are already doing well.
01:29:49.300And the idea that he's got this automatic appeal with these small town areas in those three key battleground states, you don't see it in what he actually did on the ballot in 2022.
01:29:59.960Now, that doesn't mean it can't happen.
01:30:01.740You know, see how this story, once it gets told, how it, does it resonate with voters?
01:30:12.180I mean, I think it really, to me, what it highlights is how far can this vibes election sentiment actually go?
01:30:20.180Because the media may think that this guy is, you know, he typifies the working class and he's out there, you know, whatever.
01:30:26.240But he is a dive in the blood progressive, right?
01:30:28.540The things that he actually believes, which voters are aware of in Minnesota and beyond, are not the sorts of, are not these folksy, John Mellon campy types of values, right?
01:30:39.400And so peeling back the layer, even just a tiny bit on his progressive policies.
01:30:44.660We've talked about the bathroom stuff, but also look at green energy, right?
01:30:48.900Like, he's someone who has, by executive order, and in his budget, he requires all providers of energy in the state to abandon traditional methods of energy by 2032.
01:31:02.400He wants 100% green energy by law, mandated by law in Minnesota by 2032.
01:31:08.160You know, hopefully there's enough time in there for somebody to come in and fix that.
01:31:11.740But he's not, he isn't this, like, every man sort of guy.
01:31:15.280He is a radical progressive, and the media might be able to hold him forward as, oh, well, look at him.
01:31:20.460Doesn't he just look like someone who would be folksy and Midwestern and moderate?
01:31:46.560Then there was an issue with a Florida teacher down in DeSantis' state where they had passed what the critics called the don't say gay bill, which just said you can't discuss sexual orientation and LGBTQ issues in curriculum.
01:32:00.840Okay, you can't discuss it in curriculum in the younger grades.