Tim Walz laments he’s not the ‘best spokesper­son’ as Dems missed ‘things that improved people’s lives’

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Tim Walz laments he’s not the ‘best spokesperson’ as Dems missed ‘things that improved people’s lives’

Gov. Tim Walz (D‑MN) offered crit­i­cism to his own par­ty while acknowl­edg­ing he’s not “the best spokesper­son” since he lost in the last pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

Walz, who plans to run for reelec­tion for Min­neso­ta gov­er­nor in 2026, remains the face of sev­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic cam­paigns, most recent­ly appear­ing at an event on behalf of Wis­con­sin Supreme Court can­di­date Susan Craw­ford, who won her seat last week. The gov­er­nor has vis­it­ed sev­er­al oth­er states, as well. He shared what he’s gleaned from his vis­its while on CNN’s State of the Union Sun­day.

“I think what we allowed our­selves to do is we got timid. And then when we got pow­er, we didn‘t pass things that improved people‘s lives,” Walz said. “I’m out here doing what I can do. I don‘t know if I‘m the best spokesper­son to do it after just los­ing an elec­tion, but what I know is the pub­lic — and you saw it across the coun­try this week­end — they‘re ris­ing up and ask­ing their lead­er­ship to do some­thing.”

Accord­ing to the gov­er­nor, his par­ty always sup­port­ed “a bipar­ti­san pol­i­cy that strength­ens immi­gra­tion con­trol,” pro­tect­ing Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare, and poli­cies sur­round­ing diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion which he defined as “rule of law, that‘s fair, that every­body gets an oppor­tu­ni­ty.” How­ev­er, Walz couldn’t deny that his par­ty has a 29% approval rat­ing.

“I‘m very con­cerned with the folks who stayed home. And these are folks that I‘ll say once again, Don­ald Trump has iden­ti­fied their angst,” Walz said of the 2024 elec­tion. “Democ­rats do well in spe­cial elec­tions and off-year elec­tions. But the elec­torate that comes in pres­i­den­tial elec­tion years is dif­fer­ent. When I was young, it was easy to know what a Demo­c­rat was: They stood with the work­ing class and labor. Repub­li­cans were coun­try club and for the rich.”

Walz recent­ly came under fire for his com­ments cel­e­brat­ing Tesla’s declin­ing stock, say­ing it “gives me a lit­tle boost” to see it con­tin­ue to tum­ble. Mean­while, the Min­neso­ta State Board of Invest­ments released a report show­ing the state held 1.6 mil­lion shares of Tes­la stock in its retire­ment fund as of June 2024. Min­neso­ta also held over 211,000 shares of Tes­la in its non-retire­ment fund.

WALZ CELEBRATES TESLA’S STOCK DROPPING: ‘GIVES ME A LITTLE BOOST’

The gov­er­nor defend­ed for­mer Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, claim­ing he “did a hell of a job,” but dis­missed a ques­tion from host Jake Tap­per about his run­ning for reelec­tion. Walz put the onus on Biden, say­ing, “He made that deci­sion.”

Next month, Tap­per is releas­ing his sev­enth book Orig­i­nal Sin: Pres­i­dent Biden’s Decline, Its Cov­er-Up, and His Dis­as­trous Choice to Run Again. Co-author and Axios Reporter Alex Thomp­son com­bined with Tap­per to inter­view “200 White House insid­ers” for the book.