Who is Tim Waltz, who Kamala Harris has chosen as her running mate in the US presidential election?
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00:00Still no official announcement from Kamala Harris' campaign, but several media outlets including
00:06the Associated Press and CNN reporting that she has her sights set on Minnesota Governor Tim
00:13Waltz to be her running mate. The announcement coming less than two weeks ahead of the Democratic
00:20Party convention. Harris due to appear with her new pick at a rally later in Philadelphia.
00:28For more, let's turn to France 24's Ketavan Gorjastani. Ketavan, this 60-year-old governor
00:36from Minnesota, who is he? Well, he's someone who's maybe not a household name in a general
00:44population of the United States, but he certainly is on the political scene because he's been in
00:49politics for quite a while now. He was first elected as a representative back in 2006,
00:55re-elected five times, and it was in a district that had long been held by the Republicans. He
01:01managed to flip it and then keep it until 2018, which is when he was first elected as a Minnesota
01:08governor. He was re-elected back in 2022, and he now is the chair also of the Democratic Governors
01:15Association. So he's someone who has a lot of political connection. It's said that he had the
01:21backing, for example, of the former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and that she might have
01:26played a big role in getting him on that. So let me get this straight. So when you want to be the
01:31running mate, you lobby for it. You don't just wait for the call to come. You don't just wait for it
01:35to happen. It seems that in Congress, there was quite a bit of lobbying going on around for Tim
01:41Waltz, but he's grown into popularity, if you will, among non-political geeks, if you will,
01:50and that came just a couple of weeks ago with this interview in which he called the Republicans
01:56just plain and simply weird, and that has been picked up by the Kamala Harris campaign,
02:03and it's sort of their go-to phrase now if you listen to any interview of any Democrat.
02:09Gone are the very, you know, somber and serious talk about the danger to democracy. Right now,
02:16they've sort of pivoted to using that term and simply dismissing any new comment by Donald Trump
02:22or J.D. Vance as simply weird. So he's endeared himself to the American population, especially
02:29the left wing of the Democratic Party, and he's also the sort of flip side of the Biden-Harris
02:37ticket, because he's a little bit of a Joe Biden, but 20 years younger. He is from a more rural
02:46state. He's not California liberal. He's a white man to Kamala Harris's Black and South Asian
02:53woman. So he is a sort of the same balance that Kamala Harris brought to Joe Biden.
02:59He's bringing that balance back to Kamala Harris. Yeah, and just to remind our viewers,
03:04no official announcement yet from the Harris campaign. There is a reaction already, though,
03:11from the Trump campaign branding Walt, quote, a dangerously liberal extremist.
03:16Yes, who will unleash hell on earth and hell on earth, hell on earth. And he will be worse
03:24than the so-called, in their own words, crazy liberal Kamala Harris. So the attack lines
03:32are already written for the Republicans. They're going to go after his track record as Minnesota
03:37governor, because in part, that is why he has been a darling of the left wing of the Democratic
03:44Party is for policies that he's implemented in Minnesota, especially when it comes to
03:51helping families in Minnesota, like free meals at school, protecting abortion rights, regulating
04:00access to guns, also tackling climate change. All of these things are what works with the base
04:07of the Democratic Party, but also things that the Republicans are going to seize upon to try
04:13to attack him. So it's sort of a coin flip in that sense. But that said, even though recently he has
04:21been a champion of more liberal policies when he was first elected, as I said, in 2006,
04:28it was a very Republican district. So he has a history of sort of crossing over the aisle and
04:35convincing independents and moderate Republicans to come to him.
04:39And we have it official now, the Reuters news agency reporting that Kamala Harris has picked
04:46Tim Walz as her vice presidential running mate again, Kevan Gorgastani. We should be expecting
04:52a joint appearance later in the day. Yes, there's going to be a joint
04:56appearance today in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. That will be the first big stage for this new
05:04ticket, the Harris-Walz ticket. She apparently did it, I'm just reading this now as we speak,
05:10in a text message to supporters. It's interesting because her name was unveiled by Joe Biden in a
05:15video address. Yes, and we're expecting at some point to have a sort of official campaign video.
05:21But this also shows how quickly and how unusual this whole process is. It happened within two
05:28weeks of her taking the top of the ticket. So everything goes basically right now.
05:34But to go back to their rally tonight in Philadelphia, it's the beginning of what
05:41they're calling the battleground states tour. They'll be going tomorrow, Wisconsin and Michigan.
05:48Then there were planned appearances in North Carolina and Georgia, but that might
05:52have to be postponed because of hurricane or storm Debbie. Also, Arizona, Nevada, what is common to
06:00all these states, they're all battleground states. They're all very key to the Democrats' chances
06:07in November. And so they're going to be crisscrossing those battleground states together.
06:11And France 24's Fraser Jackson will be live in Philadelphia for that. Kevan Gorgastani,
06:17many thanks again. If you're just joining us, it's now official. Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz,
06:22the running mate of Democratic Party nominee, the Vice President Kamala Harris. Thank you,
06:29Kevan. Thank you for joining us here for this edition.