U.S. VP Kamala Harris picks Minnesota governor as running mate

Transcript

00:00Democratic bet for November's U.S. presidential elections. Vice President Kamala Harris has

00:05finally settled for the bottom of her party's ticket by opting for a governor of a blue state

00:10than the presumed favorite Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Her choice and official pronouncement

00:16of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for her vice president nominee caps off a whirlwind string

00:21of events since POTUS Joe Biden abdicated his run for re-election and endorsed her candidacy.

00:27VOA's White House Bureau Chief Patsy Whittaker-Zwara filed this story.

00:33The highly anticipated announcement has been made. Vice President Kamala Harris has selected

00:39Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible

00:45track record of getting things done for Minnesota families. Harris said in a statement, I know that

00:50he will bring that same principled leadership to our campaign and to the office of the vice

00:55president. Progressives had been rallying around the 60-year-old Walz who championed left-leaning

01:01policies as governor of Minnesota, a state in the Midwest part of the country that is critical to

01:06electoral victory. The former U.S. Army National Guard member and teacher is seen as appealing to

01:13rural white voters. A progressive who's been able to win rural red conservative districts, who's

01:20been able to win across Minnesota, even in the non-progressive enclaves, who is somebody who

01:26owns a gun and fought and, you know, was a combat veteran and is born in Nebraska. And so it's

01:33somebody who understands middle America. In November, Harris and Walz will go against

01:38Republican nominee former President Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance.

01:43Tim Walz's record is a joke. He's been one of the most far left radicals in the entire

01:49United States government at any level. But I think that what Tim Walz's selection says

01:55is that Kamala Harris has bent the knee to the far left of her party, which is what she always does.

02:00Even before the Harris campaign formally announced Walz as her pick for vice president,

02:04the Trump campaign released a statement calling him a dangerously liberal extremist.

02:10Walz recently raised his profile as an effective attack dog against Trump and Vance,

02:15calling them weird. He has three months to introduce himself to American voters.

02:20I don't know too much about them. I'm going to learn about them now that I know what they take.

02:24Harris and Walz will set off on a tour across key battleground states,

02:27beginning with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Tuesday evening.

02:31Patsy Wida, Kuswara Viewing News, Washington.