Relatable Walz shines at Democractic convention
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00:00We can now bring in our international affairs editor Philip Turrell. Philip, good afternoon,
00:03great to see you. Three weeks ago, four weeks ago, Tim Walz, we didn't know who he was. How did he
00:10do in terms of introducing himself to the American public?
00:13Well, you know, it's a funny thing because you can see politicians and candidates for election
00:19and you can go away saying, well, I've got nothing in common with that person at all,
00:22and I don't really find them particularly sympathetic. But looking at this performance
00:28last night of Tim Walz, you get the feeling he's a nice guy, someone you could go down and have a
00:32drink with, someone who you could chat to, someone you will probably get on with. And I think that's
00:36part of the message that the Democrats are trying to push forward with Tim Walz. He's not part of
00:41the Ivy League. He's not part of the high middle class lawyers or career politicians. He's like an
00:48ordinary guy and he's out there to try to appeal to middle class, midwestern male voters to bring
00:55them in to vote for Kamala Harris. And I think last night we saw a man who was visibly very
01:01humbled to take on the job of potential vice president, saying he hadn't made a lot of speech,
01:06he didn't have a lot of practice in this kind of situation. He'd been practicing on a teleprompter
01:12for quite a while before going onto the stage and then talking about his own family. We saw his son
01:18in tears there, his daughter making this heart sign when they talked about the special fertility
01:24drugs that his wife had had to take to be able to give birth to the daughter. So I mean, all of
01:29this is like going down a very emotional, personal level to try to make people believe that, yes,
01:36I'm like you. I'm a man of the public. I'm not up there like J.D. Vance, for example, or Donald
01:42Trump, who's a billionaire. I'm someone who comes from a working class background from Nebraska.
01:47I've had it hard like you have. I understand the real problems that the people of America have.
01:52That's why you should vote for Kamala Harris. So I think that was the message that went through
01:57yesterday. He did land one or two punches on Donald Trump and on the Republican Party. He attacked the
02:03Project 2025 agenda, this very far right project to take away some of the freedoms of the United
02:12States and expand presidential powers. But it was really, I think, as you were saying,
02:18a getting to know you speech by someone who's pretty well unknown by most people in the United
02:22States. And will that appearance convince undecided voters? Well, that's the question
02:30that's very hard to answer. The million dollar question. Yeah, exactly. I think that's exactly
02:34the right term that we don't know. I think if someone's going to do it, he's pretty well placed
02:40to be able to do that. As I said, putting in the Midwest voters, people like him, you know,
02:46Kamala Harris, she's got it for women voters who I think turned off by Donald Trump and his
02:51pronouncements. She's got it for for black voters and black women voters. I think where the problem
02:56is, is in the swing states, the undecided voters amongst white middle class, blue collar workers
03:03who are reluctant to vote for Kamala Harris. I think that he's been sent out there as like
03:08a missile to try to bring them in. Will it work or not? Well, we'll have to see. But I think what
03:13we're going to see now is even more important. That's the closing speech tonight by Kamala
03:17Harris, who's going to accept the nomination as presidential candidate for the Democrats.
03:22What is she going to say? How is she going to organize this speech that she's going to make
03:28tonight? How is she going to convince those still undecided voters? If you look at the opinion polls,
03:34Delano, you've got a lead for Kamala Harris nationally, 47 percent voting potentially for
03:41Kamala Harris, 43.7 percent for Donald Trump. That's a swing round compared to what it was
03:47if Joe Biden were going to run for president. But that doesn't mean that Kamala Harris is
03:50necessarily going to win the election in November because she's still dependent on
03:54the swing states on this 4 percent of American voters who don't know exactly who they're
03:58going to vote for now. Will they be seduced by Kamala Harris and by Tim Waltz? That we don't
04:05know. So it's up to her tonight to add that final brick to the wall she's building, if you'd like
04:10to put it that way around, to try to convince those who are still a bit unsure about whether
04:15or not they really want to vote for Kamala Harris that, yeah, okay, she's the person we'd like to
04:19see as president of the United States. Still a big challenge for her in the weeks to come.