On CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) spoke about President Trump's tariffs and the future of the Democratic party with Jake Tapper.
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00:00You're the governor of an agriculture-heavy state, one of the top five in the country,
00:03I believe.
00:04What's your reaction to what you just heard from the Agriculture Secretary?
00:08Yeah, good morning, Jake.
00:10Well, I'm stunned.
00:12Your questions were spot on.
00:14It's very clear that she talked about the people she's listening to.
00:17That is not the agricultural community.
00:19It is certainly not producers.
00:20It's not folks like Cargill, CHS, General Mills, who are out in my district.
00:24Look, this is a really precarious time, and the flippant nature that we're just trying
00:30something new here is really dangerous.
00:33These markets took us years to develop, and we have to be dependable trading partners.
00:39They don't come back overnight, and everyone knows in the history of trade wars, agriculture
00:43gets hit the hardest, so I'm deeply concerned.
00:46It's our number one export, adding the tariffs, our two biggest export markets are Mexico
00:51and Canada.
00:52They're our great friends.
00:54This is just really, really terrifying.
00:56I would encourage, and I'll call the Secretary, I'd encourage her to come to Minnesota and
01:00see everything that she said is not what's happening on the ground.
01:03So look, it's a precarious time.
01:04So let me ask you, because another group you're in touch with are the United Auto Workers
01:08Union.
01:09You have a lot of that.
01:10They have supported you for years and years and years.
01:12They were excited to have you on the Democratic ticket.
01:15President Trump argues that these tariffs are needed to bring American manufacturing
01:18back and to help American workers left behind in places like Minnesota.
01:23He has support from the UAW.
01:25The UAW called his auto tariffs, quote, a long overdue shift away from a harmful economic
01:29framework that has devastated the working class.
01:31It signals a return to policies that prioritize the workers who build this country rather
01:36than the greed of ruthless corporations, unquote.
01:39I have to say, that sounds a lot like language you would use.
01:43What do you say to the UAW?
01:45Yes.
01:47It is what I would use, and here's the thing that the Democrats have to figure out.
01:50Donald Trump's language around this, he's not wrong that we've had manufacturing gutted.
01:54He's not wrong that we saw an outshoring.
01:56People of my generation were told, you know, there aren't going to be any manufacturing
02:00jobs so you need to go to college and rack up student loan debt.
02:03The problem is Donald Trump's solution to this is not the solution.
02:06Now, UAW is right.
02:08Certain tariffs, if they're on to steel or if they're targeted correctly, do make a difference.
02:13That's not what we're dealing with here.
02:14So just last week 650 taconite miners were laid off.
02:18Those taconite miners are mining the taconite to make the steel to build the automobiles.
02:23So I don't disagree where they're at, and I think this is the Democratic dilemma.
02:27Donald Trump talks about the things that are real in the angst of people's lives.
02:32He doesn't do a damn thing about it.
02:34In fact, he does just the opposite and he pals around with the people that caused the
02:37problem and we don't offer him a solution so it looks like we're not hearing him.
02:41So I disagree with Sean Fain and UAW on this issue.
02:45I don't disagree with them on that we made decisions over the last 30 to 40 years that
02:50I don't think helped America, but this is not the solution to it.
02:54Isolating ourselves is not the solution.
02:56We need to make sure that we're focusing, and again, I would just end with this, Jake.
02:59Donald Trump has not once ever cared about workers.
03:02This is why you need to support unions across the board, support the ability to have a living
03:06wage.
03:07So you're in Ohio right now.
03:08You've been holding these town halls in red districts across the country.
03:12You're saying Democrats need to do a better job of reaching Trump voters.
03:16I want to play something you said at an event in Texas last month.
03:21We let them define the issue on immigration.
03:24We let them define the issue on DEI and we let them define what woke is.
03:31We got ourselves in this mess because we weren't bold enough to stand up and say, you're damn
03:36right we're proud of these policies.
03:37We're going to put them in and we're going to execute them.
03:42The issues you identified there were immigration, DEI, and woke.
03:46You think Democrats' problem was that you just didn't do a good enough job explaining
03:49the policies and not that voters simply didn't just reject what you were selling, particularly
03:54on immigration, I wonder?
03:56No.
03:58On immigration, what we were asking for is a bipartisan policy that strengthens immigration
04:03control, that recognizes that we need a workforce here, that they should be allowed here legally,
04:09and that when they get here, they're part of the American fabric, and that is the bipartisan
04:14bill we had.
04:15Donald Trump snatching up college grad students and sending them back or sending folks to
04:19El Salvador illegally, that's not the policy, but for us to them to say we don't care that
04:24violent criminals come in, we most certainly do, what we were asking for is the resources
04:28to make sure they don't get here.
04:30And the same thing with the other policies.
04:33It's not a woke policy to provide food for children, to get breakfast and lunch, and
04:38we get better outcomes from that.
04:40They defined things on their terms that weren't true, and what I'm saying is, are we going
04:44to turn away from being a country of legal immigration?
04:48Are we going to turn away from a country that thinks diversity and making sure that we don't
04:53have gaps in income between blacks and whites?
04:57Those are policies that have strengthened America, and I think what we allowed ourselves
05:00to do is we got timid, and then when we got power, we didn't pass things that improved
05:05people's lives.
05:07This whole idea I think the Democratic Party gets theoretical, you know, talk about food
05:11insecurity.
05:12People are hungry, get them food.
05:15People don't have a house, make sure they have a living wage.
05:17That's the point that I'm saying is, you know, Fox News will glorify, oh, he's for DEI.
05:22Not your definition of DEI.
05:23My definition is rule of law that's fair, that everybody gets an opportunity, and that's
05:29the point I think we have to make.
05:30Now look, I'll first tell you, Jake, I'm out here doing what I can do.
05:34I don't know if I'm the best spokesperson to do it after just losing an election, but
05:38what I know is the public, and you saw it across the country this weekend, they're rising
05:43up and asking their leadership to do something.
05:45So we heard your former running mate Kamala Harris say she's not here to say I told you
05:49so, although obviously that's what she was saying about all the Trump chaos.
05:53We're seeing, I have to say though, what does I told you so really mean here?
05:56I mean, people heard her message.
05:58They did not vote for her.
05:59She lost every battleground state.
06:01You yourself have criticized the Harris-Walls campaign for being too cautious.
06:05She may have told the American people, you know, she may have warned the American people,
06:10but she didn't do it compellingly enough to win.
06:15That is the absolute point.
06:16And look, when I criticize, I'm criticizing myself.
06:18I own this.
06:19I'm part of the ticket.
06:20And somebody has to come up with a strategy.
06:22I think this is exactly right.
06:24This is the thing.
06:25Look, Democrats, it was a good night in Wisconsin.
06:28I was over there.
06:29We saw that happen.
06:30Donald Trump's doing this.
06:31I want to be clear.
06:32Nobody on the Democratic side is celebrating this, and those folks in the street are not
06:35celebrating that Donald Trump's making all these errors.
06:37I think what the vice president's saying is that was pretty self-evident that he was going
06:41to do that.
06:42I do think the challenge for Democrats, and this is, I think, a structural problem that's
06:46going to take a lot more thinking, why with all of that out there did they not think we
06:51were any better than that?
06:53And they didn't.
06:54And I'm very concerned with the folks who stayed home.
06:57And these are folks that I'll say once again, Donald Trump has identified their angst.
07:01They can't buy a house.
07:02They can't afford to get a good education.
07:05They're concerned that their economic future is so precarious it could slip out from under
07:09them.
07:10Less than half of Americans have $1,000 in savings.
07:14And I think, why was it not so compelling?
07:16It should have been a slam dunk for us to say, we're the party that cares about that.
07:20We're the party that's going to protect Social Security and Medicare.
07:24We're the party that thinks the ACA is a good start, but we need to do more on health
07:27care.
07:28And we didn't do that.
07:29So I'm concerned.
07:30Democrats do well in special elections and off-year elections.
07:33But the electorate that comes in presidential election years is different.
07:36When I was young, it was easy to know what a Democrat was.
07:39They stood with the working class and labor.
07:41Republicans were country club and for the rich.
07:43Today, you ask people, they don't.
07:46We have a 29% approval rating.
07:48It doesn't help us any that Donald Trump ends up with a 25% approval rating.
07:52We have to get back to the core issues that this is about making America prosperous and
07:58stable and innovative for everybody.
08:00Well, what do you make of the criticism that one of the reasons why your party was so resoundingly
08:04rejected last November is because Democrats were gaslighting the country, saying that
08:09inflation was not a big deal, heralding Bidenomics.
08:13Not only Biden, but Kamala Harris was heralding Bidenomics, pretending that there wasn't a
08:17problem at the border.
08:18And then fundamentally, this idea that President Biden was up for another four years of the
08:24job while Americans in poll after poll for year after year were saying he's too old to
08:29do the job.
08:31Your party stood against all of those things.
08:35Look, Joe Biden coming in and during COVID and being a governor through COVID did a hell
08:41of a job.
08:42But I think one of the things that we didn't do was is we assumed that we said, and it
08:46was true, that we were going to have a soft landing and our economy was better than the
08:50rest of the world.
08:51Better for who?
08:53Better for the working class who was saying groceries were too expensive, as they are
08:56now and going up.
08:58They got to see us talk about things, again, I go back to this, don't talk about food insecurity
09:04or housing type of issues.
09:06Talk about people being hungry and wondering where they're going to live or about their
09:09children's future, about real security.
09:11And so I think your question is spot on.
09:14I think we got intellectualized on this.
09:16I think the fact of the matter is Joe Biden did soft land the economy.
09:20He did usher us through COVID.
09:22None of us are saying we should be soft on the border, but we allow a vacuum and Donald
09:27Trump fills it, the 800 pound gorilla, and their narrative starts to stick.
09:32And we look weak.
09:33We look weak like we don't care.
09:35We look like we, look, Jake, I'm not going to say, you know, we need to do is we need
09:38to just arrest people and ship them to El Salvador.
09:41No, we need to do invest the money on border.
09:43We need to make sure that we have the judges necessary to adjudicate things faster.
09:47We need to make sure if you're going to be in this country here legally, when you are,
09:50you're going to be uplifted, celebrated and part of this great American tapestry.
09:53We didn't do that.
09:54And then they, it fills them.
09:56They'll find the example that is horrific where you have someone who's not here legally
10:00and they commit a crime that is horrific, but we don't do a good job of telling that.
10:05Don't you think your party needs to acknowledge that president Biden was not up for the job
10:10of running for reelection and that this was a major mistake by, he made that decision.
10:15I know, but you all went along with the idea that he was up for it and he wasn't and everybody
10:20saw it and the country rejected it.
10:23Yeah, well, I look, history will tell us to go back on that.
10:27That very well could be the case, Jake.
10:29What I'm concerned about is learning from those lessons.
10:32I would hope we would never do it again.
10:34Make a mistake, make sure we go through and get someone.
10:36But I don't know where it helps us going forward.
10:39I certainly am deeply concerned that Donald Trump is going to lead us down a horrific
10:43look.
10:44Thank God it's tariffs that he said, Donald Trump listens to no one.
10:46Remember Donald Trump has statements about, I don't think nuclear war would be that bad.
10:51I guess we're lucky that he went after tariffs instead of that route.
10:55We have an issue in this country that is going to impact us.
10:58And if there is not a loyal opposition, if there's not some soul searching on our side,
11:02if there's not reaching out to those folks who are in the streets, they're leading right
11:07now.
11:08And I would tell everybody, you better get with them.
11:10Yeah.
11:11Quick question, because we got to go.
11:12But you said you're not going to run for the Senate seat there.
11:16Are you going to run for a third term for governor?
11:17Are you possibly going to run for president in 2028?
11:20Well, I'm certainly thinking about running again in Minnesota, if that's what they want.
11:26I am not thinking about running in 2028.
11:28And my advice to folks is, if in this moment you're planning for 2028, you're going to
11:32get rolled by the people in the streets.
11:34You just need to be out there making sure you're helping and doing things like Cory
11:37Booker is doing, doing things like Bernie Sanders, AOC, things that we see people out
11:41talking to folks.
11:42So for me, I'm going to get through this legislative session.
11:44If the folks in Minnesota want me, I'm kind of inclined to do that.
11:48And I just want to play my part to make sure we cannot afford to allow Donald Trump or
11:52his successor to go forward, because you're seeing the pain.
11:55Good to have you back here, Governor Walz.
11:57Oh, and happy birthday.
11:5861 years young today.
12:00Congratulations.
12:0161.
12:02Thanks so much.
12:03Good to see you.
12:04Good to see you.