Sen. Ron Johnson Urges FBI Not to Label Trump Shooting as 'Domestic Terrorism'
Sen. Ron Johnson Urges FBI Not to Label Trump Shooting as 'Domestic Terrorism'
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00:00A few months ago in Atlantis, you saw Vice President Harris use a word to describe her
00:03opponents that our next guest was, we believe, the first to deploy.
00:07The word is weird.
00:08Here's the funny thing about that.
00:09So he won't debate.
00:10But he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me.
00:11And by the way, don't you find some of their stuff to just be plain weird?
00:27Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is the one who started the whole weird ball rolling.
00:31And just last night, he said this about the former president on a Zoom call with the group
00:34White Dudes for Harris.
00:38Keep hammering on these guys.
00:39This idea of calling them out for who they are, shrink them.
00:42Is he a danger to society?
00:44Yes.
00:45Is he a danger to women's health?
00:46Yes.
00:47Is he a danger to world peace?
00:48Yes.
00:49But don't give him more credit than he needs.
00:50He's just a strange, weird dude.
00:52And Governor Tim Walz joins us now.
00:54Governor, good to have you on the program.
00:55So you started, we believe, that term weird.
00:58Democrats are certainly running with it.
01:00Tom Friedman with the New York Times said in a column recently, he said, I cannot think
01:03of a sillier, more playground, more foolish, and more counterproductive political taunt
01:06for Democrats to seize on than calling Trump and his supporters weird.
01:10He went on to say that nobody beats the former president in the arena of name calling.
01:15What do you say to Friedman?
01:17Do you worry that this is somehow playing into Trump's hands, like what Marco Rubio
01:20tried to do?
01:22Yeah.
01:23No.
01:24It's not a name calling or tagging him with it.
01:27It's an observation.
01:28And I didn't come up with it.
01:29People around, you know, that I'm with, around Southern Minnesota, relatives and Republicans.
01:34Look, Donald Trump is a threat to all those things.
01:37But we somehow put it in there that he had this power that there wasn't anything we could
01:41do about.
01:42This is a tool.
01:43I'm a teacher.
01:44And you're trying to get things in.
01:45This is the emperor's wearing no clothes.
01:47And once you take that away from him, it opens up the space to start asking the questions.
01:52Who's asking to take away reproductive rights and birth control?
01:55Who's asking to raise the price of insulin?
01:58Who's asking to have tax cuts for the wealthy?
02:01Why we take away veterans benefits?
02:03These are all things that are in Trump's proposal.
02:05You don't get that space if people feel like they're intimidated or this guy has this going
02:10on.
02:11So I disagree with Tom.
02:12It's not about that.
02:13I look, I've dealt with bullies.
02:14I had 20 years in the classroom.
02:17This is about making sure you take away this perceived power he has.
02:19And in most cases with bullies, he doesn't have that.
02:22And so this opened up the space for what you're seeing in Atlanta, a politics of joy that
02:28many of our younger people have not seen, an optimism.
02:31He doesn't scare Vice President Harris, but he opens up this idea that your previous guests
02:37were asking about, where's the plan?
02:39He doesn't have one.
02:40And these weird ideas, and I'll stay to that.
02:43I still say this.
02:45People can feel this.
02:46Why does a guy never laugh, like laugh with people, but laughing at people?
02:50And why are you talking about Hannibal Lecker?
02:52You've got Vice President Harris down there talking about making child care more affordable,
02:56things that really impact families.
02:57So I disagree with Tom.
02:59It does seem what's interesting to me about it when I first started to notice it is it's
03:04it's a way of dealing with the former president, which no one else kind of figured out before.
03:09And a lot of people tried, which is I mean, it's just it's like it's sort of discounting
03:15him in a way, like sort of brushing him aside in a way that he doesn't really know how to
03:21respond to because he is humorless.
03:23He doesn't you know, he doesn't have a sense of poking fun at himself.
03:29It does not play to he doesn't know how to respond to this.
03:33He doesn't classroom bully.
03:35I'm sorry I did that too long.
03:36And I and this guy, he's not offering anything.
03:40And I want to be very clear.
03:41I'm not speaking about the people at his rallies.
03:44Those are my relatives.
03:45Those are folks that are there.
03:46And look, he would be entertaining because that's what Republicans are saying.
03:49They're saying, oh, you're calling you're calling Trump and all his supporters weird.
03:54That is exactly the last thing I'm saying.
03:56I'm saying these are folks, like I said, these are my neighbors.
03:58They're there.
03:59These are good people.
04:00They're going there because, yeah, they're disenfranchised.
04:02Not why J.D. Vance thinks he gets that all wrong.
04:04I grew up in a town of 400 and graduated with 24 classmates, 12 cousins.
04:08I know these people there.
04:10This isn't what this is about.
04:11I'm talking about those people there that we need to make the case to them.
04:14These are people that Democrats, they felt like Democrats have spoken down to them, that
04:18we've not gotten and reached where they're at, that they're trying to be who they are.
04:21That's what J.D. Vance's stick is talking about guns.
04:23I guarantee you he can't shoot pheasants like I can.
04:26And that's a part of saying, but you know what, I guarantee I don't want weapons of
04:29war in classrooms.
04:30And there's no reason that you can't have reasonable restrictions around that without
04:34infringing on your Second Amendment.
04:35He's going in there throwing these things around that makes a difference.
04:38Democrats need to go into these places.
04:39I'm going to go in every Legion Hall I can go into and say, Vice President Harris will
04:43not cut your benefits.
04:45I said in the VA committee for 12 years to increase those benefits with Republicans like
04:49Jeff Miller from Florida.
04:50This guy wants to cut him because it's in the 2025.
04:53We need to be bolder on that.
04:55We need to go out and say that I'm not talking to those people at all other than we got a
04:59better plan for you.
05:00The former president was in your home state, Minnesota, on Saturday.
05:02I just want to play a little bit of what he had to say.
05:04If they don't cheat, we win this state easily.
05:10They cheat.
05:11They have no shame.
05:12They cheat.
05:13Do you understand that?
05:14You crooked people.
05:15They're the most crooked.
05:16They cheat.
05:17They cheated in the last election and they're going to cheat in this election, but we're
05:21going to get them.
05:22I wish you know, the former president lost Minnesota in 2020.
05:26Do you think he could win Minnesota in 2024?
05:29And obviously, if you want to respond to the allegations of fraud, which they always could.
05:33Yeah.
05:34Yeah.
05:35They're not true.
05:36I think he thinks he's in Venezuela or something.
05:37Look, he's trying to complete his state of hockey.
05:40He lost in 16.
05:41He lost in 20.
05:42He'll lose in 24.
05:43Hat trick.
05:44That's what he's going to get.
05:45But that's what he does.
05:46This is dangerous stuff.
05:47Don't normalize this.
05:48But what I say is, is do the work.
05:49We're going to have more people on the ground.
05:50I just came from a brewery over in St. Paul.
05:52A group of folks got together, about a hundred.
05:54They were going to try and raise $40,000.
05:56Hundreds and hundreds.
05:57They raised $150,000 in three days.
05:59Signs all over.
06:00People are out.
06:01We're going to do the work.
06:02Yes.
06:03Could he win Minnesota?
06:04Yes.
06:05But you know what you have to do with Minnesota?
06:06You have to have a plan.
06:07You have to have ground game to get out there.
06:09We vote at a higher rate than anybody else does.
06:12And I will tell you this.
06:13There are Republicans that are insulted.
06:16Minnesota's elections.
06:17We have a higher voting rate.
06:18We vote and our elections are secure.
06:21He's dismissing those people.
06:22Many of them Republicans.
06:24Republican election judges.
06:25But that's who he is.
06:26He's got nothing to offer.
06:27So yeah, he thinks he can.
06:29But look, he's endorsed Canada against me in three or four races.
06:32He said he'd win Minnesota.
06:33He will lose again.
06:34And that's that.
06:35This is where it ends.
06:36This is the wall.
06:37So what it's going to be.
06:39You know, it seems like the Trump team is coalescing around this, you know, obviously this idea
06:45of going after Harris on as the most liberal, you know, trying to saddle her with all the
06:51criticisms that they were using for the Biden administration.
06:54We have not seen.
06:55I mean, she started to do that.
06:57She pushed back today on that in her address.
07:01She she very quickly pivoted to the deal, which the former president, you know, the
07:06bipartisan deal, which he told his his members, his Republicans in the Senate not to follow
07:12through on and killed that deal.
07:14That seems to be what her response is going to be.
07:16Is that enough?
07:17I mean, clearly she has a record of, you know, statements she made the last time she ran
07:21for president that is going to be used against her.
07:24Yeah, well, they're going to say whatever they're going to say, we just need to have
07:28good proposals.
07:29There's things that we can do.
07:31We need to acknowledge to folks that every nation in the United States needs to control
07:33its border.
07:34And I will add the northern border, which Minnesota is on.
07:37But you can do that using the right tools.
07:39And the Langford cinema bill that he did kill would have done that.
07:42The Border Patrol agents endorsed it.
07:44These are folks who know what needs to be done.
07:46But he's not interested in solving the problem.
07:48What Democrats need to do is acknowledge and he has ginned up fear.
07:51But our border can work better.
07:53It doesn't.
07:54There's no reason someone seeking asylum, which we will always be a guiding light for,
07:58shouldn't have to wait seven years to have that adjudicated.
08:00That's why this bill would have made it 90 days and people either got it or they were
08:03removed.
08:04And I think seeing a plan that's out there talking about it with folks, knowing that
08:09he's not going to do anything, he talks about this wall.
08:12I always say, let me know how high it is.
08:14If it's 25 feet, then I'll invest in the 30 foot ladder factory.
08:17That's not how you stop this.
08:18You stop this using electronics.
08:19You stop it using more border control agents.
08:21And you stop it by having a legal system that allows for that tradition of allowing folks
08:26to come here just like my relatives did to come here, be able to work and establish the
08:31American dream.
08:32He's not interested in that.
08:33He wants to demonize.
08:34Look, we produce most of the turkeys that you're going to eat in Thanksgiving.
08:37Those are immigrants working hard, establishing themselves here.
08:40What's he going to do?
08:41Is he going to take them all out?
08:42And how is the economy going to work?
08:44These people, my neighbors, whether they're Republican or Democrats, don't want to demonize
08:48their neighbors.
08:49They just want a safe border.
08:50She's got a plan.
08:51The Lankford cinema bill was a big key to it.
08:53And Donald Trump doesn't want it.
08:55He thrives on chaos.
08:56He thrives on this idea that it's only him.
08:59Governor Tim Walz, I appreciate your time tonight.
09:00Thank you.