Tim Walz speaks during a campaign rally with Vice President Kamala Harris. (photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Tim Walz speaks during a campaign rally with Vice President Kamala Harris. (photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Calls out Trump's "corruption" and Hegseth's "revolting views on women"
03 March 25
There was a moment not long ago when we all got to know Tim Walz—a big, bluff, good-humored guy, born in Nebraska, who became a teacher, a football coach, and the governor of Minnesota. For three months last year, he campaigned on the national ticket with Kamala Harris.
As late as Election Day, Walz was convinced that he and Harris were headed to the White House. He was going to be the Vice-President of the United States, living at the Naval Observatory, one heartbeat away from the Presidency. Donald Trump’s preëlection rally at Madison Square Garden, with all its extremist rhetoric, augured victory to Walz.
“It just felt like people would choose a calmness and a hopefulness over that,” Walz told me the other day, from his office in Minneapolis. “Obviously, Donald Trump knew more about America on November 5, 2024, than I did.”
The pain of losing will not soon abate. “That’s one I’ll take with me to the grave,” he said in a long conversation with me for The New Yorker Radio Hour. As Walz follows the chaotic course of the second Trump Administration, he feels that he “let people down,” he said.
“An old white guy who ran for Vice-President, you’ll land on your feet pretty well. But I still struggle with it. It was my job to get this one. And now when I see Medicaid cuts happening, when I see L.G.B.T.Q. folks being demonized, when I see some of this happening, that’s what weighs on me personally.”
The sense of regret runs deep: “I knew what my job was. It wasn’t to become Vice-President. It was to protect the most vulnerable. It was to make sure that we balance the budget. It’s to make sure that we keep peace in the world, make sure we tackle climate change, make sure that women make their own reproductive rights. All of those things are at stress right now.”
Since the election, Walz told me, he and Harris have spoken only “a couple times.” He explained, “I’m doing my job, and she’s doing her job, and she’s out in California, I believe, living, and I’m here in beautiful Minnesota, where the weather’s always great.” When I asked why they don’t call or text, Walz said, laughing, “Well, maybe she doesn’t want to talk to me after we got this thing done. No, I think it’s just there’ll be a time and a place. But we left good, and my family misses her. My daughter, especially.”
He described his relationship with Harris as “professional.” “It was clear that she was the top of the ticket, and my job was there to support her,” Walz said. “She inspired me. I think there were a lot of things that America never knew about her. When I found out she was a band kid, I’m, like, Why aren’t we running ads on that?”
During the campaign, especially during his debate with J. D. Vance, Walz was criticized for being excessively conciliatory in a contentious race, too eager to bridge unbridgeable gaps. He told me that it was “naïve” now to search for compromise with Trump: “He’s not interested in finding common ground with us. He sees us as an impediment and an obstacle, and I think he’ll continue to move to remove those obstacles the best he can.”
Walz did not hesitate to say that he thought the President was corrupt and that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a fellow-Minnesotan, “really worries me” for, among other things, his “revolting” views on women.
The moment is hardly one for downplaying the crisis in Washington. “I would argue that the road towards authoritarianism has been paved with people saying, ‘You’re overreacting,’ ” Walz told me. “I don’t think you can underestimate how far [Trump] will go. And I think you should assume a worst-case scenario.
If I’m wrong, that’s O.K., democracy holds. If I’m right, then we need to be prepared that he’ll continue to make these moves. As governor, my job is to make sure the firewall is there.”
When I asked Walz if former President Joe Biden should have recognized the realities of his age and prospects and dropped out of the race much earlier than he did, Walz did not dismiss the idea—but he didn’t endorse it, either.
“That’s a decision he needed to make,” Walz said. He recalled meeting with Biden in January, 2024, in Duluth, for a joint appearance about infrastructure. Biden, he said, “was great. He was spot-on. He was on the issues. He was doing what he needed to do.” Walz went on, “I hear some people say that if he’d have left the summer before, we’d have had a convention. We might have had different candidates and all that. I don’t know if we still would’ve won. . . . Was there somebody else out there? I think we keep looking for this charismatic leader that was going to rise and lead us out of this. I don’t think it works that way. I think, as a party, we just need to do a better job of connecting.”
Recently, Walz decided not to run for an open Senate seat in Minnesota. In fact, after twelve years as a member of Congress (2007-19), he’d rather “eat glass” than return to the Capitol, he said. The jobs are too frustrating. There’s nothing getting done, no sense of compromise. He’d rather fight Trump from his position as governor.
But what role might he play in the next election cycle?
“Look, I never had an ambition to be President or Vice-President. I was honored to be asked,” he said. “If I feel like I can serve, I will. And if nationally, people are, like, ‘Dude, we tried you, and look how that worked out,’ I’m good with that.”
After circling the question for a bit, I said, “I guess what I’m asking you is: Would you run for President?”
“Well, I had a friend tell me, ‘Never turn down a job you haven’t been offered,’ ” Walz said. “If I think I could offer something . . . I would certainly consider that. I’m also, though, not arrogant enough to believe there’s a lot of people that can do this.” If the circumstances are right, in 2028, and he has the right “skill set” for the moment, Walz said, “I’ll do it.”
“You might do it?” I asked.
“I’ll do whatever it takes. I certainly wouldn’t be arrogant enough to think that it needs to be me,” he said.
“I’ve always said this: I didn’t prepare my life to be in these jobs, but my life prepared me well. And, if this experience I’ve had and what we’re going through right now prepares me for that, then I would. But I worry about people who have ambition for elected office. I don’t think you should have ambition. I think you should have a desire to do it if you’re asked to serve. And that’s kind of where I’m at.”
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