What Tim Walz Did With Power

Robert walks Garrison through an abridged political biography of Tim Walz.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Alone Media Welcome back to It could Happen Here?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
A podcast about Tim Walls, And in this episode, Garrison
and I are going balls to the Walls. Are you
happy with that? Garrison?

Speaker 3 (00:19):
What's skivitying your Biden?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
What does that even mean?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
All right, let's get going some fucking.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Ging z bullshit Garrison, because I won't take part in it.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, I'm excited to hear about how Walls is either
great or terrible or probably a mix of both.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, he's I mean, he's a politician and a pretty
successful one, so it's definitely got to be a mix
of both. For jd Vance, I figured the most relevant
thing to do is to talk about, like what does
he actually believe and where does he come from in
the right, because people had gotten pieces of that, but
I feel like unless you put it all together, it's
not as useful. So I hope we did that with Walls.

(00:58):
He's not a guy where if there's anything sinister for
you to know, So I think the useful thing is
kind of going through his whole political biography and just
kind of talking about like what is this guy done
in his public life? Right? That's kind of what I
wanted to do here. So that people actually know, you know,
whether or not you are making your mind up about
whether or not to vote. You're voting for harm reduction,

(01:19):
you're anti electoral. Here's this guy who may or may
not wind up being the vice president, and here's what
he's actually done in the past when he's had any
kind of power. It's worth noting that kind of at
this point here Walls is maybe the most popular politician
at his level in the country. This has happened very suddenly,
but he's got something like can a plus sixteen net
favorability among moderates, which is insane.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, that's a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, it's it's wild.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
As someone who's looked at a lot of the favorability
ratings the past six months, Yeah, that is astonishingly high,
especially got pared to where we were like two months
ago with Skibbity Biden, which was.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, very low, quite dire. He's incredibly popular with the
normies because basically every everyone in the country has positive
memories of a guy like Tim Walls, like whether it
was like your favorite social studies teacher or your dad.
There is like a kind of rotund, balding, very mechanically
capable man, probably somewhere in your life that you have

(02:16):
fond memories of and walls dredges those up.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
We are of a very Freudian country.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yes, for an idea of how like rapidly people have
gone from not really knowing who this guy is to
loving him. On August eighth, a Ugov survey should him
with a net favorability rating of plus eleven, which was
up from plus one, and a survey conducted in late
July in the same timeframe, jad Vance has seen his
approval ratings steadily drop.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, isn't he like at like negative points?

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Oh? Yes, yes, yes, by any stretch of the imagination,
at negative points. And if you're just kind of looking
at Tim's life, which we're not really getting into because
we have limited time here and it's not the most
important thing I thought we could be talking about. But
he has a long history of doing decent things in
his personal life kind of most notably in the early nineties,
like ninety three to ninety four, he sponsored the Gay

(03:04):
and Lesbian Alliance at his high school. And his reasoning
was that, you know, he was a soldier in the
National Guard and the football coach at that point, and
he decided you know him sponsoring the club in particular
would have the biggest impact, and I honestly I think
that's the kind of thing that might have saved lives. Yep,
good thing to have done. Anyway, this isn't an episode
about his life and background. We're not going to litigate.
We're not going to always any time litigating the attacks

(03:25):
on his military career, which seemed to confusingly say that
after extending his time in the Guard by four years
to participate in Operation during Freedom, he owed his soldiers
staying on even longer to fight in Iraq. I could
make the point that no grunt in any US war
ever found themselves in the shit and said, boy, I
wish the commands Sergeant major was here. But given that
JD Vance was played onto stage at the RNC to

(03:46):
a song with the refrain we got to get out
of Iraq and take our country back, I just don't
think these attacks are worth acknowledging it. All right, the
right has already acknowledged that was a stupid war to
fight in walls decided not to fight in it. Good
for him now when it comes to the current war
that is on everyone's minds or one of the wars
that's on everyone's minds. Walls is fine on Ukraine, but
when it comes to the war that he's not fine

(04:08):
on the genocide in Gaza. Walls is in no way
that I can find really better than Kamala Harris. But
he did take a stand against the Iraq war back
when that mattered, which is I guess a little bit
of a point, but again doesn't really matter today and
in any case, we're far afield from the subject, which
is what has Tim done in politics. So Tim's political career,

(04:30):
he came late in life to that. He was a
social studies teacher. For a couple of decades he was
a coach. He lived in Nebraska, then moved to Minnesota,
and in two thousand and six, after retiring from the
guard he was elected to Minnesota's first congressional district. Now
this was a tough campaign. His opponent in this race
was a six term Republican incumbent, Gil Gutneckt.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Wait wait wait wait, good Neckt.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Good Neckt. I'm guessing his family were knights, and it
was used to be like good Knight or something like that,
like gut k n Eca. But I don't know enough
about ancient German to tell you if that's really where
his last name came from. Yeah, yeah, But Walls came
in that he kind of goes against this guy who
had promised not to run for another term and then decided, actually,

(05:13):
I don't want to give up power. Not a thing
that's ever happened again. And Walls kind of came in
both when this guy had violated his promise to not
run again and near the peak of disillusionment and exhaustion
with neo cons Right, this is kind of the twilight
of the Bush years. Even conservative Americans are pretty fucking
tired of the Republican Party right this second, and Walls

(05:37):
exhibited a notable ability to connect with rural Americans who
mostly voted red. He did so with basically no funding
or larger national operation behind him. From a write up
in the New York Times, he had no money, no nothing,
said Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, who that cycle worked
on House Democrats recruitment team under their campaign chief Rama Manual.
He had a grassroots campaign that he had put together

(05:58):
that I just knew was going to be Dynahite. So
I went back and I told Rom Emmanuel this guy's
going to win. He's great, and rom looked at me
like I was crazy. Walls was a dark horse candidate
and would claim around that time that his whole inspiration
for getting into politics was when he tried to take
two students to a rally for President George Bush and
they were kicked out because one student had a John

(06:18):
Kerry button. Now I found a blog by the Republican
staffer who kicked them out where he admits he made
a dumb call. He was kind of trying to be
a dick. He had seen Walls out protesting against Bush
like the day before, and he knew he was going
to kick them out of the rally, but he made
them stand in line for a long time before he
kicked them out, and he was like, I shouldn't have
done that. But his angle was that Walls wanted to

(06:42):
get denied and kicked out so that he could make
a big deal about it and use it as a
line on the campaign trail. That's probably what happened.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Regardless, This is a very funny little domino leading to
big domino.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Everyone likes Walls who tends to meet him. Joe Biden,
for the last year or two has seems been trying
to get him to do Morbons with Walls just because
he put Biden in a good mood. I think that's
a big reason why Kamala picked him. He just seems
to be a very likable guy. But he's very okay
with lying to get what he needs. I mean, he's
a politician.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
He's a politician.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Another good example of this would be his duy. Right
when he was thirty one, he got a duy, and
he is at times claimed basically that's why I decided
to like, I stopped drinking, I changed my life, I moved,
you know, I got my shit together. But his campaign
manager made a statement recently, Oh, he wasn't drunk. He
just couldn't hear the cop. I don't know who to trust,
politician or cop in this case, but the CoP's attitude

(07:33):
is like, well, I would be fine if he had
just like fixed his shit up. But he definitely was drunk.
And I don't have any trouble believing that a man
in rural Nebraska, a football coach in rural Nebraska, drove
drunk once.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Right, No, that is not the most surprising thing in
the world.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
So I think he's a guy who's certainly he's not
naive political actor, right, He's not one of these guys
who's so so good and pure that he's not willing
to like fudge in order to make shit work for him.
And that's probably what he did at this Bush event
right now. That said, it would be hard to overstate
what a difficult task he picked for himself and trying
to unseat Gutneck. At the time that Walls ran, Minnesota's

(08:09):
first district had been held by one other Democrat in
the last hundred years, so he was the second Democrat
in a century to win in that district, and as
soon as he left, by the way, a Republican took
back over. During his six terms in Congress, he was
one of the more interesting legislators in the country. Walls
was a risk taker, supporting liberal votes on major issues
even when he was politically vulnerable. He opposed Republican legislation

(08:33):
to make doctors vulnerable to criminal penalties for performing abortions.
He supported a climate cap and trade bill on greenhouse
gas emissions that failed, and this really pissed some folks off.
He supported the Affordable Care Act, and kind of one
of the more notable things about him is there's stories
of when he was running for reelection, he would do
town halls in southern Minnesota and he would get attacked

(08:54):
by these red voters who had supported him early on
for backing the Affordable Care Act, and rather than like
backing off, he would lean into it and argue with
them and try to convince them. And you know, his
numbers with conservative rural Republicans got worse and worse every
cycle basically, so you could argue how good he was,
but it is worth something to me that he didn't

(09:15):
back off, he didn't do the well this might, you know,
fuck up my chances of re election. Like he's never
really been that kind of guy. There's things that he
believes and he will just kind of like jam his
flag into the mud over them. That said, Tim was
a pragmatist. He voted for a resolution calling for the
withdrawal of US forces from Iraq within ninety days, but
when that failed, he voted in favor of continuing funding

(09:38):
for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tim also received
an a from the NRA during much of his time
in office, voting against gun control based on what seemed
to be a natural inclination to firearms and hunting. Walls
may have been the best shot in the Minnesota National
Guard during the time when he was there. He's apparently
a very good shot. He is an avid and skilled
turkey hunter, and if you talk to people who want

(09:59):
game in the US, turkey is one of the more
difficult game to hunt. He developed a reputation as a
guy who wouldn't apologize for voting with Liberals, but who
would go across the aisle when it mattered. During his
time on the Veterans Affairs Committee, which he ultimately chaired,
he voted with Republicans to make it easier for the
VIE to fire employees, even with union opposition, and he

(10:20):
also pushed through changes to improve GI Bill college access
for veterans post nine to eleven. One of the things
I find interesting about his record is that in twenty eighteen,
he voted against most of his party opposing an overhaul
of the VA healthcare system. He agreed everyone agrees that
the system needed to be overhauled, but he argued the
proposal in place would force the VIA to cannibalize itself,

(10:41):
basically starving the organization to try and fix it, and
his attitude was, well, it needs to get fixed. I'm
not going to vote for a change that might be
worse than what we currently have. While chairing this committee,
Walls made strong connections to Nancy Pelosi, who like basically
everyone really came to like Walls, and she's going to
be one of the people who's one of the strongest
voice is for picking him as VP. And we will

(11:03):
be back to talk about more of that. But first, Garrison,
you know who else loves Nancy Pelosi?

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Probably these products and services. If they come from San Francisco.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
They're based in the Bay Area. She will break their
kneecaps if they don't like her enough. Ah, and we're back.
So one of the big shifts for Tim during his

(11:32):
time in Congress was away from the NRA. This started
after in twenty seventeen, after the Las Vegas mass shooting,
and then after the Parkland mass shooting, and then in
February of twenty eighteen, he writes an op ed supporting
what he calls common sense gun reform and donates the
NRA contributions to his campaign that cycle to some sort
of I think gun control cause. Walls's common sense gun

(11:54):
regulations include an assault weapons ban, and he's currently in
line with the Democratic Party on that, if you were curious.
That same year, twenty eighteen, he launched his campaign for
governor of Minnesota. By this point, Walls had bled much
of his ability to win rural red votes. It is
accurate to say he was only really good at this
during his early years in Congress. His margins grew a

(12:14):
lot narrower over time, and once he hit the governor's office,
his support was largely in the cities. Now it's one
of those things where I think there's been debate, like
some people have arguable he's not maybe not the best
VP pick because he actually isn't all that good at
getting these red rural votes. But I just don't see
that as where the elections coming down to. Walls has
great favorables with like suburban white people and particularly suburban

(12:39):
like moderates, and that is like one of the most
important demographics to win. So I don't believe the fact
that he's he's kind of bled his support with rural
conservatives is really necessarily a mark against him in an
electoral sense. One thing I do appreciate about Walls is
how direct he is to people. I dislike. He decides
in twenty eighteen to run for governor, and during that run,

(13:01):
he has a meeting with a bunch of business leaders
at a luxury hotel. The president of a machining company
asks if Walls felt corporate taxes hurt workers, and Walls replied,
we're not taxing people, We're taxing corporations. And I want
to quote from a CNBC write up for Jeff Baker,
it was a bit of an O shit moment. That's
not what I wanted to hear, said Baker, president of
McFarland truck Lines. There's a lot of stories like that.

(13:24):
He's been very willing to tax the wealthy and to
tax corporations to pay for things like children's lunches. This
is a consistent Walls move and it's something that he
absolutely is unapologetic about, and I think that's fine. Minnesota
currently taxes corporate income at nine point eight percent, the
highest rate in the nation. Walls did not back down
on this during his time in office. In fact, that

(13:46):
CNBC report found that quote Walls's policy battles have a
common theme. Walls supported either higher taxes on the rich
or businesses, and corporate leaders fought back. One of their
fights was over a one percent ser tax on passive
investment income over a million dollars. Another was a tax
on the wealthy Walls signed into law that limits standard
and itemized deductions for households with gross incomes over two

(14:07):
hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Due to Republican control of
the legislature, Walls's first term was not hugely eventful up
until the COVID nineteen pandemic. This is because Republicans retained
control of the state legislature and were able to stop
much of his plan perform. We did get to see
more of the politician Tim Walls during COVID when he
stood up against Republican resistance or common sense pandemic safety regulations.

(14:31):
He earned a lot of hate from the right for
some of the more extreme COVID restrictions in the country,
which were put in place in Minnesota. In particular, Walls
threatened citizens with up to ninety days in jail during
the shelter in place period and threatened twenty five thousand
dollars fines for meeting in public. Minnesota instituted a COVID
hotline where people could inform on their neighbors if they
saw rules being broken. And I get why the right

(14:53):
is uncomfortable with this. I'm not fully comfortable with this
kind of stuff either, But given what was going on
at the time, I'm not going to slam the man
for trying to save lives in a very uncertain and
desperate situation. You know, it beats the nothing that a
lot of state governors did, so I guess that's kind
of where I stand on that shit. Not long after
the pandemic lockdown started, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis.

(15:17):
Walls mobilized the National Guard after three days of riots,
earning praise from President Trump on June first, who said
what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in
and dominated, and it happened quickly. And this is you know,
the National Guard do a lot of very violent shit
coming into crackdown on these protests. I know a lot
of people who were the ones cracked down upon. It's

(15:38):
one of those things where, yeah, he's a governor, you know,
I think pretty much any governor in this situation would
have sent in the National Guard in that sort of situation.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Especially after the burning of the Third Precinct.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Especially after the prison got burnt, which doesn't excuse it.
It's just like, well, yeah, he's not He's not an anarchist,
right like, he's not your communist like revolutionary hero. He
is the governor of Minniso. So I'm just really not
surprised that this happened. It's, you know, a pretty normal
thing for a guy in his position to have done. Yeah. Now,

(16:10):
like every other dim in creation. During the height of
the uprising, Walls voice support for a wide host of
police accountability reforms. He even voiced some degree of support
for Indian qualified immunity, but this did not last long,
and as the backlash against police reforms swelled up after
the election, Walls joined many ims and pulling back and
even quashing moves for greater police accountability. When he ran

(16:31):
for reelection, he did so as a tough on crime,
law enforcement friendly democrat. Right many such cases. Now, he
did push through some accountability measures. He used fifteen million
in COVID funds to pay for grants for community violence prevention.
He pushed through some requirements to increase data sharing from

(16:51):
the Police Licensing Board. He pushed through a demand for
state law enforcement to share footage of police killings with
the family of the victim within five days. These are,
I think we can all say, minor accountability moves, very
very minor, very minor, he said. Of these moves, they
build trust in police, they build trust in the systems,
They build trust among communities, and they provide the community

(17:13):
with some basic closure and understanding for families. Nothing builds
trust like a video of your cousin getting shot in
the back.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Yeah. If the biggest accountability thing is that you get
first look at the murder video.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
I don't know, Okay, I like, yes, I do think
you probably have to legislate that, because otherwise police just
won't give it up at all. But like, yeah, I
wouldn't hang my hat on that.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
It is ignoring the main issue at play, Yeah, which
is the fact that we have murder right videos. It's like,
come on now.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
There were some bigger reforms, including limitations on no knock warrants,
although again not like a ban or anything, but it
lacked a lot of the stuff that activists in the
state had pushed forward, including limits on police stops of motorists,
and Walls had agreed that there needs to be more
movement in this direction, particularly after the murder of Philando Castile.
It also left out and asked for end to the

(18:05):
statute of limitations for wrongful death cases against officers. Walls
had personally voiced support for a ban on officers with
white supremacist gang affiliations, but this was also left out. Ultimately,
State Rep. John Thompson said to Walls at the time,
you have the power to do something, and all I've
been getting from your office is lip service. And I
mean that we don't need a news conference from you, governor.

(18:27):
We need a leader. So you're not gonna get a
lot of police reform under Tim Walls. That's just a
pretty consistent reality of the guy that said he can
be forced to do some things if you scare him enough.
So you know, keep that in mind. I guess first,
keep in mind these ads, and then we'll talk about
the environment and stuff, which is a happier story for Walls.

(18:57):
We're back. So Walls ran for re election under the
slogan one Minnesota, and he managed another solid victory. Up
to this point, you would say he'd been a pretty
standard dim governor in a swing state. But something happened
in the twenty twenty two midterms that changed the course
of Walls's career in maybe the nation, the Democrats won
a slim majority in the state legislature. As David Schultz,

(19:20):
a political science professor at Hamlin University, told CNN, Walls's
message immediately jerked away from one Minnesota to damn the
torpedoes and fuck the Republicans quote. That agenda included codified
protections for abortion access, restored voting rights for felons who've
completed their sentences, driver's licenses for people regardless of their
legal status, a state child tax credit, free public college

(19:42):
for families making less than eighty thousand annually, protections for
gender affirming care, a paid family and medical leave program.
Walls signed legislation to move the state towards achieving one
hundred percent clean energy by twenty forty and to establish
a universal free school meal program that provides breakfast and lunch.
And that is a real solid spate of shit for
a governor to get done. And all of this is

(20:03):
about in a year, right, Like most of the shit
that Walls has gotten done as governor has been very
recently because the Dims had just taken back control, right,
and it's very narrow control. Amy Koch, a Republican and
former Minnesota Senate majority leader, said Walls definitely had not
governed like a moderate, and, unlike other governors with trifecta control,
had not emphasized in making deals with Republicans. Everything that

(20:27):
went forward was signed. She said, I'm not sure what
that says about him, but it definitely puts a dent
in his argument that he's just this moderate Democrat from
the Midwest. And this is why progressives, many of them,
are excited about Walls, is that when he actually had
the opportunity, he was willing to say, fuck the Republicans,
let's get some shit done. I don't care that we
only have one vote right now. Walls has stated that,

(20:49):
in his opinion, political capital exists to be spent improving
people's lives, and this is an area where you can
say that he's put his money where his mouth is, right.
This is how he actually governed now, it's worth noting. Obviously,
he also promised to burn political capital on major police reform,
and he gave that up. So you know, the fact
that he says he's going to do something like any politician,
not a guarantee it's going to happen.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Well, and some of one of the more kind of
upsetting things but not surprising things is now that Kamala
has basically secured the nomination, she has ruled back many
of the progressive policies that she ran on in twenty
twenty when those seemed to be more popular. Right, you know,
that's not necessarily Walls, that is that that's Kambala. But
but they're running on the same ticket. And again, like,
it's not surprising that she's not advocating for medica for
all now that she is the actual nominee, right, but

(21:33):
it still is, you know, disappointing for people who are like, hey,
her actual policies four years ago were actually relatively progressive,
and now they are slightly more kind of in line
with like the mainstream Democratic Party views on you know,
most of these issues.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Right. And again one of the reasons, maybe for a
little bit of hope, is that Walls has not really
been that guy during his time with the executive power, right,
and kind of the area where he's been best maybe
actually is climate change. Right, This is the thing Dim
seemed to like to compromise on the most. And Tim's
history here is interesting to me, particularly because he's got.
He doesn't have a perfect record, but it's genuinely pretty positive.

(22:09):
His major achievement was a policy passed in twenty twenty
three that required Minnesota to have a carbon free electric
grid by twenty forty. Now this is the kind of
legislation that could just be virtue signaling, but Walls didn't
just say yep, we'll get it done by twenty forty
when I won't be the fucking governor anymore. He backed
it up by approving a historic amount of state spending
on energy. The legislation included rebates on climate friendly technology

(22:32):
like air source heat pumps and electric vehicles, as well
as spending to improve home insulation and one hundred million
dollars for city extreme weather preparedness. Walls also signed a
bill to cut red tape for wind in solar farms
and transmission lines, and the speed up permitting for infrastructure
needed to replace colon gas plants. So it was not
just a yeah, we'll definitely do this. It was a well,

(22:52):
there's certain things that need to happen for this to
be possible, and I am going to work to make
it easier to do those things. I'm going to make
sure that we're passing legislation that makes it easier to
do those things, and that that shows me someone who
sees this as important as not just a thing that's
virtue signaling, but as we need to figure out what
the actual concrete steps are to make this doable, and

(23:13):
that's something that gives me a little bit of hope.
The more questionable side of his environmental history is the
Inbridge Line three pipeline, which he and state regulators approved
in twenty twenty. This angered a lot of local environmental
groups and several indigenous tribes in the area. The pipeline
was argued to be necessary because the old one was
corroding and a spill risk, and of course, when the
new pipeline was constructed, workers punctured multiple aquifers. This seems

(23:38):
to have been a case of Walls being the politician
that he is. Trade unions supported the project because jobs,
and it's also worth noting this is twenty twenty, so
the dims do not have a majority in the legislature,
and there's just a lot less of a stick available
to Walls at this point. So you know, maybe he
would have ruled differently, or maybe he would have acted differently,
you know, have been in a more friendly situation.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah. I reported on this back in twenty twenty one. Yeah,
we did a two part series on Stop Line three
where I traveled to the pipeline. Yeah, like it's not surprising,
especially with pressure from trade unions to approve this pipeline.
From what I've seen, he did not have much to
do with the police crackdown on protesters. I've seen that alleged,

(24:21):
and I'm not finding much to back that up. There's
a lot of like county sheriffs and other task forces
working directly with the pipeline company, Like you know, Walls
never used National Guard against these people. I don't see
much from him being personally involved in suppressing these protests
beyond the fact that he's the governor, Like he's the
top guy in charge. He could shut that all down

(24:41):
if but he also doesn't need to be like actively
involved for that to happen, right. Police will do it themselves, right,
And that seems to be mostly what took place.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, that seems fair to say.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
And most of the extreme charges that Stop Line three
protesters were getting, like a felony theft for locking down
onto construction equipment mostly have since all been dismissed in
the courts or at least taken down to a lower
and more appropriate charge.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah. So again, like with everything about this guy, he's
not perfect. He's not without some fucked up things in
his background. He's a politician, but on ballots a better
history on environmental stuff than most governors in the country.
I should also note here under Walls, Minnesota passed the
nation's most comprehensive ban on PFAS chemicals, a category of

(25:27):
industrial compounds that do not break down and run off
and have been associated with a bunch of cancers and
other health risks. It is a ban that rolls out
over an eight year timeframe, so you know, maybe it's
not like who knows how well it will actually get executed,
but literally no other state has passed a ban this strong.
So I'm putting it in the ups for Walls category. Now,

(25:48):
that is kind of what I had to say. I
didn't want to end talking a little bit more about Palestine,
because again, Walls has a very mixed record here at best.
While he was in the House, he received APAX in
endorsement and spoke at the group's twenty ten conference, where
he said this Israel is our truest and closest ally
in the region, with a commitment to values of personal
freedoms and liberties, surrounded by a pretty tough neighborhood. You know,

(26:12):
I might quibble with me most of that. Well, except
for with our closest ally in the region. That's kind
of hard to argue with. After October seventh, he ordered
state flags flown at half staff and condemned the Hamas attacks.
In early March, he began endorsing calls for a permanent
working ceasefire, a few days after Harris called for a
six week ceasefire. He's made statements about how the uncommitted

(26:36):
protesters should be listened to, same thing about college protesters.
But he's not backing an embargo, right, He's not you know,
pushing any kind of like stick to actually force Netnahu's
hand in any way. You would not say he's the
worst democrat on Gaza, but he's not, you know, particularly
good either.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
He didn't lie about volunteering with the IDEA.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
He did not lie about volunteering with the IDF as
a teenager. That's that's one thing we can say.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
But unfortunately the bar is quite low these days.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, so you know that's Tim Walls, a political biography.
I hope you now can walk away being like, Okay,
that's that's more or less who Tim Walls is.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
I do. I do feel it's important to end with
one more kind of anecdote about Tim Walls that I
learned this morning, Okay, is that on I believe his
first date with his with his soon to be wife,
when he was teaching geography, he took her to see
the movie Falling Down, the nineteen ninety three Michael Douglas masterpiece,

(27:37):
incredibly based, which I feel like every single politician should
be forced to watch.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
I would make it a mandatory part of graduation. You know,
that was that was an important movie for me.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
It is a pretty funny first date movie. It's not
the worst, you know, It's not like it's not like
American Psychoach, which is also a great movie, but you
know it is. It is a curee his first pick.
But I think it is important that whoever is sitting
in the White House is familiar with Falling Down. Yeahs,
as it kind of displays American male violence.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
It predicted a kind of guy who was just starting
to like yeah, creep, up into public consciousness when the
movie came out, and who now commits a mass shooting
every four weeks.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, yeah, so I think that is a very funny anecdote.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Watch Falling Down, folks. It's a great date movie, you know,
maybe double Parrot with Event Horizon and really really gets
an act in Christ. All right, Garrey, that's the end
of the episode. How are you feeling pretty good?

Speaker 3 (28:36):
Pretty good? Honestly, well, you know, not great. You know,
actually the whole situation politically in the country is kind
of a nightmare.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
It's fine, it's fine.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
Somehow, I feel slightly better than I did two months ago.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
I'm gonna tell you, this is the best it's been
in a while, and maybe maybe the best in all
ever be again.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Which also just points to how low the bar is
at the moment.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Look, best case scenario, Matt Walsh
is mad. It is a little further than mad. We'll see,
we'll see if we can get like a welfare check
over at his house. Anyway, that's the end of the episode.
Good night and good luck.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Carl Walls.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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