September 18, 2024 • 21 mins
Newt talks with former Minnesota Congressman Vin Weber. They discuss his political journey and his views on the current political landscape in Minnesota. Weber, a founder of the Conservative Opportunity Society, shares his insights on the rise of Governor Tim Walz, the current governor of Minnesota and the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. Weber criticizes Walz's fiscal policies, claiming they have led to a significant increase in taxes and a decrease in private sector job creation. He also discusses Walz's controversial stance on issues such as immigration and transgender rights. Weber expresses concern about the direction of Minnesota politics, citing a shift towards progressive values and a disregard for parental rights. Despite his criticisms, Weber maintains his love for Minnesota and encourages listeners to visit the state.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
On this episode of Newts World, I am talking with
a friend of forty four years, former Minnesota Congressman Vin Weber,
who was one of the founders of the Conservative Opportunity Society,
and while I was with him in Congress, who was
clearly one of the wisest and smartest members of the House,
and somebody who I have enormous respect and affection for.
(00:26):
He's from Minnesota, grew up in Minnesota politics, knows an
immense amount about it, and has been a real student
of the Minnesota system. And I thought, with Governor Tim Waltz,
the current governor of Minnesota, as the Democratic vice presidential nominee,
that Vin could help us understand the context of Minnesota
(00:46):
politics and the rise of Waltz, And now we should
be thinking about it. You've done a lot of things,
I think, at the Humphrey School and elsewhere in Minnesota.
(01:07):
Could you take just a minut or two and talk
about the mechanism or the pattern that has this continual
shift to the left, which he's also seen in Seattle,
in Portland, et cetera. But when you look at Minneapolis
and Saint Paul, why have they been steadily moving further
and further.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Left well I trace it back to the late Paul Wellstone.
He was a good friend of mine, even though we
agreed on nothing. He died the plane crash, and his family,
instead of deciding to ask for a statue or a
building or something to be named after him, formed something
called Wellstone Action, which had the explicit goal of training
(01:44):
progressive activists across the state of Minnesota. And they have
done so very very successfully. And the progressive movement, if
you want to call it that, particularly in the Twin Cities,
is very strong, very well organized, very well trained, and
uncompromising because they had stronger words and mindless to say uncompromising.
(02:07):
You know. I was at the Humphrey School on the
stage the morning after ehan Omar was elected the first time,
and she had been in our program at the Humphrey School,
the one that Mondale started and I took over later,
and so we interviewed her and a couple other people,
and she talked about the progressive movement and I have
to say, and I said to her at the time,
(02:29):
the progressive movement in Minnesota is the only well organized,
comprehensive political movement in the state. It doesn't mean I
agree with them on anything, But the people that I
agree with are kind of not well organized, not well motivated,
and not well trained. And I shouldn't say well motivated.
They are well motivated, but they're not well trained, and
(02:50):
the progressives are. I think that conservatives like us have
to recognize that that's a reality. And I hear you
say other people in twin cities are crazy. You know,
if that's our attitude, we're going to lose. We have
to recognize they are well organized, well trained, and highly
motivated and uncompromising. And it shows in every election. Every
(03:12):
election is a referendum for them on whether or not
they can move a given city or state to the left,
and they very often or usually succeed.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
To what extent was the rise of this kind of
militant progressism, to what incent did that feed into the
scale of the riots in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I think it fed into it considerably. You can still
get arguments about that, but I noticed a lot of
the police that tried to cope with it without any
help from at least initially, without any help from the
mayor of the city or the governor. For about four
or five days, they all believed that there was considerable orchestration.
(03:55):
I don't even want to say outside activists, because they
may well have been local residents, but considerable orchestration of
the events that took place on those few days. And
by the way, none of this is to excuse the
conduct of the cop Chauvin. We all saw the pictures
of what he did to George Floyd, and I don't
excuse his behavior at all. But the fact that we
(04:17):
had four or five days of continual rioting in Minneapolis
resulting in what is the second largest economic toll attributable
to social unrest in American history, after the Los Angeles
riots of nineteen ninety two, five hundred million dollars in
(04:37):
property damage. Then this is not just some little small
thing that we could sweep away. It is massively damaging.
And you can still drive down the neighborhoods in South
Minneapolis and see the damage not been repaired yet. I
believe it was considerably attributable to orchestrated activity and to
the intimidation of the political leaders, notably the at first
(05:00):
and then Governor Walls for sure, for four days in
doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Why was Walts so slow in being willing to use
the National Guard even though the city was literally burning.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I don't know that we'll ever know the answer to
that question. I think that he has an aversion to
police authority and the sympathy for protesters, and that's how
his governorship was being defined. He just failed to act.
Failing to act for twenty four hours is maybe understandable,
not desirable, but understandable. But for four days, you don't
(05:36):
even have to go to see it. You can watch
it on the news. It was constant, and there's no
excuse for not calling out the Guard to stop that
horrendous destruction, which has left Minneapolis in a much poorer place.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Ever since, what's your sense of the whole argument about
Waltz as a National guardsman and the fact that apparently
he exaggerated his final rank. He exaggerated whether or not
even in combat, and he managed to retire and away,
which some members of his unit thought was a deliberate
(06:08):
effort to avoid being mobilized. Having watched it from a Minneapolis,
Minnesota perspective, what is your take on that whole National
Guard story.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I have to tell you, since I didn't serve in
the military myself, I'm just a little reluctant to criticize
too much on that, but I listened to the people
that served with him, and they're pretty much uniformly appalled
by his behavior. The one that I don't want to
get into this too much, but the one that I
(06:37):
really struck me was the chaplain of the Minnesota National
Guard at that time, who is now a pastor in
North Dakota, issued a statement calling him a coward, A
pretty strong statement coming from a man of the cloth.
This wasn't his commanding officer or anything like that. This
was the chaplain who gave spiritual advice and council to
(07:01):
the members of Minnesota National Guard.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Walt says, this strange, not strange. He's had a continuing
relationship with China, where he apparently has traveled like thirty times.
He's taken high school students on visits. Apparently some of
them partially funded by the Chinese government. Does that matter
or is it just design that he happened to get
into a good pattern. And China's an amazing country, so
(07:25):
you can understand why somebody would be interested in going there.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
See, I don't know anything the farious about it. It
would bother me a little bit. I do observe though,
that the attitudes toward China in this country, as you
know NWT, have changed rather considerably over the last twenty
plus years. I remember one example, and it's not to
be critical of him, but when Mitt Romney ran for
president the first time, his stock speech included the line,
(07:52):
some people look at China and see a billion and
a half competitors. I look at China and see a
billion and a half customers are very optimistic of the
United States relations with China. Four years later, the same
Mett Romney ran again and called for China to be
labeled the currency manipulator. And I don't see that as
so much a sign of a flip flop on Romney's
part as it does a recognition of the fact that
(08:14):
American attitudes start China changed very dramatically. So Walls may
well have simply been interested in China at the time
when the United States was hopeful about China. It's obviously,
as the oldest civilization on the planet, probably a very
interesting place to go. But the question is has he
caught up with the change, Because the change in American
(08:34):
attitudes starts China, I think you'd agree with me, is
not fleeting. It's rooted in reality, the reality of a
military threat, the reality of a political threat, the reality
of the fact that the Chinese want to dominate in
a way that would put us at an extreme disadvantage.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
I have to confess I was pretty embarrassed to realize
I had completely misunderstood what Dung Chopeng was doing. And
I was part of the sense that maybe China was
going to open up, and that when he called for
a more market oriented economy, maybe that was the beginning
of the opening up. And only when you dug into
(09:10):
it for a while did you realize that Dunk Chopeng
was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, has
spent a year at Lenin University in Moscow in the
late twenties, and what he actually said was we have
to open up the market economy so people feel good
enough that they'll preserve the dictatorship. Yeah, it was exactly
(09:30):
the opposite of how virtually everybody in the West had
interpreted it.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Now, you're totally right. I had a similar eye opening experience.
I was a part of a project many years ago.
It was shared by Madeline Albrighton was bipartisan. I think
four Republicans and four Democrats, and we did exchange this
for two years with Chinese and met with leaves of
the Chinese Communist Party and they come over here and
met with us. And it was just before Jijingping came
(09:56):
to power. In fact, we met with him just a
matter of weeks before send it to power. But I
said the last session that we had to Secretary al Rise,
if this whole two year experience was designed to make
me feel better about our relationship with China, it failed.
Everybody you talked, you talked about dominance, dominating us, the
fact that the last two hundred years of history have
(10:17):
been simply a blip, and the Norman history is for
the Chinese to dominate, and they really believe that. And
we met with a bunch of young kids once and
I just asked, like probably the equivalent of fifty to
sixth graders. I said to the group, who here wants
to visit the United States? Well, every hand went up
and I said, tell me why. And young man said, well,
(10:39):
if we're going to dominate the world, we need to
know it. And I thought, okay, that tells me a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
It was a preparatory program so they could dominate us.
I don't have any idea where Waltz is and all
of that. And of course their current strategy, which is rational,
is to hide and hope that nobody ever gets around
asking him any serious questions. But you know it is
interesting waltson a white Dude's for Kamala Harris call on
(11:05):
August fifth. Yet you can't make this stuff up, said quote,
don't ever shy away from our progressive values. One person's
socialism is another person's neighborliness. I can sort of imagine
Bernie Sanders saying it, but I get a sense that
Waltz is probably to the left of Sanders.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I think that's right. And if you want to put
it in historical context, you have to remember one hundred
years ago, Minnesota had a very overtly socialist party, the
Farm Labor Party. We were a three party system at
that time, Republicans, Democrats, and Farm Labor Rights and the
Democrats were the third party. The Farm Labor Rights elected
governors and the United States senators and congressmen, and they
(11:48):
were quite overtly socialistic. There is that tradition in this
state going back a long time. Now. I can't link
that all to Tim Wallash. I saw the same quote
when you said anybody that he quates socialism with neighborliness
is a threat in my mind.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Humphrey, as you'll remember, actually ran for mayor to defeat
a communist in nineteen forty eight, and Ronald Reagan actually
made a commercial supporting Humphrey in nineteen forty eight. But
the fight was literally between the very hard left and
traditional Democrats.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Just as an aside new Humphrey
and Reagan, I believe were born the same year and
they had the same hundredth birthday, and on their hundredth birthday,
the Humphrey School put together a little program where they
wanted to pay tribute to Reagan and Humphrey and their friendship.
And I did a lot of research, including with our
mutual friend Jean Kirkpatrick, who had worked for both both
(13:00):
of them, and I found out that throughout his governorship,
Reagan had an open standing invitation to Hubert Humphrey to
stay at the Governor's residence and Sacramento anytime he was
in California. They may have parted ways in terms of party,
but they were united and the thing that mattered most
of them, which was keeping the communists out.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
In that sense, Waltz really represents the to the left
of Humphrey wing of the progressive movement in Minnesota, and
people it's easy to forget how deep that tradition was.
Waltz signed a bill that expanded access to drivers' licenses
without regard to immigration status, which means that if you're
here illegally, you can get a driver's license in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Also free health care and college tuition. If the government's
going to say to you, even though you're illegal, you
get free health care and college tuition. I guess you
should be able to drive well.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And if you think about it, how many of those
folks are going to write or call home and say,
you know, if you can get here, here are all
the goodies you're going to get. Yeah, it's like setting
up a big billboard that says, you know, please come
to Minnesota. We'd like to give you money.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, that's exactly right, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Does any of that affect his popularity?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Oh? Yeah, his popularity has dropped considerably. He did win reelection.
Part of the problem that we have in Minnesota's the
Republican Party is a bankrupt shell and the Democratic Party
I have to say, led by a guy named Ken
Martin that I know pretty well, is one of the
most robust political organizations in the country. We nominated not
(14:35):
a bad guy for governor, but a flawed candidate who
did not handle a whole bunch of things well. And
Walls won, but he won by a reduced margin, and
he lost most of rural Minnesota, which is where his
roots originally were.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
My sense is the Waltz is very strong in the
Twin Cities and then rapidly loses ground the further you
get from the two cities.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I think that that's exactly right. I'm right now in
our home in northern Minnesota, and it's hard to find
a Walls supporter in northern Minnesota. I don't say there
are none, but it's hard. Part of it has to
do with his handling of the COVID issue in Minnesota
was an extreme lockdown state in these small towns throughout
(15:17):
rural Minnesota. That was the death knell for all sorts
of small businesses. I know business people that went out
of business in the town that I'm near because of that,
and there's a depresentment of the wake that he handled it.
People went to jail for violating the lockdown of governor
walls order. They didn't just get to find they went
to jail. So there's a depresentment of that, particularly throughout
(15:41):
rural Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I'm hoping that JD Events will ask him this if
they debate. He had this rule that said churches could
not meet, but the Mall of America could be open
for retail therapy. If you think about that for a
little while, makes no sense. Well it does of your
total secular left winger. I mean, you hate churches anyway
(16:05):
and you love shopping. I think he also established a
hotline where you could call and report if your neighbors
were gathering illegally during COVID.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It was encouraging people to report any activity that they
found suspicious, not just related to COVID, but related to diversity, equity,
and inclusion. Anybody that questions the social movement, And some
of it's been backed off, but it was a frightening,
chilling thing, you know, an example of the an unrestricted
(16:37):
reach of government.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Sounded a lot like the Stasse in East Germany or
the social Coercion program in China. I mean, it may
have been the most aggressively repressive system in the country
during COVID.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Waltz signed HF one forty six into law in April
twenty twenty three, which says that the state of Minnesota
will not enforce existing laws from other states that quote
authorized a state agency to remove a child from the
child's parents or guardians because the parent or guardian allowed
the child to receive gender affirming healthcare. Now I don't
(17:32):
fully understand that, but Waltz described it basically as creating
a sanctuary for people who want transgender medical help for children. Yeah,
that's exactly what the policy is. It's a very adverse
to parental rights. It's arguing that the state has the
ultimate responsibility for your children, not the parents, because you
(17:53):
can't trust the parents, particularly on these transgender treatment issues,
which I believe is a raging controversy is going to
be come more raging as time goes on. It has
really surprised me that it has not blown up more
on the Democrats because they are almost universally committed to
imposing the power of government on behalf of transgender behavior.
(18:15):
How do you think Waltz will wear with the American
people over the next fifty or sixty days.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well, first of all, it's to state the obvious. He's
not without political skills, and that will get him a
long way. But they're going to find out the things
that we've been talking about here, and I think that's
true of the whole Harris Walls ticket. If anybody can
get to the left of Harris, it's Tim Walls. And
when people realize that, I think they're going to understand
(18:45):
that the change that they want is going to be
a sharp left turn if they vote for Harris Harrison Walls.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect Tim Walls. He
has more experience legislatively with a broader range of issues
than she does. And that's not to put her down,
but she was an attorney general. Well has been a
(19:06):
congressman for twelve years, governor of a state for six years.
He will drive the agenda domestically more than any previous
vice president in recent memory.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I believe, and he'll drive it all to the left.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
All to the left. That's his entire experience. There's no
exception to that.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I mean, it's really kind of remarkable. I think when
you and I first met, we could never have imagined
how either the country or your state would have evolved.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I think that's right, but we have to keep hope.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah. Well, I think in some ways we're winning and
other ways it's just a mess. But then to thank
you for joining me, I am very grateful that you
would spend time as a Minnesotan talking about your governor.
It is always a joy to be with you.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Thank you for inviting me to it. I have to
make one little thing at the end, back have you.
All of this does not mean I don't love Minnesota.
Anybody listening, come to Minnesota. Visit Minnesota. Minnesota is a
great place.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Thank you to my guest, Congressman Vin Weber. You can
learn more about Governor Tim Wats on our show page
at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by Ginglish three
sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our
researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was
created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at
(20:32):
Gingridge three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope
you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with
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learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld
can sign up for my three free weekly columns at
gingwichtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This
(20:54):
is Newsworld
On this episode of Newts World, I am talking with
a friend of forty four years, former Minnesota Congressman Vin Weber,
who was one of the founders of the Conservative Opportunity Society,
and while I was with him in Congress, who was
clearly one of the wisest and smartest members of the House,
and somebody who I have enormous respect and affection for.
(00:26):
He's from Minnesota, grew up in Minnesota politics, knows an
immense amount about it, and has been a real student
of the Minnesota system. And I thought, with Governor Tim Waltz,
the current governor of Minnesota, as the Democratic vice presidential nominee,
that Vin could help us understand the context of Minnesota
(00:46):
politics and the rise of Waltz, And now we should
be thinking about it. You've done a lot of things,
I think, at the Humphrey School and elsewhere in Minnesota.
(01:07):
Could you take just a minut or two and talk
about the mechanism or the pattern that has this continual
shift to the left, which he's also seen in Seattle,
in Portland, et cetera. But when you look at Minneapolis
and Saint Paul, why have they been steadily moving further
and further.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Left well I trace it back to the late Paul Wellstone.
He was a good friend of mine, even though we
agreed on nothing. He died the plane crash, and his family,
instead of deciding to ask for a statue or a
building or something to be named after him, formed something
called Wellstone Action, which had the explicit goal of training
(01:44):
progressive activists across the state of Minnesota. And they have
done so very very successfully. And the progressive movement, if
you want to call it that, particularly in the Twin Cities,
is very strong, very well organized, very well trained, and
uncompromising because they had stronger words and mindless to say uncompromising.
(02:07):
You know. I was at the Humphrey School on the
stage the morning after ehan Omar was elected the first time,
and she had been in our program at the Humphrey School,
the one that Mondale started and I took over later,
and so we interviewed her and a couple other people,
and she talked about the progressive movement and I have
to say, and I said to her at the time,
(02:29):
the progressive movement in Minnesota is the only well organized,
comprehensive political movement in the state. It doesn't mean I
agree with them on anything, But the people that I
agree with are kind of not well organized, not well motivated,
and not well trained. And I shouldn't say well motivated.
They are well motivated, but they're not well trained, and
(02:50):
the progressives are. I think that conservatives like us have
to recognize that that's a reality. And I hear you
say other people in twin cities are crazy. You know,
if that's our attitude, we're going to lose. We have
to recognize they are well organized, well trained, and highly
motivated and uncompromising. And it shows in every election. Every
(03:12):
election is a referendum for them on whether or not
they can move a given city or state to the left,
and they very often or usually succeed.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
To what extent was the rise of this kind of
militant progressism, to what incent did that feed into the
scale of the riots in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I think it fed into it considerably. You can still
get arguments about that, but I noticed a lot of
the police that tried to cope with it without any
help from at least initially, without any help from the
mayor of the city or the governor. For about four
or five days, they all believed that there was considerable orchestration.
(03:55):
I don't even want to say outside activists, because they
may well have been local residents, but considerable orchestration of
the events that took place on those few days. And
by the way, none of this is to excuse the
conduct of the cop Chauvin. We all saw the pictures
of what he did to George Floyd, and I don't
excuse his behavior at all. But the fact that we
(04:17):
had four or five days of continual rioting in Minneapolis
resulting in what is the second largest economic toll attributable
to social unrest in American history, after the Los Angeles
riots of nineteen ninety two, five hundred million dollars in
(04:37):
property damage. Then this is not just some little small
thing that we could sweep away. It is massively damaging.
And you can still drive down the neighborhoods in South
Minneapolis and see the damage not been repaired yet. I
believe it was considerably attributable to orchestrated activity and to
the intimidation of the political leaders, notably the at first
(05:00):
and then Governor Walls for sure, for four days in
doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Why was Walts so slow in being willing to use
the National Guard even though the city was literally burning.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I don't know that we'll ever know the answer to
that question. I think that he has an aversion to
police authority and the sympathy for protesters, and that's how
his governorship was being defined. He just failed to act.
Failing to act for twenty four hours is maybe understandable,
not desirable, but understandable. But for four days, you don't
(05:36):
even have to go to see it. You can watch
it on the news. It was constant, and there's no
excuse for not calling out the Guard to stop that
horrendous destruction, which has left Minneapolis in a much poorer place.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Ever since, what's your sense of the whole argument about
Waltz as a National guardsman and the fact that apparently
he exaggerated his final rank. He exaggerated whether or not
even in combat, and he managed to retire and away,
which some members of his unit thought was a deliberate
(06:08):
effort to avoid being mobilized. Having watched it from a Minneapolis,
Minnesota perspective, what is your take on that whole National
Guard story.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I have to tell you, since I didn't serve in
the military myself, I'm just a little reluctant to criticize
too much on that, but I listened to the people
that served with him, and they're pretty much uniformly appalled
by his behavior. The one that I don't want to
get into this too much, but the one that I
(06:37):
really struck me was the chaplain of the Minnesota National
Guard at that time, who is now a pastor in
North Dakota, issued a statement calling him a coward, A
pretty strong statement coming from a man of the cloth.
This wasn't his commanding officer or anything like that. This
was the chaplain who gave spiritual advice and council to
(07:01):
the members of Minnesota National Guard.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Walt says, this strange, not strange. He's had a continuing
relationship with China, where he apparently has traveled like thirty times.
He's taken high school students on visits. Apparently some of
them partially funded by the Chinese government. Does that matter
or is it just design that he happened to get
into a good pattern. And China's an amazing country, so
(07:25):
you can understand why somebody would be interested in going there.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
See, I don't know anything the farious about it. It
would bother me a little bit. I do observe though,
that the attitudes toward China in this country, as you
know NWT, have changed rather considerably over the last twenty
plus years. I remember one example, and it's not to
be critical of him, but when Mitt Romney ran for
president the first time, his stock speech included the line,
(07:52):
some people look at China and see a billion and
a half competitors. I look at China and see a
billion and a half customers are very optimistic of the
United States relations with China. Four years later, the same
Mett Romney ran again and called for China to be
labeled the currency manipulator. And I don't see that as
so much a sign of a flip flop on Romney's
part as it does a recognition of the fact that
(08:14):
American attitudes start China changed very dramatically. So Walls may
well have simply been interested in China at the time
when the United States was hopeful about China. It's obviously,
as the oldest civilization on the planet, probably a very
interesting place to go. But the question is has he
caught up with the change, Because the change in American
(08:34):
attitudes starts China, I think you'd agree with me, is
not fleeting. It's rooted in reality, the reality of a
military threat, the reality of a political threat, the reality
of the fact that the Chinese want to dominate in
a way that would put us at an extreme disadvantage.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
I have to confess I was pretty embarrassed to realize
I had completely misunderstood what Dung Chopeng was doing. And
I was part of the sense that maybe China was
going to open up, and that when he called for
a more market oriented economy, maybe that was the beginning
of the opening up. And only when you dug into
(09:10):
it for a while did you realize that Dunk Chopeng
was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, has
spent a year at Lenin University in Moscow in the
late twenties, and what he actually said was we have
to open up the market economy so people feel good
enough that they'll preserve the dictatorship. Yeah, it was exactly
(09:30):
the opposite of how virtually everybody in the West had
interpreted it.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Now, you're totally right. I had a similar eye opening experience.
I was a part of a project many years ago.
It was shared by Madeline Albrighton was bipartisan. I think
four Republicans and four Democrats, and we did exchange this
for two years with Chinese and met with leaves of
the Chinese Communist Party and they come over here and
met with us. And it was just before Jijingping came
(09:56):
to power. In fact, we met with him just a
matter of weeks before send it to power. But I
said the last session that we had to Secretary al Rise,
if this whole two year experience was designed to make
me feel better about our relationship with China, it failed.
Everybody you talked, you talked about dominance, dominating us, the
fact that the last two hundred years of history have
(10:17):
been simply a blip, and the Norman history is for
the Chinese to dominate, and they really believe that. And
we met with a bunch of young kids once and
I just asked, like probably the equivalent of fifty to
sixth graders. I said to the group, who here wants
to visit the United States? Well, every hand went up
and I said, tell me why. And young man said, well,
(10:39):
if we're going to dominate the world, we need to
know it. And I thought, okay, that tells me a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
It was a preparatory program so they could dominate us.
I don't have any idea where Waltz is and all
of that. And of course their current strategy, which is rational,
is to hide and hope that nobody ever gets around
asking him any serious questions. But you know it is
interesting waltson a white Dude's for Kamala Harris call on
(11:05):
August fifth. Yet you can't make this stuff up, said quote,
don't ever shy away from our progressive values. One person's
socialism is another person's neighborliness. I can sort of imagine
Bernie Sanders saying it, but I get a sense that
Waltz is probably to the left of Sanders.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I think that's right. And if you want to put
it in historical context, you have to remember one hundred
years ago, Minnesota had a very overtly socialist party, the
Farm Labor Party. We were a three party system at
that time, Republicans, Democrats, and Farm Labor Rights and the
Democrats were the third party. The Farm Labor Rights elected
governors and the United States senators and congressmen, and they
(11:48):
were quite overtly socialistic. There is that tradition in this
state going back a long time. Now. I can't link
that all to Tim Wallash. I saw the same quote
when you said anybody that he quates socialism with neighborliness
is a threat in my mind.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Humphrey, as you'll remember, actually ran for mayor to defeat
a communist in nineteen forty eight, and Ronald Reagan actually
made a commercial supporting Humphrey in nineteen forty eight. But
the fight was literally between the very hard left and
traditional Democrats.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Just as an aside new Humphrey
and Reagan, I believe were born the same year and
they had the same hundredth birthday, and on their hundredth birthday,
the Humphrey School put together a little program where they
wanted to pay tribute to Reagan and Humphrey and their friendship.
And I did a lot of research, including with our
mutual friend Jean Kirkpatrick, who had worked for both both
(13:00):
of them, and I found out that throughout his governorship,
Reagan had an open standing invitation to Hubert Humphrey to
stay at the Governor's residence and Sacramento anytime he was
in California. They may have parted ways in terms of party,
but they were united and the thing that mattered most
of them, which was keeping the communists out.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
In that sense, Waltz really represents the to the left
of Humphrey wing of the progressive movement in Minnesota, and
people it's easy to forget how deep that tradition was.
Waltz signed a bill that expanded access to drivers' licenses
without regard to immigration status, which means that if you're
here illegally, you can get a driver's license in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Also free health care and college tuition. If the government's
going to say to you, even though you're illegal, you
get free health care and college tuition. I guess you
should be able to drive well.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And if you think about it, how many of those
folks are going to write or call home and say,
you know, if you can get here, here are all
the goodies you're going to get. Yeah, it's like setting
up a big billboard that says, you know, please come
to Minnesota. We'd like to give you money.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, that's exactly right, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Does any of that affect his popularity?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Oh? Yeah, his popularity has dropped considerably. He did win reelection.
Part of the problem that we have in Minnesota's the
Republican Party is a bankrupt shell and the Democratic Party
I have to say, led by a guy named Ken
Martin that I know pretty well, is one of the
most robust political organizations in the country. We nominated not
(14:35):
a bad guy for governor, but a flawed candidate who
did not handle a whole bunch of things well. And
Walls won, but he won by a reduced margin, and
he lost most of rural Minnesota, which is where his
roots originally were.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
My sense is the Waltz is very strong in the
Twin Cities and then rapidly loses ground the further you
get from the two cities.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I think that that's exactly right. I'm right now in
our home in northern Minnesota, and it's hard to find
a Walls supporter in northern Minnesota. I don't say there
are none, but it's hard. Part of it has to
do with his handling of the COVID issue in Minnesota
was an extreme lockdown state in these small towns throughout
(15:17):
rural Minnesota. That was the death knell for all sorts
of small businesses. I know business people that went out
of business in the town that I'm near because of that,
and there's a depresentment of the wake that he handled it.
People went to jail for violating the lockdown of governor
walls order. They didn't just get to find they went
to jail. So there's a depresentment of that, particularly throughout
(15:41):
rural Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I'm hoping that JD Events will ask him this if
they debate. He had this rule that said churches could
not meet, but the Mall of America could be open
for retail therapy. If you think about that for a
little while, makes no sense. Well it does of your
total secular left winger. I mean, you hate churches anyway
(16:05):
and you love shopping. I think he also established a
hotline where you could call and report if your neighbors
were gathering illegally during COVID.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It was encouraging people to report any activity that they
found suspicious, not just related to COVID, but related to diversity, equity,
and inclusion. Anybody that questions the social movement, And some
of it's been backed off, but it was a frightening,
chilling thing, you know, an example of the an unrestricted
(16:37):
reach of government.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Sounded a lot like the Stasse in East Germany or
the social Coercion program in China. I mean, it may
have been the most aggressively repressive system in the country
during COVID.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Waltz signed HF one forty six into law in April
twenty twenty three, which says that the state of Minnesota
will not enforce existing laws from other states that quote
authorized a state agency to remove a child from the
child's parents or guardians because the parent or guardian allowed
the child to receive gender affirming healthcare. Now I don't
(17:32):
fully understand that, but Waltz described it basically as creating
a sanctuary for people who want transgender medical help for children. Yeah,
that's exactly what the policy is. It's a very adverse
to parental rights. It's arguing that the state has the
ultimate responsibility for your children, not the parents, because you
(17:53):
can't trust the parents, particularly on these transgender treatment issues,
which I believe is a raging controversy is going to
be come more raging as time goes on. It has
really surprised me that it has not blown up more
on the Democrats because they are almost universally committed to
imposing the power of government on behalf of transgender behavior.
(18:15):
How do you think Waltz will wear with the American
people over the next fifty or sixty days.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well, first of all, it's to state the obvious. He's
not without political skills, and that will get him a
long way. But they're going to find out the things
that we've been talking about here, and I think that's
true of the whole Harris Walls ticket. If anybody can
get to the left of Harris, it's Tim Walls. And
when people realize that, I think they're going to understand
(18:45):
that the change that they want is going to be
a sharp left turn if they vote for Harris Harrison Walls.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect Tim Walls. He
has more experience legislatively with a broader range of issues
than she does. And that's not to put her down,
but she was an attorney general. Well has been a
(19:06):
congressman for twelve years, governor of a state for six years.
He will drive the agenda domestically more than any previous
vice president in recent memory.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I believe, and he'll drive it all to the left.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
All to the left. That's his entire experience. There's no
exception to that.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I mean, it's really kind of remarkable. I think when
you and I first met, we could never have imagined
how either the country or your state would have evolved.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I think that's right, but we have to keep hope.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah. Well, I think in some ways we're winning and
other ways it's just a mess. But then to thank
you for joining me, I am very grateful that you
would spend time as a Minnesotan talking about your governor.
It is always a joy to be with you.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Thank you for inviting me to it. I have to
make one little thing at the end, back have you.
All of this does not mean I don't love Minnesota.
Anybody listening, come to Minnesota. Visit Minnesota. Minnesota is a
great place.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Thank you to my guest, Congressman Vin Weber. You can
learn more about Governor Tim Wats on our show page
at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by Ginglish three
sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our
researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was
created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at
(20:32):
Gingridge three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope
you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with
five stars and give us a review so others can
learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld
can sign up for my three free weekly columns at
gingwichtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This
(20:54):
is Newsworld
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