Governor Tim Walz will not run for a 3rd term in Minnesota

NBC's Rory O'Neill reports that the latest scandals in Minnesota are too much for Walz. Amy Klobachar is the heir apparent

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Six forty six in the morning, Mike Elliott Columbus's Morning News.
Over to the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line.
It's where we find NBC News radios. Rory O'Neill, Rory,
good morning, Thanks for jumping on board of this as always.
Governor Tim Wallas Minnesota had a press conference yesterday and
announced that he will not run for re election this year,
and that is, of course due to the ongoing daycare

(00:22):
scandal in that state. What's good the latest there?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, right, and let's not call it a news conference
because he didn't take any questions. You just read a statement.
But really a remarkable turn. You know, he announced in
September that he was gonna run for a third term,
which would have been on precedent there in Minnesota, and
that was just September. Here we are, first week of January.
His campaign is over large part because of that YouTuber

(00:48):
who posted the video report that was retweeted by the
Vice President and Elon Musk, and these accusations that federal
dollars funneling through Minnesota's government were going out to these
non existent daycares, often run by Somali residents there. So
it was the latest in a string of fraud scandals

(01:09):
that also enveloped the welfare system the food banks there
as well, and the accusation that Governor Wallas is turning
a blind eye to all this corruption in order to
curry favor with that influential block of Somali voters in Minnesota.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, of course, the YouTuber Nick Shirley was the guy
that released that with some forty minute odd long video
and it pretty much did walls in Walls of course,
was a heartbeat away from being the Vice President of
the United States. So what's next? I hear in the
name Amy Klobuchar being discussed to maybe run in his place, right,

(01:44):
She is.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
The current one of the current US Senators for Minnesota
and obviously full name recognition there, so that probably puts
her in the lead among the Democrats, also in ability
to raise a lot of money with her Washington connections.
Of course, she was a former presidential candidate as well.
Among the Democrats, though, you've got to Attorney General Keith
Ellison and the Secretary of State Steve Simon also considering

(02:08):
runs for that Democratic nomination, So it's a could get
pretty heated pretty fast.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Any I saw some speculation that basically that Amy Klobashar
and Tim Walls could flip positions, that Amy could be
the governor of Minnesota and Tim Walls could run for
her Senate spot.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, the well not even run for it. The idea
being that if Klobashar wins as governors open Senate seech,
as governor shares the authority to appoint senator to fill
out the remainder of her term, and that she could
appoint Tim Walls to that job. That would be really
interesting speculation speculators of

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Course, of course, which is what we like to do
sometimes