Gov. Tim Walz!
October 17, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Dearest Pod Squad, we are gathered here today, because we have just had an incredible conversation with the Governor Tim Walz.
Amanda Doyle:
Tim Walz. Tim Walz. Tim Walz.
Abby Wambach:
Coach Walz.
Amanda Doyle:
The dad, coach, teacher that we all deserve.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
And vice president we deserve.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right, and an absolute honor that this close to the election, he chose to be with us, the Pod Squad, to help us get to know him better and to help us know what will actually happen for us and for our families if and when he becomes our vice president. And the conversation was absolutely delightful, I would say.
Amanda Doyle:
Delightful.
Abby Wambach:
I want to be friends with him.
Glennon Doyle:
I know. Me too.
Amanda Doyle:
Me too. His energy.
Abby Wambach:
I love him. Warm. Warm.
Amanda Doyle:
So warm.
Abby Wambach:
Warm, warm.
Amanda Doyle:
So warm and just pulls you. You know what? This might sound hyperbolic, but you want to go closer to it? Seeing a man, an older white man, just be so graceful and clear and warm. It feels a little personally healing. I’m like, “Oh, maybe that’s what our country needs is that healing energy that undoes the gross the stuff.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. There’s something about it that’s not just about an election, it’s about another vision for masculinity and what it does in the world and what it stands for and how it serves instead of rules. It’s just healing stuff. Even if you don’t think politics is interesting, and you’re sick of politics, as Governor Walz reminds us in this interview, well, if you’re not into politics, you might want to consider that politics is into you.
Abby Wambach:
It’s so good. I needed to hear that.
Glennon Doyle:
If you’re like, “No, I just want to hang out with my family and be with my partner and live my life, I don’t want to get into politics,” the reason why we’re getting into the politics is so we can live in our families and with our partners and in our lives. Okay?
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
Same. Same.
Abby Wambach:
It’s sad that that’s so true.
Glennon Doyle:
Before this conversation is over, you are going to know what the Harris-Walz administration will do to protect our queer kids, to protect our children from gun violence in schools, and to preserve and protect a woman’s right to control her own body. And if you don’t know who Tim Walz is, we will tell you.
Amanda Doyle:
Tim Walz grew up on a family farm in small town Nebraska in a town of 400 people. His father was a teacher and a school administrator who served in the army during the Korean War. With his father’s encouragement, two days after his 17th birthday, he enlisted in the Army. He completed basic training before even graduating from high school in a class of 25 people. His father died of lung cancer when he was 19, leaving his mother and younger brother dependent on social security survivor benefits to keep the family going. He went to college on the GI bill and taught high school in Nebraska where he met a certain Gwen Whipple and fell in love.
Their first date was a movie and Hardee’s. They were married 30 years ago and they both taught high school and Governor Walz coached football. He was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2006 in a conservative district that had only elected one Democrat since the 1890s. Governor Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard, becoming the highest ranking retired enlisted soldier to ever serve in Congress.
He was reelected to the seat five more times before being elected the 41st Governor of Minnesota in 2019. The Walz’s underwent fertility treatment at Mayo Clinic for seven years before their children were born. Their daughter, Hope is 23, and their son Gus just turned 18. They have a cat named Honey and a rescue dog named Scout.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s go. Welcome Governor Tim Walz.
Tim Walz:
Hey everybody.
Abby Wambach:
Hello, coach Walz. He’s here.
Tim Walz:
Well, I could not be more excited. Look at the hats. You guys are the best.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re the best. Governor Walz, my wife and my sister and I are deeply wishing and working for you to become our next vice president. And we feel a connection to you beyond that, which is that our parents, Amanda and I’s parents met at Marshall High School 50 years ago, when she was teaching Spanish and he was an English teacher and the defensive coordinator for the high school football team.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Tim Walz:
Some things are meant to be.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Yes.
Tim Walz:
Well, you know that lifestyle. It’s noble work and I have to tell you all, through this whole crazy journey, seeing my former students come back kind of organically, I kind of feel like I’m living Mr. Holland’s Opus. I didn’t deserve this, but it has been fantastic.
Glennon Doyle:
You do deserve this. You do and beyond knowing the first thing that I learned about you, which is that you and your wife met as high school educators. The second thing was this. The morning it was announced that Kamala Harris had chosen you as her running mate, one of our children walked into our bedroom holding a phone and read to us a story about you. My kid who happens to be queer. The story about a student named Jacob Reitan, who came to you when you were Coach Walz at the high school and told you that the queer kids in your school needed a safe place to gather. Can you tell us that story?
Tim Walz:
Yeah, and Jake is still a friend of mine. This was ’90s. I’m coaching football. I was on the first floor. I’m teaching geography, social studies, and my wife is on the second floor teaching English, speech coach. We were pretty heavily engaged in the school. We didn’t have children of our own, so these were all our kids. Jake had, I think as he tells the story, the third person he told was my wife when he came out to her. He mentioned that there just needed to be a place where kids could do this and feel safe. If you have a club, you need a faculty advisor. He thought having an older, straight married white guy, coaching football might be a good one. So, he came to me and I was honored to be able to. I said, “Of course I would love to do this.” Gave my room over the noon hours when they were able to meet. But I think what Jake understood was the courage of kids who lived through this and still lived through it depending on geographically where they’re at.
The courage for him to do this was amazing to me. I was so proud of him, and it had an impact on that school and on that community, and we encourage kids to get involved in everything. So we were making sure that there was football players working plays, doing choir, doing all of the things together and feeling safe in that school. I’m just really glad that Jake had the courage to do that and I’m just glad that whatever happened in my background is just letting people be people and celebrating who they are and bringing their authentic selves is something my wife and I have always just believed. Just leave folks alone and protect them, especially when they’re kids. My goodness, it’s hard enough to be in high school for God’s sake.
But to have to not be who you are and that’s the way it should be. So I’m grateful for that. I think in Minnesota that’s carried over. We’re really proud of a state that protects folks for who they are, that we continued that on. Hard for me to believe when I became governor, we still allowed conversion therapy, a Byzantine practice that it’s unbelievable that it would still be being used to ban that in Minnesota and to lift up just who each individual is. So thanks for bringing that up though.
I’m really proud I saw Jake at the football game. I got to go back home to the big Crosstown rivalry on Friday night and all these kids were back. I got to see a lot of them and they took me to my old classroom, and I will not lie to you, I’m like, “Oh, I kind of miss my old life here. This is a little nostalgic.” It’s Friday night, there’s a crisp air, the leaves are falling. I’m like, “Man, this is when life is really at its best.”
I encouraged those kids, I got to talk to them before the game. I’m like, “Boy, live in the moment. Live in the moment.” We spend most of our lives preparing for the future and we waste the moment. So, that was really fun. I’m kind of on that journey right now. It’s 20 days, not that I’m counting, but thinking about this thing. So I’m trying to live in the moment.
Glennon Doyle:
And you’re meeting the moment in a huge way. It’s wild. You’re exactly, exactly the one for this moment. You were the one for that moment too. I mean, when I think about, that was 1999, that was 16 years before gay marriage was even legal throughout the country, and you’re in rural Minnesota with that club. That’s a very different world than we’re in right now.
Tim Walz:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Can you give us a story of any moment of pushback that you remember getting from your decision to align yourself with those students and to support them in that way?
Tim Walz:
Yeah, the good thing was I’m sure the students did, because they know how they have to take this on. They have broad shoulders. I did not, but I will tell you this fast-forwarding then to 2006, I never planned on ever running for anything, but I ended up in a position where my neighbors asked and they said, “You should run for Congress,” and it was in that district. I think this is correct, I think there was one other Democrat since 1892 had one in that district.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, that is correct.
Tim Walz:
I was like, clueless. I’m glad no one told me at the time. I’m like, “Damn, that’s hard.”
Glennon Doyle:
Those odds are not great.
Tim Walz:
It seemed like the right thing. But I got asked a question, and I remember that they hit me on this. They said, “Oh, the C-list candidate finally comes true.” I got asked about civil unions. If you remember, we had this whole discussion in the 2004 election about supporting civil unions. I got asked the question, “Do you support civil unions?” I said, “Well, that’s fine if that’s for you, sure go do that.” But I said, “My wife’s sitting here and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Why would I ever deny that to anybody? So, I support marriage.” This was in 2006 election. I said, “For marriage equality, and fast-forward that and choice for women.” We won that election in 2006, and some of my supporters came up to me and said, “Oh, my goodness. You won in spite of taking that position on marriage.” I said, “No, you’re missing the big picture here. I won because of that position.”
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Tim Walz:
That I was convinced more people understood it and more people had the compassion and once they saw people talking about it, because look, first and foremost, it’s really important to people. It’s a really big deal to them. But to be candid with you, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my neighbor’s bedroom or my neighbor’s lives or whatever, other than I just want them to be happy, help them out, do whatever. I was convinced that the vast majority of people were in that position, and I think all of us recognized, while it’s not everybody, it’s still the majority believe that.
I think that watching that courage of those kids, just seeing it as why is this an issue at all, other than it’s really important to people, and let’s just get out of the way of people and let them live their lives.
Again, it’s not just high school’s hard enough. Life is hard enough, my God, to be having somebody so… Having the government concerned about what’s happening in your family, I mean, I am making this pitch right now during this campaign. When did the Republican Party become the party that wants to be involved in all your personal choices? I’m really glad that my neighbors understood that.
By the way, in full disclosure, once they told me I was coming on here, I went back and listened to some previous episodes. I listened to the one about the people who hold up the sky and I’ll have to tell you all, I’m like, “Oh my God, I do that to my wife all the time. She holds the sky up,” and I’m saying things like, “What’s wrong with you today? You guys taught me. Don’t say that. Do not say that.” So learn, learn.
But just thinking about how we’re talking to people, and the majority of people agree with us on this. The thing that I think is challenging for folks is those who don’t agree with this, they’re not that interested in winning over public opinion. They’re interested in having power to make the decisions.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Tim Walz:
I think we should be very cognizant of that. We have the majority of people on our side, but if the supreme Court’s not on our side, that poses a problem.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm. Well, thank you Governor Walz so much for protecting even in the late ’90s queer kids. And so I have to ask, what will a Harris-Walz administration do to protect our queer kids today?
Tim Walz:
Yeah. Well, there’s certainly things we can codify into law, we know the hate crimes that come against this, making sure that education’s out there. It starts with making sure those kids are safe in their schools, they’re safe in their persons.
I think the platform of being able to talk about this makes a big difference. But I also think what Abby, your point is on this, and I was just mentioning, we need to up appoint judges who uphold the right to marriage, uphold the right to be who you are, making sure that’s the case, uphold the right to get the medical care that you need. We should not be naive. Those appointments are really, really important. I think that’s what the vice president is committed to.
I’m proud to be on a ticket. She was officiated some of the nation’s first marriages. She was there to push back on the laws on the hate crimes and has been a vocal supporter. Look, we need allies both for the moral and the legal protections. I think one of the things is that I didn’t have any legal authority as a teacher, but I did have the moral authority of the position to be able to make a difference. I think making sure we’re continuing to do both of those to see it.
We see it now, you know that the hate is transferred to the trans community. They see that as an opportunity. If you’re watching any sporting events right now, you see that the closing arguments for Donald Trump is to demonize a group of people for being who they are.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Tim Walz:
We’re out there trying to make the case that access to healthcare, and a clean environment and manufacturing jobs, and keeping your local hospital open, those are things that people are really concerned about. They’re running millions of dollars of ads demonizing folks that are just trying to live their lives.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. I just want to stop and say, it struck me as so important when you just said you had moral authority. For everyone who’s listening to this podcast right now and you’re thinking, “I don’t control the laws. I don’t have that kind of authority.” Each of us by what we stand for, by who we stand with, by what we say is exercising that moral authority. It’s so huge.
Tim Walz:
No, I think that’s right. Look, you’re reaching a lot of folks in hearing this, and for some people it’s not even out of malice and it’s not a pejorative, it’s out of ignorance. They maybe have not been around people. You’ve all seen this, however it takes you to get there, but I know it’s a little frustrating when you see folks have an epiphany when their child comes out to them.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Tim Walz:
That’s good. We’re glad they got there. You’d like to think the empathy would be there. But I think especially for older folks, they want to do right, but they don’t really understand. And when they see these guys trying to demonize and make things scary, that’s where I think family members can just come out and say, “Look, here’s what you should understand about this community. Here’s what you should know.”
It feels to me like that goes a long ways. We’re winning public opinion and we need to continue to do that. But I don’t want us to get too far away from we need to also make sure that the power that protects these rights is in place too.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, right. Because public opinion can follow the legal protection. It doesn’t need to go in the other order. Speaking of legal protections, you as governor, after Roeffel were the first governor to sign into law protections for women’s healthcare, including abortion and contraceptives and fertility treatments. About abortion, you said, “I think old white men need to learn how to talk about this a little more.” We agree with you Governor Walz, what do you wish men were talking about when it comes to abortion?
Tim Walz:
For me, and I’m obviously coming from Minnesota and I’m proud of this, our state ranks first in healthcare, access, affordability, quality. We’re home to the Mayo Clinic, other great systems. I think one of the things that, look, this is bodily autonomy. This is your decisions, but we somehow allowed over the years to allow abortion to be pulled out of the discussion that it is. It’s healthcare.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Tim Walz:
It’s women’s healthcare, and it’s reproductive rights. Then we started splitting hairs on it in a way that made it more difficult to understand. I think in Minnesota, protecting the right to quality, accessible, affordable healthcare was absolutely foundational. I think maybe that’s where we came out.
For men, look, I don’t think many men maybe don’t even know how women’s bodies work. This is what these folks are trying to do. They’re trying to weaponize this idea that women’s bodies, men should have a decision over them even though they don’t understand how they work. I think making abortion services, reproductive services, basic healthcare and basic services, because look, they’re trying to make the case that women are going in for ninth month elective abortions. That doesn’t happen. They’re trying to make, especially men say, “Well, that doesn’t seem right.” What we know is that if a woman is in at that point, there has been a problem with the pregnancy that puts her at risk.
I think men need to talk about it. We need to get about it, and we need to recognize that their goal is not going to stop at abortion. It’s about the control over contraception. It’s the control over fertility treatments. They’ll go to adoptions. Gay couples shouldn’t be able to adopt.
Glennon Doyle:
Yep.
Tim Walz:
It’s a hop, skip and a jump for them that they make very easily that they go right down the line. I think once we start to demystify what it means to go get healthcare from your OBGYN, what it means and why it’s so important. I think Kamala Harris, when she was grilling the Supreme Court and said, “Can you give me a law where men’s bodies are being regulated?”
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Tim Walz:
That went a long ways, because again, it shouldn’t maybe take that. I have to have a gay child to understand what gay people are going through. But if that’s what it takes, at least we made a leap on that.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It really crystallizes it. The right has a lot of talking points about what abortion represents, but when you look at it and you say, “Okay, assuming all those things were true, they would also be true for men’s bodies.” But we have zero regulation there. So what is actually happening here?
Tim Walz:
Yes, yes. And it’s very frustrating. I got asked today in an interview, “It’s all confusing about where do you guys stand on abortion.” I said, “It’s not confusing at all. Women and their doctors will make the decision.” So I said, “What’s confusing is on the other side is they know it’s extremely unpopular what they’re proposing and they’re trying to dodge out of it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Tim Walz:
Donald Trump telling you that you won’t have to worry about this or he’ll be your protector, I don’t think that’s the flex he thinks it is.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Tim Walz:
We’ll see in 20 days.
Glennon Doyle:
As the kids would say, that’s not the vibe.
Tim Walz:
No, it’s not the vibe.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s weird. As someone really smart started saying, it’s very weird. Since 81% of Americans want the government out of abortion decisions, what concretely will a Harris/Walz administration do to make sure that this decision remains between a woman and her doctor and that the government minds its own business?
Tim Walz:
Yeah, it’s going to take the restoration of Roe. I think one of the things that we moved in Minnesota was, is a lot of states left this out there in limbo rather than codifying it or getting it into their constitutions. Then you saw the situations with 150 year old laws were being used to justify banning abortion in all cases, including rape and incest.
I think one of the things is for us to move as quickly as possible, and having served in Congress, I understand this, we need to win the House of Representatives too. We need to hold the Senate, but I also think we need to make it very uncomfortable for folks with those numbers that you have. We can’t allow people, and I saw this come up, and this is troubling to me. Folks who are going to vote to protect abortion on amendments in states like Montana, but are then going to vote for the Republicans.
That disconnect is very dangerous. I think we need to explain to people that you may codifying it in your state constitution, but if you’re electing Republicans to the United States Senate, they will simply change and have the Supreme Court change it at the federal level and we will have a national ban. I think that has not been made clear to folks and this is hard. I say this because people are busy. They’re getting so much thrown at them. I get this a lot. Well, I’m just not that into politics. My response on that is too bad politics is into you and here’s what you need to know about it.”
But I think we’ve got our work cut out for us on this because that’s a disturbing trend for me. So in answer to your question, we need to codify it at the federal level. We need to get it back in. We need to make sure it’s ironclad and then I’ll say it, we need to elect the vice president so that Donald Trump does not put in two or three more Supreme Court justices because they’ll put in people that will be making decisions for our grandchildren.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Tim Walz:
I’ll be dead before these folks are out of office. This is a generation or two that are going to be impacted by these very out of the mainstream positions that they’re pushing. That’s what we’ll do, and that’s why I think it’s a top priority.
Abby Wambach:
All right. So you are a lifelong gun owner, an avid hunter, soldier, the best sharps shooter in US Congress. And for a long while, you had an rating from the NRA, then something changed for you. What was it?
Tim Walz:
Yeah, and picture this. So I’m 60 and I grew up in this small town of 400 people. I remember shooting, I had a 22 when I was 10 or so. So we were shooting on that cans, all that. Remember the mornings of the coffee on and going hunting with my dad and my little brother, pheasant hunting was our thing out in the fields, that type of thing. This was at a time when in the fall we would actually take our shotguns in our cars to school and they’d be sitting in the back and we would go out after practice.
Then of course, I was in the National Guard for 24 years. So I became familiar with guns and I’ve owned them. NRA, when I was growing up, hunter safety, most of us had it. And to be very candid, while there were shootings, there weren’t this level of shootings and the mass shootings.
So I’m in Congress proud to have that rating. Most of my constituents were gun owners. But then we started seeing these incidents, and for me, maybe I’m that guy who said, “Once you have a family member who’s gay or something happens, I took a meeting. It was asked and requested, the parents of the Sandy Hook children who were massacred, tried to get meetings with all the NRA members to try and get us to change and vote for some common sense changes. So I’m in Congress, I’ve got a congressional office. We set up a bunch of chairs. There was probably 18 or 20 sets of parents. And for about an hour, I sat in there and they came in and I knew they were, we shook hands, we sat down. I had two big pictures of my children behind me. My son Gus, who turned 18 this last Sunday was about the age of those parents or those kids same age.
So I have a group of parents in there, whose little ones were massacred in their littlest best dressed, sitting in a classroom just trying to learn. And each one told me who their child was, what they were, and they’re basically describing my son Gus and the things. My son was alive. So for me, and I know there’s probably frustration amongst your listeners, it took that for you to have an epiphany.
Look, I do believe in the Second Amendment. I do believe we have the right to own firearms, but I also believe so many things. There’s common sense things that you can do, whether it’s background checks or extreme risk protection orders or no need to have these assault weapons. It was at that point that I said, “We’ve got to do some things. And I started advocating for that. Look, the thing was is becoming governor of Minnesota, we finally passed some laws. We’re a very gun owning state out here. A lot of us hunt, that’s what it is. But we passed extreme risk protection orders and background checks, and I’m pushing for secure storage. It’s ridiculous that in the United States, the top killers of our kids are firearms. We were trying to push that you need to have locks on your guns and in your house because a lot of our little ones die when they find a loaded gun and they shoot themselves or someone else.
Those things don’t infringe on your Second Amendment rights. But I keep saying this vice president says it, our first responsibility is protection of our kids. So my journey has been there. It hasn’t changed anything for me on gun ownership. It hasn’t changed anything on the activities that I do, but it has changed how I view the things that we need to do to stop this.
When the vice president said, “It doesn’t have to be this way.” They’re telling us there’s something about this country that just makes us want to shoot each other in large numbers.
Glennon Doyle:
Yep.
Tim Walz:
And they want to talk about everything else. They want to demonize mental health issues, which most of us go through at one time or another in our lives, and they want to make it that that’s the easy out, which is horrible. It stigmatizes people, but it’s also so the hypocrisy is so rich that they cut mental health funding at the same time. It’s about the guns.
In many cases I said this, “You legally, I guess, would have the right to have a running chainsaw, but would you take it into a McDonald’s? It’s dangerous. It’s ridiculous. They keep trying to tell us it’s not the guns, it’s the people that do this. That’s for me the journey I’ve been on.
Imagine as a teacher, as a parent, you’ve got little ones. You send them to school and they’re practicing active shooter drills, and then they’re telling us the fix to this is to harden the doors and they sell you backpacks that are bulletproof. I just don’t want to live in a society that’s that way. And I think that’s where the vice president is, that we can make changes.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, absolutely.
Glennon Doyle:
Governor Wallace, can you tell us what is your most recent NRA rating and what you did with the money that NRA had given to your campaigns?
Tim Walz:
Yeah, we donated it at the last ones I got at that time. I am an F rated in the NRA. And as I say, again, I’m still participating in those shooting activities, whether it’s trap shooting, which I was a good trap shooter and still do that and hunting, and I own those firearms, but I have an F. Look, the NRA is opposed to us being able to do scientific research to the causes of gun violence. So if it is really not about the guns, what are you worried about?
The manufacturers have continued to block this idea of doing real research. If we’re seeing an increase in a certain type of cancer, we want research to be done on what’s causing that so we can prevent it. But look, I think we all know why the gun manufacturers don’t want us to do research in this, but we should be trying to figure this out with data.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Tim Walz:
I’ve made that journey, and again, I would tell the lawful gun owners of any of your folks listening, nothing has changed for you, but the changes we’re making are keeping people alive. You think of those extreme risk protection orders, just to be clear, if you have a firearm in Minnesota, the chance that you’re going to be killed by your own firearm in a suicide is greatest in rural areas with white men. Those are things that where families can step in times of crisis and protect people.
I think these are things that should resonate with a lot of people, especially those that are law-abiding gun owners who aren’t this whole thing, “Somebody’s coming for your guns.” Nobody’s coming for your guns. Nobody is.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean, in my experience, the gun owners are often deeply committed to responsible gun ownership. It’s not those people, I mean, it feels very much like a portion to me that just like 81% of Americans want the government out of their bodily autonomy.
Tim Walz:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
85% of Americans want gun safety legislation, and they’re telling us we’re deeply divided.
Tim Walz:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
But that’s not the division. It’s not with us.
Tim Walz:
Yes, the data shows it, and your observation is right. I would find just the most vocal, strident. “You can’t have my guns.” Members of Congress couldn’t shoot worth a and were never around guns. They didn’t own them. It became a ideological position that they were forcing, rather than where the common sense piece of this was.
Look, I just don’t believe this country doesn’t have the capacity of countries like Australia or Finland to be able to have high gun ownership and still not kill your children in large numbers. We have to get there, because when you want to talk about crime, Donald Trump wants to make this crime thing. We all know that murders were up when he was president. We’re at a 50-year low, but what’s not down is gun violence, and that’s the one we got to tackle.
Glennon Doyle:
So what will the Harris-Walz administration do when you get into office to just make us all less terrified to send our children to school?
Tim Walz:
Yeah, the vice President has asked for enhanced background checks, red flag laws, extreme risk protection orders. She’s talked about there’s no need for these assault weapons to be out there. Those are things that can be done that will make a difference. Statistically, we know it’s the case. They keep telling us there’s too many guns out there. You can’t do anything about it. They just don’t believe in America.
We can’t do anything about gun violence. We can’t do anything about climate change. We can’t do anything about this. It’s because they want to admire the problem and they want to use it for political gain. I think those are steps. Then it’s going to be about continuing to educate people. And again, the statistics are right. 85% of us, and my God, I’d hope it’d be 100%, are sick and tired of hearing about mass shootings. I was in Las Vegas and driving past that parking lot, Americans have forgotten 60 people getting gunned down at a concert.
It happens so much now. It’s one news cycle. It’s thoughts, prayers, one news cycle and on. We can do better. And Vice President Harris is absolutely committed to this. We know that when you put in just some of these common sense things, you’ll reduce it. If it’s even one less shooting or mass shooting, that’s progress.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. Governor Walz, we actually recently got to spend some real time with Hope and your incredible wife, Mrs. Walz, and we commiserated and bonded about being soccer moms. We all three, we just were so deeply moved by how beautifully kind and present and just profoundly real they both were and are. I just based on that conversation, I had to ask you when you told Mrs. Walz that you had just gotten the call from the vice president selecting you, I just need to know what she said. What were her words to you?
Tim Walz:
Well, if you’ve met Gwen, and I was thinking of that again, those who hold up the sky, look, I try and you know this division of domestic labor, I try to be an enlightened guy. I do the dishes, I do the clothes, I make the bed. But we all know that that still doesn’t make the difference of what ends up falling upon women to do this, the doctor’s appointments, all of those things. Then I would make the mistake where I would say, “Oh, I made the bed for you.” “No, no, Tim, you made the bed for us.” I’ve learned over the years.
But she’s incredible on… We have been partners. We’ve been partners from the beginning. We have been a team. I recognize that the life path we went on was because I met her and I think we are complementary needs people. She says, Tim has the big ideas, and then I figured out how to actually get it done and those types of things.
Because it is, you have to know. We have gotten better at knowing it, knowing what’s there, trying to work on it. But on this, we’ve always made the decisions together. We ran as a team, and I think we both saw this. Every decision we made, it feels like it was the right time to make it. And we always felt we’re big believers in this servant leadership thing. This is what I said, if there’s something I can help, because I feel very strongly, I feel Donald Trump is a threat on so many areas. I don’t want to give him more credit than he deserves making him into this all present, but he’s dangerous. Gwen said, “If you think and if the vice president, it’s her decision to do this is then we say yes, because that’s what we’re being asked to do.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Tim Walz:
I told the vice president too, that if she just wanted me to go to Omaha and do that, I would do that. I think Gwen saw it as public service. She saw it as Servant leadership. I think she also saw it a, “Well, damn, I got a lot more work I’m going to have to do now.”
I still have my kids in high school, we’re a volleyball mom now, which has been the joy of my life. Gus a volleyball player and she’s a volleyball mom who’s deeply engaged. But I think so many Americans, whatever our role is in this and we see it as we’re just part of a team. I always used to equate campaigns and elected office, like the old school mountain climbing teams, where you’re were all in it together and on Summit day, you never knew who was going to the summit. Someone was chosen to go to the summit and the other team sent them there to get there. And I always viewed it. If I’m the summit guy, I’ll go, but I’m good to be the follower here.
We talk about leadership. I used to take this, the most neglected part of leadership is followership and how it works. As I move throughout that on any given day, sometimes I’m a leader, sometimes I’m a follower. I think with Gwen, understanding that, understanding how our team work, I think that’s how we’ve been very successful.
I truly said it too, and not in any way patronizing at all. Someone asked, “Governor, you went from a schoolteacher to a congressman, to a governor and vice president.” And I said, “Look, I’ve always surrounded myself with good people. Many times it’s women, and I listen to them. That’s the thing with Gwen, I listen to her and a lot of the times, she’s right. That’s served us well. We’re a good team.
Glennon Doyle:
You are. I think your quote was that the secret is surround yourself with smart women and listen to them and you’ll do just fine.
Tim Walz:
Yeah. Men seem to float to the top when they take that pace with an understanding. I’ve really become cognizant of that. I think all of you listening to some of your podcasts on this, again, one of the privileges I get, and its most, I theoretically understood it, I get to appoint judges and I’m very proud. Minnesota was the first state, by the way, to have a female majority on the Supreme Court. That is reestablished again now. We have the first woman of color, chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Minnesota, these appointments that I’m able to make. But you guys, you wouldn’t find this fascinating at all. You would find it your regular lives. When we’re out trying to gather information on these judges, I think some of the most effective ones I put in, some of the critiques where they’re difficult to work with, and I am so in tune to that now. That’s almost a badge of honor for me.
When I see that on a resume or coming in, I’m like, “Okay, let’s get to the heart of this. Who’s saying that? Is this subordinance or what’s going on? Or why would that be the case? Because by the time you rise to the point in your legal career where you’re being considered as a judge or a Supreme Court justice, imagine the barriers that those people broke through to get to that, to get point just in general.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Tim Walz:
I mean, men have to break through those things and then it’s for women. So Gwen has been good with me on that of helping me understand that because, “Oh, well, she’s very forceful. She’s very outspoken.” For me, it’s like, “Oh, he’s a strong leader and he speaks his mind.” And so…
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Yes, it’s like a lineman. The other side being like they’re difficult to work with. Well, they’re supposed to be. That’s how they get the job done, right?
Tim Walz:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay, Governor Walz, leave us. First of all, I just want to say on behalf of the whole Pod Squad, we feel the difference. We are largely women, not all, but we feel the difference between leaders telling us they’re going to protect us and what they do to us when they say that, compared to your version of leadership, which is listening to women, taking in what we say we need and want, and using your power to create that. It is a different vibe. We feel it. It is not weird. Thank you for it.
Can you leave us with this idea that you surround yourself with smart women and listen to them and consequently have done just fine? Did that start with your mom? And if so, is there any advice she ever gave you that you’re still relying on?
Tim Walz:
Yeah, and I think in today’s world, my mom would be considered very traditional in terms of she was a stay at home mom. I look back on it now, and I was with her at the football game the other night. She’s nearly 90, but she’s just as sharp as anything. She still lives alone, but she’s frustrated she can’t drive from Nebraska to Minnesota to see us. We go get her. I think the biggest thing with her was just watching the perseverance and watching our world changed during her lifetime as she aged, my dad dying pretty young, and your parents are infallible when you’re little, but then when you hear the whole story and everything. My mom’s kind of opened up to me, and I think her life would’ve taken a different path. I think she’d have been a nurse, and she’s not regretful because she raised kids and I think she’s proud of us.
But I think watching her and seeing how the world has changed to open up possibilities that quite honestly she didn’t have that. We feel like we’re all very modern and to think during my lifetime when I was growing up, how different things were. If you got pregnant and you were teaching, you lost your job, when I was a child. It was against the law to be gay in Nebraska. Against the law.
I think my mom living through that now, seeing her get to this point, just the perseverance, and I will say this, I think she could have been bitter about some things and she never did. I think she gave me this kind of joyous outlook. And look, I think this idea about what you bring to the world, what you manifest, I think my mom did that. I think she was like, “People’s lives are hard enough. Why are you adding to any of that misery?”
I watched her, she buried her husband and she buried her son, my little brother and I think about how hard that would be for me, and she just trooper through it and kept everybody together. I’m grateful for her. I’m glad she’s lived this long. I really love my mom and I think she’s really proud of me. She was just as proud of me when I’m teaching school because she knew that was noble work.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s the most noble work.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Having been raised by educators, that’s how I started my career. I have read about your difficulty in cafeteria classrooms. I too am wishing for policy about easier to open milk cartons and easier to open ketchup containers for all of the cafeteria workers as I was one.
Tim Walz:
You know our kids in Minnesota, the best thing, I’m still proud of this, all of our kids eat free breakfast and lunch. It’s amazing what you can do. That kind of stuff changes the world.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Tim Walz:
People have these big plans for things, just breakfast and lunch for kids. If we start there, the world’s a little better. So I think the vice president wants that for all folks across the country, and that would be a good start.
Glennon Doyle:
Amen. Governor Walz, we will be working our butts off for the next 20 days to get you in office and then after that, when you are in office, the three of us will be in your family’s corner forever. We are so deeply grateful. We needed a good man to show up and you did. And we are grateful forever.
Tim Walz:
Thanks for being great role models for our kids. My daughter’s a product of Abby and her teammates’ generation, and she is unstoppable. She says her unofficial duty is she’s morale coach on this campaign, so she travels with me to keep me going.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
We saw it in action. It’s real.
Abby Wambach:
We love hope and we love Gus. We love you too. Obviously your wife. Thank you so much for being here, and thank you for taking the biggest one for the whole team of us here in the United States.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Tim Walz:
Thank you all. Great to be with you.
Glennon Doyle:
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you, because you’ll never miss an episode and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode.
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We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle, in partnership with Audacy. Our executive producer is Jenna Weiss-Berman and the show is produced by Lauren LoGrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.