Transcript of The Tim Walz Interview

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We have the state champion defensive coordinator for Mankado West High School with us, Stugatz.

We finally have a coach on the show. Yes.

Do you prefer Tim Walls with us? Do you prefer governor or coach? What should I be calling you during this?

Coach, That's the lead I want. I don't get any help for that. You come with governor or candidate, everybody beats on you. But defensive coordinator, they leave you alone. But good to be with you guys.

Thank you for being on with us. We have politics questions and sports questions, but I want to hear about the legendary story of you lighting up your offensive coordinator because he was running too many trick plays.

Yeah, and this guy was good. The guy's name was Tom Boon, and he was doing things that irritated me, like passing and getting yardage. I'm a 6-0 guy, the old-school thing or whatever. And this guy continued to score. And I said, Look, part of this is pace the game. We can control the game, keep my defense on the sideline a little bit here, all that, and not this guy. So that was his philosophy to just score every time and fun.

Now, keep in mind, he's joining us on very little sleep from a hotel room in Georgia here. So I don't know how much sports he's paying attention to, but I just want to show you a statue here that was revealed recently and give you a multiple choice question. I want to ask you, is this... Well, there's a hint on the front there. Is this Lawrence Fishburn, Antoine Walker, Dwyane Wade, Kelsi Grammer, or Dana White? Who do you have this statue? I think we gave it away with the uniform.

You did, but when I saw the Laurence Fishburn, I said, Man, it is Laurence. That is a good one. Look, how gracious was D. Wade, though, about this to the sculptor? Because this is pretty horrific. I mean, this is a Lucile Ball type, the Lucile Ball statue thing. It's horrific. But D. Wade, what a class act. He's like, No, this is really nice. I'm grateful. Yeah, I don't know how they get that wrong. Wouldn't you think they would show it to everybody first and have people like- No, he was very involved in it.

He was there for- Oh, I didn't know that. You would have no evidence in statue, but evidently, he went three or four times to be with them and even measured the length from the nose to the lip and everything. Yeah, look at- He's even more gracious or he just didn't care.

I don't know which one of them.

He didn't care.

No, I didn't care. I do have... I'm sorry. Go ahead.

I was just going to say, he's got a statue. That's got to be pretty cool, right? I was in Philly the other day, and honest to God, and I earned it because I ran a 5K to it, no lie, to the Rocky statue, up the stairs with both arms up. It was cooler than I thought it would be. It was really cool. But anyway, sorry to interrupt you, Dan.

That's all right. Thank you. I do appreciate your time. I do have some questions in politics. I'd like to know some of what your inner monolog was during the debate when Vance refused to say that Trump had lost the election.

Yeah. I'm thinking to myself, we're 85 minutes into this thing, and it seems like that was the lead. Do you believe in democracy? Are you going to honor the vote? Which truly isn't all that political. It's just standard operation. My team was very clear to me. They said, Don't ask a direct question because you don't know the answer. It puts you in a bad spot in a debate. And of course, me, I disregarded what I should have done was listen, but in that case, it worked because just ask him the question, and I guess I thought he would answer it. And it took a couple of weeks. He did eventually answer, and he said, No, he didn't lose the election. Donald Trump did not lose that election. So I guess He could have done it that night, but obviously, he had a little bit of inner monolog going, too, about how do I answer this. I was speaking to 340 million people. I think he might have been speaking to one. So that's a little bit more challenging.

Do you regret at all not bringing up during that debate that he, your opponent, had once said of Trump that he might be America's Hitler?

Well, I think like a game, you go back over it again, how you would do this. And I was very clear. I know my skillset, strengths and weaknesses, and debating, I always, when I worried about. I say this because as a teacher and a coach, I'm trained to answer the questions. If you're good at debate, you don't answer the questions. You just spin somewhere else. And that one I thought about. But it almost gets to the point where some of this stuff becomes unbelievable to people, even though it's true, and it takes away some of the punch from it. But yeah, it's not that I didn't know that part, and I'd actually thought about it. But after we saw this last weekend, I think that spoke for itself. I probably didn't I have to say it.

Coach, rank the Rockies for me. Rocky 2, Rocky 3, Rocky 4. No one saw Rocky 5. Go ahead.

You're right. I didn't see Rocky 5.

Why would you?

Cold War stuff with the Russians was something. But don't you have to go with the original? Don't you have to go, We didn't know what was coming?

What is it? Well, Rocky loses there.

We're badgering the man.

Spoiler alert. I am. I just want to explain this to him because he's a busy man. Rocky loses in the original Rocky, and I don't like Rocky losing. Therefore, for me, it is Rocky 2, Rocky 4, Rocky 3, Rocky.

Good point. Yeah, but Apollo dies.

I mean, I don't know. I guess I lived in a world where-The revenge is death. You're saying that the Rocky lose and just killed the whole thing. You wanted him to win that?

Yes, every time. Of course.

Well, that kills the story then. There's no... This is why I'm not a screenwriter. I'm not a screenwriter.

I'm not paying good money to go to the theater to see Rocky lose.

I mean- Quit interrogating the man, please.

I'm sorry. Sorry, Coach.

Quit badgering him with your obviously correct opinion. Which do you view, if you had to choose one, which do you view as the most dangerous of Trump's lies?

I think the election denial because I think it undermines. That's the foundation that everything's built on, the idea that democracy matters and that you count. I think everything, if you can get by with that, everything's on the table and you can just go after that. Our elections are secure. They're safe. They always have been. I think we grew up with this, and certainly me running office, I expect, if I lose, to go over and shake the hand of the person who won. Then in politics, work really hard to help them be successful. I didn't want to see George Bush win the election, but when he did, and I was a member of Congress, I wanted to see him be successful, so I tried to work with him the best I could.

I can't believe I'm uttering this sentence. I don't know, because you were playing Madden on Twitch with AOC, how much of what you saw at Madison Square Garden this week, and surely you've read about it, though. So what are your thoughts of how racist all of that felt?

Well, that's another thing that Senator Vance once said, he said, The thing that voters don't really like about Donald Trump is the racist part. That was him. I did not say that. Look, this is dangerous stuff. It started long ago, but the Springfield stuff of denigrating Haitian folks who were here legally just trying to get by. This dehumanizing piece of it is what's really this is the oldest playbook in the world. And I think for us, the contrast couldn't be greater. We're talking about unity. We're talking about bringing people together. We're talking about a to-do list for the American public rather than an enemy's list and putting people on there who we don't like. And very troubling. And I feel my job as governor is to protect the citizens and do all we can. And I'm hearing from folks, the Hispanic community is nervous and in some cases scared. So I didn't watch it personally. Aoc showed me that in real time. I didn't know who this guy was, this comedian or whatever. But saying that we don't have a sense of humor. Using vulnerable people as a punchline for your jokes is really weak.

That is not humor. And I have to say this, the guy delivery was terrible. It was just mean-spirited. That wasn't a joke. That was a dog whistle. Well, not even a dog whistle. It was a scream.

Are you nervous and scared?

Look, I'm committed to winning this thing. I know the American people and the goodness of the American people. Kamala Harris is a leader that has devoted her entire life to serving people. I'm out there listening to folks. I'm in Savannah, Georgia. Last night, I was in Ann Arbor, by the way, where I got to give the bow, the team, the team, the team in my speech, which was gold. But I'm optimistic. I'm an optimistic person. I believe in this. This American experiment is not going to end here. We're going to continue to go on. But I'm not naive that there are things that we need to be. We've seen poll workers already attacked, and that was written off, and they made a joke about the person who got punched and called the guy who punched him a patriot. Look, I know you've got listeners out there, viewers that are that are conservative, that are Reagan Republicans, independents. They can't like this. If I were saying that stuff, you should be railing on me.

Well, something that I would rail on the Democratic Party on is I don't think they're much better at the border on an immigration than Trump is. Mass deportation is horrifying to me, but Obama was pretty bad on this, and Biden wasn't a lot better. How are you guys better?

Yeah, well, the vice president has been clear, and since they've been in there, we had a chance to get this. And this happened once before, and we had a Republican governor showed courage, and that was George Bush as the governor of Texas, and we had a Republican senator showed courage, and that was Mike DeWine, who's now the governor of Ohio. These are folks that understand that Congress needs to be a piece of this. We had a bill that added 1,500 more agents. It added more equipment, but it also added more money to DOJ today to expedite these asylum claims. And then you can secure the border, which we need to do, and also adhere to American values by giving pathways to citizenship. Where Donald Trump is talking about, JD Vence in that debate did not answer, Will you separate families? And the answer is yes. Yes, they will. So I think first and foremost, Dan, you need to get the tools necessary and you do secure the border. But we can't forsake this idea that there are pathways to citizenship that take too long, and you can get people who are here, to be here contributing to this country.

Give them that pathway that's legal. I think that's what the vice president has said. She said she'd sign the bill immediately. The only reason we don't have it is Donald Trump killed it because he loves the issue. He loves the issue. He doesn't want to fix this. He just wants to admire the issue and tell people. He had four years. He doesn't want to fix it. Just to continue to rail on.

Can you explain to people what mass deportations will do to prices in this country that are already crazy?

Well, look, I represent, and I was a member of Congress in Southern Minnesota, we're the largest turkey producers. You can thank us at Thanksgiving, by the way, for your turkey. It's coming from Minnesota. And a lot of folks, like my grandparents, first-generation or second-generation immigrants, we worked in meatpacking and things. And it's not me saying it. It's the leadership of those companies saying that it would be massive shutdown of it. How are you going to make this happen? How are you going to make the economy work? What's going to happen to the construction industry? And I think most Americans get that. They have compassion. What they want to know is the border secure. They want to know that folks coming in or coming in through a legal pathway, and then they want to know what's that path to citizenship look like. And I think folks could recognize and see this. Let's be honest. The jobs you're doing, who do you think is doing all these jobs? Who do you think is making it happen? These are folks that are doing the work. We need to fix that system. But I'll say this once again, it benefits Donald Trump to create chaos.

It benefits Donald Trump to say, I'm the only guy who can fix it. Let's be clear, the only guy who didn't fix the border who made it worse was Donald Trump by killing that bill. My God, these were conservative centers like James Lankford from Oklahoma. Senator Lankford is super conservative, but he crafted a really good, fair, strong bill, and Yeah, the mass deportation issue is... I think Americans are starting to understand that, I hope, thinking about it.

Coach, next Tuesday, Americans have a really important decision to make, and that is the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. What do you think they will do with a one-loss Notre team that had a really brutal loss to Northern Illinois earlier this season but has a great win against Texas A&M and the Naval Academy. Good question.

I got to be careful on this one. I would just say, When doesn't Notre Dame get in? Even though the years we know they're not going to get in, they're going to get in. Look, they may deserve it on this one, but they got a fan base that's across the country. I'm not a conspiracy guy here. I think we're moving towards a fairer system. My question is, what are you going to do with an undefeated army or something? You one of these, or who do we have out there? We got Boise State again playing good ball.

Well, that means that they would beat Notre Dame because Army's got them at Yankee Stadium later this month, Coach. So that's a fair point.

They will. Tell me you don't want to see that. Why do we want to see that?

I am a Notre Dame grad, and I do not want to see that.

Are you brave enough to pick the Ohio State-Penn State game? Would you dare? Jesus.

Would you dare? Yes, I would. I'm going with Penn State. I really am. And this is hard. I'm a gopher guy out here. I should have done better research. I didn't know the Notre Dame thing, but in all fairness, I would have answered that question the same way anyway, just so you know. No, I think Penn State. I think Penn State is a better team. And I say this because I'm still a peripheral Nebraska fan, and Nebraska should have won that game against Ohio State. They should have won that game. And I think, look, that's a team that Indiana boat raced the week before, and Ohio State slips by. I don't think that bodes well for them. I think James Franklin has got them ready. And look, they're at College Station where they're going to get all the calls, too. So it's going to happen.

As a gopher and as a husker, what is your plan to stop conference realignment? Because we both know USA, UCLA, those are not Big Ten teams. They're just not.

I got to go to the Coliseum, and as the timing worked out, the week after the gophers beat them, which was so... I was in there wearing my gear and everything. Yeah, this is one that I don't know, and it's Charlie Baker, a former colleague, the governor of Massachusetts, is there. I love that guy, and Republican governor, trying to deal with everything. I've forever been a guy that these players need to be compensated. I was 100% there. But this is a really strange place of how the Neil Collectives are working. And this is where I'm old enough that I'm still nostalgic. I'm the Tom Orsman, Barry Switzer, Big 8, where the oranges came down onto the field or whatever. Those classic rivalries, I'm really worried about that you don't get these games that were played every year, what that does to... Because it feels, I don't know, I'll get your guys' opinion, you're the experts on this. It feels a little bit now we've got Triple A ball heading into the NFL, which college football was a distinctly different game. At least I saw it that way.

Coach, you are a big Twins fan, and I am outraged that Joe Mauer is a first ballot Hall of Famer. Am I right? Oh, no. Am I right? You agree. You agree, right? Oh, no. He has no business being a first ballot Hall of Famer.

Oh, no.

Oh, my God. Joe is the best guy. Just imagine. He's a Hall of Famer at He's a Hall of Famer. He's a Hall of Famer. He's a Hall of Famer at first base. Can they put him in twice? No. Can he be in there twice?

I'm not saying he shouldn't be in, Coach. I'm just saying first ballot is reserved for special, special players. You know what I'm talking about? He's not one of them.

Like who?

Like who? Like Babe Ruth.

Okay.

Roberto Clement.

Okay, I'll give you that. He might not be Babe Ruth.

Thank you. All right. Well, again, Stugatz is just badgering the Coach.

I've never had so many follow-ups.

Yes, you are-Stu is pounding me. I got Rocky wrong. I got Joe Mauer wrong.

No, I'm trying to help you. Okay, next time someone ask me-What about Fran Tarkington?

What about Fran Tarkington? Got any thoughts?

Not a first ballot Hall of Famer.

See, I knew it.

I knew it. No. I mean, did he win one? Does he have a ring?

So you throw Namath in with that, too. Oh, the Rang.

No, Namath is overrated. I'm a Jets fan. He should not be in the Hall of Fame. He's terrible.

Are you still a Jets fan this week?

Yes, I am.

All right, let's just show him a picture of Eric Adams here and get Coach's reaction to just the B-roll here of Eric Adams wearing a Yankee Cap that is also a Mets Cap. Tell me your honest opinions of what is happening there, and don't go political on me.

God, I don't know. I haven't seen that before. I think you just got to make a choice. This is hard. I watch governors who have two teams in their state, and they just make the choice on them. You take a little bit of political heat, but these politicians go to these state fairs, and then they don't want to say which one's the best. It's obviously Minnesota State Fair. Even though you lose votes in Iowa and Texas for saying that, you just say it. I think Eric should just pick, and he's certainly not going to pick the Met, so he should just wear the Yankees.

What do you- That would seem to me to be. Yeah, no, it's a strong opinion, and I think most of us would lay in there. What do you say to criticism that your campaign has been too much about, Don't vote for that, rather than making sure that everybody sees a progressive path for the country through you and your party.

Yeah. Well, if folks say that, then we hear them. But I will tell you this, we've been out there. I think that is a fair thing to say. I think you have to underline what the other choices are. And in the case of Donald Trump, he's told us who he is. Believe him on that. But we've given a new way forward. We've laid out extensive plans. I rolled out a rural agenda that the vice president and our team put together that I'm really proud of. These are things that people care about. If you don't live in a rural area, this issue of your rural hospitals and ambulance deserts and childcare. Those things come up. People don't talk about these other things that get in the news. They talk about, How am I going to find childcare? What happens when I dial 911? And we've laid out plans on those. I think you do have a responsibility, and we're doing it, to give people a reason to vote for it. And this one is, turn the page, new way forward, end the chaos, middle class tax cuts, child tear tax credit, making housing more affordable, bringing down prices.

Those are things we're talking about. And I would challenge anybody in the media to show me what is Donald Trump's plan other than just a list of grievances. This is a to-do list versus a grievance list, and I think that's a big difference.

I saw a report here, US Intelligent Offices saying basically that Russians targeted you with some unfounded claims. Also all over the place, there's a bunch of unfounded, including, and this one seems like it would hurt, stolen valor. Which of these has been most hurtful to see this This era of misinformation cut you?

Well, look, if you're in this, you know what you're going to get. I also said, Don't forget, I supervised the high school lunchroom. I pretty much heard everything leveled at me. Russian intelligence can't beat a ninth grader who's really angry with you, I don't think. But I will just be honest with you, the integrity around this. I served 24 years honorably in service and have a spotless record on that, was a senior enlisted soldier in my battalion. To see folks use this to undermine that, I don't go out and stick it in people's faces. There's lots of ways to serve this country, but 24 years is a long time and to have a record. The issue they're talking about, I'm talking about children being killed in our schools with weapons of war. One incident, to use the wrong word, I certainly am proud of what I've done. I know what I've done. But I think undermining that, and then the Russian stuff or whatever, of course, they try and get as gross as possible. You just take it what it is. The American people know who you are. They know who I am. I think they know I'm not serial liar like we've seen on the other side.

So that makes a difference.

You're a hunter, Kamala, and you had and have guns, but you've had your opinion shaped or changed by what happened or what your daughter came to you with after the Parkland shootings very near Stugatz's home.

Yeah. Well, I think it's an evolution. I think you'd want your elected officials to do this. I grew up in a time, Dan, where we took our guns to school. This isn't something... It was a different time, simpler. And after football practice, we'd go hunt because a town of 400, we're just out doing that. The world has changed. And I think for me, sitting with the Sandy Hook parents, and my son would have been about the same age as theirs. Those kids would have graduated last year, they'd be 19. And there were all those little bodies piled up and shot in there with their teachers in their classroom with one of these weapons of war. Pretty hard to set in there when those parents are saying, Can't you take a vote on background checks? Can't you take a vote on red flag laws? Can't you take a vote on these assault weapons? And the answer is yes. And having my daughter, and I've mentioned, I got a son who's in high school, and they practice these drills. Look, you can protect the Second Amendment. Nothing we're proposing does anything on that. But our first responsibility is to those kids, these kids in the classroom.

And I think the vice president has been very clear about that. And I think, look, this thing pulls like 80 % the American public. This doesn't happen in other parts of the world the way it happens here. America can do something about this, and you can still have your firearms, your legal firearms, but we can make a big difference.

Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025. I'm guessing our listeners don't want to read a 900-page policy document, but its authors have tried to ban books about slavery. They want to privatize the weather forecast, the weather. They want to ban porn. What should scare the average young male apathetic voter about what it is that Trump really plans to do in office?

Yeah, all these things. You may think right now that they're not coming after you when it's restricting women's rights to reproductive care, but you're right on this. What you view in your content as an adult, what you're able to read or whatever, these are folks that have a very specific idea that they think government should make all these decisions, banning the Department of Education, rewriting this. Why would we ban books on slavery? It happened. We're a big enough country, we can tell the story. You're never going to get beyond these things unless you understand where they were at. But these are folks that have a very specific agenda. They believe believe that they should weaponize the Department of Justice. I mean, imagine they're saying enemies from within. I know I'm at the top of that list, but a lot of your viewers need to recognize they'll be on that list, too. If they happen to believe that we should have weather forecast, if you live in Miami, it might be a nice idea to know which a hurricane is coming because lives are at risk. These folks, and somebody asked, why do they want to privatize this or whatever?

Because they want to deny climate change, because they want to deny we need to do something. So I think there's a whole bunch of things in there, and young viewers should... This is about freedom. This is the juxtaposition Mission between Donald Trump trying to talk about freedom when all they're trying to do is weaponize the federal government against your basic freedoms is really something to behold. I think when Vice President Harris talks about freedom, she means you. You make decisions about your health care, your family, the choices, what you read, what movies you watch. I think it's a pretty clear choice. But that thing, yeah, they want to distance themselves because it's horrific, because nobody's asking for this agenda. Can you guys picture? They're telling us that the biggest issue, a bunch of guys sitting around in a bar in Wisconsin is, You know what we should do? We should ban Orwell's books. We should ban 1984. No one's saying that. They're like, How come I'm not getting paid more? Where are the manufacturing jobs? How do I buy a house? I don't want my kids to be shot. I think listening to these guys talk about these things, nobody's asking for this crazy agenda.

Coach, thank you for the time. I think you might have swayed down the middle Chris here. I think he's the born thing.

I'm pro-porn.

Excellent work by you guys.

Hey, you do what you do. You be you.

You be you is my thought. Coach, thank you for being on with us. I am mortified by my colleagues.

Thank Thank you, guys. It was a pleasure.