Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday announced her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who immediately set social media ablaze as unearthed clips and headlines exposing his ‘radical’ political career went viral.
The Minnesota Democrat, who was being hyped up to Harris by the far-left faction of her party, including lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., accompanied Harris during a Philadelphia campaign rally Tuesday evening kicking off their swing state tour across multiple states.
‘One of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep,’ Harris said Tuesday while announcing her VP choice.
Here are five standout remarks by the former lawmaker and potential future vice president, which have been dubbed as ‘weird’ by critics:
‘Weird’ goes viral
Walz was responsible for an insult that quickly became a viral hit for Democrats across the United States when he described former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance as ‘weird.’
‘These are weird people on the other side, they want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that’s what it comes down to,’ he said on MSNBC last month. ‘Don’t get sugarcoating this, these are weird ideas.’
It’s a quip that the Harris campaign has embraced, and appears to have stuck to the Trump campaign, which in turn has aggressively redeployed the attack against Democrats by attacking their ‘radical’ proposals.
‘You know what’s really weird?’ Donald Trump Jr. responded. ‘Soft on crime politicians like Kamala allowing illegal aliens out of prison so they can violently assault Americans.’
Vance took advantage of the label over the weekend during an Atlanta rally and listed off several policy positions Harris has espoused.
Walz has not backed off using ‘weird’ during public speeches, using it again after being announced as Harris’ running mate on Tuesday during a Philadelphia rally.
‘These guys are creepy and yes, just weird as hell,’ he said.
Socialism = neighborliness
When many people think of socialism, they think of forced redistribution of wealth, sky-high tax rates, or the worst crimes of regimes like the Soviet Union.
However, Walz recently painted socialism in a positive light by associating it with ‘neighborliness.’
‘Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values,’ the Minnesota Democrat said on a ‘White Dudes for Harris’ call last week. ‘One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.’
The clip immediately ignited backlash on social media.
‘Neighborliness killed members of my family,’ journalist Karol Markowicz posted on X.
‘Walz’s statement that socialism is mere ‘neighborliness’ is a lie that disregards the harsh realities countless families have faced under socialist regimes,’ Virginia Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares posted on X.
‘Weird,’ said Manhattan Institute senior fellow Ilya Shapiro.
‘A 30-foot ladder factory’
Walz’s immigration views have been a focus from critics, including his moves to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and his support for sanctuary policies.
But Walz raised eyebrows by suggesting that, should President Trump attempt to build another wall at the southern border, he would launch his own moneymaking scheme.
‘He talks about this wall, I always say, let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30-foot ladder factory,’ he said on CNN. ‘That’s not how you stop this.’
The Trump campaign, Republican National Committee, and several conservative critics used the soundbite to attack Harris and pointed to her record as ‘border czar,’ which still haunts her tenure as vice president.
‘Get off the couch’
Walz appeared to dip his toe in the water of some false claims about Vance on Tuesday, when he talked about his counterpart debating him.
‘I can’t wait to debate this guy,’ Walz said. ‘That’s if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up. See what I did there?’
The roar of the crowd, and Harris’ facial expression made it clear they knew to what he was referring to.
The quip references a false online rumor, debunked by multiple fact checkers, that Vance had claimed in his book ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ to have had sex with a couch.
But despite the repeated debunking, Walz appeared to revel in the false claims and became its most high-profile spreader to date.
Chinese luxury
The New York Post this week unearthed remarks by Walz in 1990 in which he said he praised the living conditions he encountered in China.
‘No matter how long I live, I will never be treated that well again,’ he told a local outlet.
‘They gave me more gifts than I could bring home. It was an excellent experience,’ Walz said, adding that he was ‘treated exceptionally well.’
The remark came in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and amid continued and still ongoing mass human rights abuses in the communist regime.
Walz wasn’t the only member of his family to face the wrath of social media with unearthed clips. His wife, Minnesota’s First Lady Gwen Walz, set social media ablaze Tuesday and Wednesday when a clip from one of her 2020 interviews went viral.
‘Again we had more sleepless nights during the riots,’ Walz’s wife told KSTP in July 2020. ‘I could smell the burning tires, and that was a very real thing. And I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.’
The comment was dubbed as ‘weird’ and ‘bizarre’ on social media.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.