Yesterday morning at 9:13 AM ET, POLITICO was the first MSM to announce Kamala Harris had decided on Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz to be her choice of running mate for vice president. Until that moment, most media talking heads had identified Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro as the most likely choice. However, Shapiro apparently had at least two strikes against him: He’s Jewish in a political party that is increasingly influenced by an über left, anti-Zionist, and even anti-Semitic, base and he is a strong supporter of Israel in its war against Hamas and potentially its other enemies including Iran.
POLITICO’s article is surprisingly balanced, considering the source, as it points to Walz’s flip-flopping from an NRA supporter to a gun reform zealot and his decidedly mixed record as Minnesota’s governor since 2019. He has moved far to the left on a variety of issues, putting him closely in the ideological orbit of his new radical leftist boss, Vice President Harris. Reports have also circulated that Walz was former president Barack Obama’s choice for the VP role. The 44th president’s “wing man” and close confidante, former attorney general Eric Holder, joined the Harris campaign two weeks ago to oversee the selection of her VP running mate.
Update: And speaking of Eric Holder, AXIOS, which is close to the Biden-Harris Administration, had this disturbing news this morning. Mike Allen, co-founder of AXIOS, reported in AXIOS AM August 7 (emphasis is in the original):
If she wins, Vice President Harris is expected to name a Cabinet and West Wing that are younger than President Biden’s, with more people of color. . .
What we’re hearing: The options listed below are preliminary. But they show how Harris and her team will start mapping her prospective administration:
White House chief of staff: Harris, who has already made lots of history herself, might well make history with the first chief of staff who is Black — perhaps former Attorney General Eric Holder, who led the vetting of her veep options.
Republicans and the Trump campaign were quick to respond to Walz’s pick:
Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley called Harris and Walz ‘the most radical, far-left ticket in the history of our country,’ while the Trump campaign immediately began to call Walz a ‘rubber stamp’ for a ‘dangerously liberal agenda.’
Rep. Tom Tiffany, (R-Wis.), went even further, writing on X that Walz and Harris were ‘the SOCIALIST dream.’
In making their attacks, Trump and his allies zeroed in on Walz’s passage of a wide array of liberal priorities in Minnesota and his handling of the racial justice protests and riots in 2020, after George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis. They pointed to a Minnesota law requiring the state’s utilities to transition to carbon-free electricity sources by 2040; a law expanding voting rights for people convicted of felonies; and efforts to expand undocumented immigrants’ eligibility for health insurance and in-state tuition.
‘Kamala Harris just doubled-down on her radical vision for America by tapping another left-wing extremist as her VP nominee,’ began a video released by the Trump campaign Tuesday morning.
At noontime, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance addressed a rally in Philadelphia, four miles from where Harris and Walz spoke to a raucous rally of their own about five hours later.
Vance said Walz was ‘one of the most far-left radicals in the entire United States government at any level,’ pointing to a new Minnesota law that lets any resident regardless of immigration status obtain a driver’s license. Vance also criticized Harris over her decision to not select Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, saying she was bending ‘the knee to the most radical elements of her party.’ Democrats have sought to re-engage progressives angered by the Biden administration’s aid to Israel amid the conflict in Gaza, and Shapiro, who is Jewish and has been supportive of Israel, was seen by some as a risky choice.
On Monday evening around 9:20 PM ET, Vance appeared live on Sean Hannity’s FOX News program, apparently from Washington, D.C. Video of the Hannity-Vance interview, which ran about 13 minutes, is online here. Vance’s comments below, from a transcript provided by FOX News Media, have been condensed for clarity and edited for length.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: We’re only 91 days away from Election Day, 42 days away from early voting. Here with his thoughts, Republican vice presidential nominee, Senator J.D. Vance. I saw you in Pennsylvania today, unlike Kamala Harris, you were actually willing to talk to the press.
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: What I think is if you want to be the people’s vice president or president, you actually ought to go before the journalists, even the hostile ones, and actually answer some questions. Donald Trump does it nearly every single day. Of course, I’m willing to do it.
The fact that the media is letting her coast without answering a single question is really disgraceful. And the fact that Kamala Harris is willing to have this thing [the nomination] handed to her without actually persuading the American voters is really scandalous and shows she should never be president.
HANNITY: You talked about Tim Walz, and his record is a joke, and that also Kamala Harris bent the knee to the pro-Hamas wing of her party. Explain.
VANCE: Well, we know that the people who were considered were Josh Shapiro, [Arizona Sen.] Mark Kelly and this guy Tim Walz. And we know that Josh Shapiro in particular was attacked mercilessly from the far left for being Jewish, for not being anti-Israel enough, and, of course, he ran away from his own positions.
But the fact that you’re letting anti-Semites within the Democrat party drive so much of the conversation and so much of the decision-making for Kamala Harris is a really worrying sign. You have to ask yourself, who does Kamala Harris answer to? Does she answer to the American people or does she answer to the far left of her own party?
On issue after issue, from opening the border to supporting higher grocery prices on Americans, she has bent the knee to the far left of the party, and this decision, selecting Tim Walz, is another sign that she doesn’t care what the American people think. She is only in this to obey the far-left radicals within her own party. It's a really shameful moment for Kamala Harris.
You know, Tim Walz has all of these things we can point to. He’s a really far-left candidate. He’s a really far-left governor. But the fact that Kamala Harris selected him I think shows really, really poor judgment and that she doesn’t have what it takes to be president of the United States.
HANNITY: I want to go a little deeper. I want to go to these comments because I think they were pretty profound. And that’s from Van Jones who said, but you have anti-Semitism that has gotten marbled into this party. You can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot, but there are anti-Jewish bigots out there. He’s talking about his own party, the Democratic Party. How much of what just happened is caving into some of the darker parts of the party?
VANCE: You don’t have to judge my words. Just actually pay attention to what the Democrats said about Josh Shapiro. And numerous grassroots activists, numerous leaders within the Democrat party said you shouldn’t choose this guy because he’s Jewish.
I take them at their word. That’s face value and that is ridiculous for any American political party.
Obviously, you know, I don’t care ultimately who Kamala Harris selects, but I don’t want the vice presidential nomination of any party being determined by whether you have the right ethnic background. It’s profoundly anti-American.
And to your point, Sean, it goes to the heart of their terrible policy. These are guys who invited weakness. These are guys who invited the attack on Israel. These are people who invited every single anti-American despot all over the world to get richer and more powerful because of their policies.
And now that our allies and ourselves are under threat, they’re doing absolutely nothing about it.
We talked about the media not asking Kamala Harris questions. Here’s a question I’d like to ask Kamala Harris: If Joe Biden can’t do the job, and clearly he can’t, who’s actually in charge of the United States government right now? Is it you? And if you’re not doing something, why not?
Sen. J.D. Vance interviewed live on Hannity, August 6, 2024, Screenshot of FOX News video by Peter B. Chowka. Used by permission of FOX News Media
Vance went on to identify a number of issues he feels Harris and her newly named running mate are vulnerable on, starting with Social Security and Medicare.
VANCE: Kamala Harris has supported giving Medicare and Social Security benefits to illegal aliens.
So the question for the American people is, do you want to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare by giving it to illegal aliens? Because if so, Kamala Harris is your person.
If you want to preserve Social Security so that we don’t throw a generation of elderly Americans into poverty, then Donald Trump is your candidate.
And it’s very simple issue after issue.
Do you want an open border? If no, Donald Trump is your guy.
Do you want the American government to protect American citizens? If you do, then clearly, you have got to back Donald Trump.
Do you want a tax policy that promotes American workers and promotes building things in the United States of America? If so, you’ve got to vote for Donald Trump.
It’s really not complicated. On policy after policy, Kamala Harris is far to the left of even Joe Biden. She’s governed that way and she would do even worse if the American people give her a promotion.
Vance then returned to a discussion of the open border under the Biden-Harris administration.
VANCE: Border czar Kamala Harris has handwritten an invitation to every illegal alien and every terrorist across the world, ‘come in through our southern border, it’s wide open.’
They stopped deportations on day one. They tried to give amnesty to millions of people on day one. Kamala Harris wants to decriminalize illegal aliens and then give them health care at taxpayer expense once they actually get here.
That invites millions of people into our country who shouldn’t be here, Sean. And you asked about Iran earlier. One of the things that reduces our leverage to respond to Iran is that we know there are Iranian-backed terrorists who are in this country right now.
There’s no way that they couldn't be here with over 10 million people coming in, in just the last three years.
Kamala Harris has made us weaker because she has invited millions of illegal aliens into our country to break our laws and take advantage of taxpayer benefits.
One final point on this, Sean, when I talk to Americans, one of the biggest concerns I hear is why are housing costs so high? I’ll give you two reasons. Number one, there are 20 million illegal aliens here who shouldn’t be here who are competing with Americans for scarce homes. Number two, Kamala Harris has supported higher interest rates which makes mortgages totally unaffordable for normal people.
So these policies make ordinary Americans suffer. Of course, we haven’t even talked about the fentanyl crisis. On issue after issue, she’s putting the interest of illegal aliens above American citizens.
We’ve got to stop Kamala Harris, and the only way to do that is to support Donald Trump at the ballot box.
HANNITY: Let me ask you a last question. You know, there was a lot made out of January 6th and we learned a lot more. We learned that they had actionable intelligence leading up to that.
We learned there were five people in the Oval Office days before January 6. I interviewed four of the five, and that all are on record saying that Donald Trump wanted to call up the [National] Guard and Muriel Bowser, the mayor of D.C., said no.
I don’t want to get back into that. But how is it there was no attention paid to the fact that there were 574 riots [in the summer of 2020 following George Floyd’s death]? As I mentioned, dozens of dead Americans, billions in property damage, thousands of injured cops. That sounds like insurrection.
VANCE: A good question, Sean. Sounds like insurrection to me, too.
And Governor Walz actually promoted the Black Lives Matter rioters who set Minneapolis on fire, destroyed a lot of Black businesses, destroyed a lot of wealth in these historically Black neighborhoods. And it really caused the poverty to skyrocket in Minneapolis.
The fact that he was supporting the rioters burning down Minneapolis and then Kamala Harris was trying to bail them out of prison suggests they're the wrong team for this country. We don’t want that approach taken nationwide.
Peter Barry Chowka has been reporting on national elections since 1964, starting in high school. Later, he reported from several national political conventions and traveled around the country with presidential candidates. Peter is a frequent invited guest on the BBC, the largest broadcaster in the world (his July 27 appearance is here). He has been a frequent contributor to American Thinker since 2007.