I’ve watched a lot of presidential campaigns, and I can’t remember one in which the contest for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination has played out quite so publicly. And that’s allowed for some voices and figures to break through who you might not have imagined before. Foremost among them is Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, because of one interview on “Morning Joe,” saying of Donald Trump and JD Vance, “These guys are just weird.”

That was the interview heard around the Democratic Party. I remember it hit me on social media. I saw that and thought, “Oh, that really connects.” And then all of a sudden, it was all you heard from Democrats. “Weird, weird, weird. These guys are weird.”

Why did this connect this way? And is there a risk of this falling into something that can bedevil Democrats, coming off as an insult to Trump’s supporters, like Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment in 2016?

I wanted to hear Walz go deeper on all of this. He grew up in a small town in the Midwest and repeatedly won a congressional seat that was quite red. So I also wanted to hear his thoughts on why the Democrats have been losing the types of voters he knows so well and how to win them back.

Walz joined me for a conversation on my podcast. This is an edited transcript of our conversation.