Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) did not disagree with 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton that their party could have been more proactive in protecting abortion access before the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade.
Walz, who represented Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District from 2007 to 2019, cited his first congressional campaign as an example when asked to respond to Clinton’s criticism.
“I don’t think she’s totally wrong,” Walz told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “Look, I ran in a conservative district, second Democrat since 1892, when I won a seat in Congress, and I was fully supportive of abortion rights. And this is back in 2005-2006. That was considered risky by a lot of people in our party.
“I think what the former secretary is getting at is that we maybe didn’t understand the threat that was coming, that we thought that Roe was going to protect us,” he said. “I think there were a lot of us, myself included, didn’t believe that.”
But although Walz agreed Clinton is “not wrong,” he contended Democrats have not been “flat-footed” since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, with abortion credited for the party’s strong performance in elections since 2022, despite poor polling data regarding the economy.
“I think that’s why states like Minnesota were firewalling things up,” the governor said. “We’re an island of decency out here. It’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ out here of the states surrounding me, from the Dakotas to Iowa, forcing women into these terrible situations.”
“So, no, I don’t totally disagree with her,” he added. “I think the difference is now, since the fall of Roe orchestrated by Donald Trump and his Supreme Court, that we are ready. And women are ready, men are ready. And those who think that this is just a distracting issue, this is a fundamental issue of personal freedoms and personal bodily autonomy.”
In an interview this weekend with the New York Times, Clinton previewed her new book, “The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America,” asserting “our side was complacent” and took Roe “for granted and thinking it would never go away.”
“We didn’t take it seriously, and we didn’t understand the threat,” Clinton said. “Most Democrats, most Americans, did not realize we are in an existential struggle for the future of this country.”
“[The right is] relentless. You know, they take a loss, they get back up, they regroup, they raise more money,” she continued. “It’s tremendously impressive the way that they operate. And we have nothing like it on our side.”
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Former President Donald Trump last week underscored that he would “never advocate imposing restrictions on birth control” after last month encouraging states to protect abortion access in the cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother, in addition to reiterating his support of in vitro fertilization.
“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both,” Trump said in April. “Whatever they decide must be the law of the land — in this case, the law of the state.”