Trump Campaign Responds to Kamala's VP Selection by Using Tim Walz's Own Words Against Him

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faced criticism from the Trump campaign after being selected as Vice President Kamala Harris's running mate for the Democratic presidential ticket.

“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running mate — Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s press secretary, said in a statement.

Leavitt further criticized Walz's view of rural America, stating, “While Walz pretends to support Americans in the heartland, when the cameras are off, he believes that rural America is ‘mostly cows and rocks.’ From proposing his own carbon-free agenda to suggesting stricter emission standards for gas-powered cars and embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote, Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide.”

She concluded, “If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: Just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”

In 2017, Walz made a controversial remark about rural Minnesota. In a recording posted to X, Walz said, “You see those maps. Red and blue, and there’s all that red across there. And Democrats go into depression over it. It’s mostly rocks and cows that are in that red area.”

The Republican Governors Association condemned his comment, stating, “It’s disgusting that Walz is peddling the insulting narrative used by urban elites — that rural Americans who tend to vote Republican are worthy of disparagement. If Tim Walz is willing to insult and dismiss rural Minnesota, he isn’t fit to be governor.”

During his tenure as governor, Walz made Minnesota a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants, indicating his opposition to local law enforcement cooperating with federal immigration officials.

“My position on Minnesota becoming a sanctuary state boils down to who has the responsibility for enforcing immigration laws,” Walz said in 2018, as reported by the New York Post. “Congress has given federal agencies the authority to enforce immigration laws in Minnesota, and I support their doing so. Congress has not given local law enforcement that same authority. The role of law enforcement is to enforce state and local laws, not federal immigration laws, and I strongly believe that they should not do so.”

As governor, Walz also supported providing state-funded health care, driver’s licenses, and college tuition reimbursement to illegal immigrants.