FULL: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Breaks Down Trump's Tariffs, Democrats' Future With CNN's Jake Tapper

Forbes Breaking News

On CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) spoke about President Trump's tariffs and the future of the Democratic party with Jake Tapper.

Transcript

00:00You're the governor of an agriculture-heavy state, one of the top five in the country,

00:03I believe.

00:04What's your reaction to what you just heard from the Agriculture Secretary?

00:08Yeah, good morning, Jake.

00:10Well, I'm stunned.

00:12Your questions were spot on.

00:14It's very clear that she talked about the people she's listening to.

00:17That is not the agricultural community.

00:19It is certainly not producers.

00:20It's not folks like Cargill, CHS, General Mills, who are out in my district.

00:24Look, this is a really precarious time, and the flippant nature that we're just trying

00:30something new here is really dangerous.

00:33These markets took us years to develop, and we have to be dependable trading partners.

00:39They don't come back overnight, and everyone knows in the history of trade wars, agriculture

00:43gets hit the hardest, so I'm deeply concerned.

00:46It's our number one export, adding the tariffs, our two biggest export markets are Mexico

00:51and Canada.

00:52They're our great friends.

00:54This is just really, really terrifying.

00:56I would encourage, and I'll call the Secretary, I'd encourage her to come to Minnesota and

01:00see everything that she said is not what's happening on the ground.

01:03So look, it's a precarious time.

01:04So let me ask you, because another group you're in touch with are the United Auto Workers

01:08Union.

01:09You have a lot of that.

01:10They have supported you for years and years and years.

01:12They were excited to have you on the Democratic ticket.

01:15President Trump argues that these tariffs are needed to bring American manufacturing

01:18back and to help American workers left behind in places like Minnesota.

01:23He has support from the UAW.

01:25The UAW called his auto tariffs, quote, a long overdue shift away from a harmful economic

01:29framework that has devastated the working class.

01:31It signals a return to policies that prioritize the workers who build this country rather

01:36than the greed of ruthless corporations, unquote.

01:39I have to say, that sounds a lot like language you would use.

01:43What do you say to the UAW?

01:45Yes.

01:47It is what I would use, and here's the thing that the Democrats have to figure out.

01:50Donald Trump's language around this, he's not wrong that we've had manufacturing gutted.

01:54He's not wrong that we saw an outshoring.

01:56People of my generation were told, you know, there aren't going to be any manufacturing

02:00jobs so you need to go to college and rack up student loan debt.

02:03The problem is Donald Trump's solution to this is not the solution.

02:06Now, UAW is right.

02:08Certain tariffs, if they're on to steel or if they're targeted correctly, do make a difference.

02:13That's not what we're dealing with here.

02:14So just last week 650 taconite miners were laid off.

02:18Those taconite miners are mining the taconite to make the steel to build the automobiles.

02:23So I don't disagree where they're at, and I think this is the Democratic dilemma.

02:27Donald Trump talks about the things that are real in the angst of people's lives.

02:32He doesn't do a damn thing about it.

02:34In fact, he does just the opposite and he pals around with the people that caused the

02:37problem and we don't offer him a solution so it looks like we're not hearing him.

02:41So I disagree with Sean Fain and UAW on this issue.

02:45I don't disagree with them on that we made decisions over the last 30 to 40 years that

02:50I don't think helped America, but this is not the solution to it.

02:54Isolating ourselves is not the solution.

02:56We need to make sure that we're focusing, and again, I would just end with this, Jake.

02:59Donald Trump has not once ever cared about workers.

03:02This is why you need to support unions across the board, support the ability to have a living

03:06wage.

03:07So you're in Ohio right now.

03:08You've been holding these town halls in red districts across the country.

03:12You're saying Democrats need to do a better job of reaching Trump voters.

03:16I want to play something you said at an event in Texas last month.

03:21We let them define the issue on immigration.

03:24We let them define the issue on DEI and we let them define what woke is.

03:31We got ourselves in this mess because we weren't bold enough to stand up and say, you're damn

03:36right we're proud of these policies.

03:37We're going to put them in and we're going to execute them.

03:42The issues you identified there were immigration, DEI, and woke.

03:46You think Democrats' problem was that you just didn't do a good enough job explaining

03:49the policies and not that voters simply didn't just reject what you were selling, particularly

03:54on immigration, I wonder?

03:56No.

03:58On immigration, what we were asking for is a bipartisan policy that strengthens immigration

04:03control, that recognizes that we need a workforce here, that they should be allowed here legally,

04:09and that when they get here, they're part of the American fabric, and that is the bipartisan

04:14bill we had.

04:15Donald Trump snatching up college grad students and sending them back or sending folks to

04:19El Salvador illegally, that's not the policy, but for us to them to say we don't care that

04:24violent criminals come in, we most certainly do, what we were asking for is the resources

04:28to make sure they don't get here.

04:30And the same thing with the other policies.

04:33It's not a woke policy to provide food for children, to get breakfast and lunch, and

04:38we get better outcomes from that.

04:40They defined things on their terms that weren't true, and what I'm saying is, are we going

04:44to turn away from being a country of legal immigration?

04:48Are we going to turn away from a country that thinks diversity and making sure that we don't

04:53have gaps in income between blacks and whites?

04:57Those are policies that have strengthened America, and I think what we allowed ourselves

05:00to do is we got timid, and then when we got power, we didn't pass things that improved

05:05people's lives.

05:07This whole idea I think the Democratic Party gets theoretical, you know, talk about food

05:11insecurity.

05:12People are hungry, get them food.

05:15People don't have a house, make sure they have a living wage.

05:17That's the point that I'm saying is, you know, Fox News will glorify, oh, he's for DEI.

05:22Not your definition of DEI.

05:23My definition is rule of law that's fair, that everybody gets an opportunity, and that's

05:29the point I think we have to make.

05:30Now look, I'll first tell you, Jake, I'm out here doing what I can do.

05:34I don't know if I'm the best spokesperson to do it after just losing an election, but

05:38what I know is the public, and you saw it across the country this weekend, they're rising

05:43up and asking their leadership to do something.

05:45So we heard your former running mate Kamala Harris say she's not here to say I told you

05:49so, although obviously that's what she was saying about all the Trump chaos.

05:53We're seeing, I have to say though, what does I told you so really mean here?

05:56I mean, people heard her message.

05:58They did not vote for her.

05:59She lost every battleground state.

06:01You yourself have criticized the Harris-Walls campaign for being too cautious.

06:05She may have told the American people, you know, she may have warned the American people,

06:10but she didn't do it compellingly enough to win.

06:15That is the absolute point.

06:16And look, when I criticize, I'm criticizing myself.

06:18I own this.

06:19I'm part of the ticket.

06:20And somebody has to come up with a strategy.

06:22I think this is exactly right.

06:24This is the thing.

06:25Look, Democrats, it was a good night in Wisconsin.

06:28I was over there.

06:29We saw that happen.

06:30Donald Trump's doing this.

06:31I want to be clear.

06:32Nobody on the Democratic side is celebrating this, and those folks in the street are not

06:35celebrating that Donald Trump's making all these errors.

06:37I think what the vice president's saying is that was pretty self-evident that he was going

06:41to do that.

06:42I do think the challenge for Democrats, and this is, I think, a structural problem that's

06:46going to take a lot more thinking, why with all of that out there did they not think we

06:51were any better than that?

06:53And they didn't.

06:54And I'm very concerned with the folks who stayed home.

06:57And these are folks that I'll say once again, Donald Trump has identified their angst.

07:01They can't buy a house.

07:02They can't afford to get a good education.

07:05They're concerned that their economic future is so precarious it could slip out from under

07:09them.

07:10Less than half of Americans have $1,000 in savings.

07:14And I think, why was it not so compelling?

07:16It should have been a slam dunk for us to say, we're the party that cares about that.

07:20We're the party that's going to protect Social Security and Medicare.

07:24We're the party that thinks the ACA is a good start, but we need to do more on health

07:27care.

07:28And we didn't do that.

07:29So I'm concerned.

07:30Democrats do well in special elections and off-year elections.

07:33But the electorate that comes in presidential election years is different.

07:36When I was young, it was easy to know what a Democrat was.

07:39They stood with the working class and labor.

07:41Republicans were country club and for the rich.

07:43Today, you ask people, they don't.

07:46We have a 29% approval rating.

07:48It doesn't help us any that Donald Trump ends up with a 25% approval rating.

07:52We have to get back to the core issues that this is about making America prosperous and

07:58stable and innovative for everybody.

08:00Well, what do you make of the criticism that one of the reasons why your party was so resoundingly

08:04rejected last November is because Democrats were gaslighting the country, saying that

08:09inflation was not a big deal, heralding Bidenomics.

08:13Not only Biden, but Kamala Harris was heralding Bidenomics, pretending that there wasn't a

08:17problem at the border.

08:18And then fundamentally, this idea that President Biden was up for another four years of the

08:24job while Americans in poll after poll for year after year were saying he's too old to

08:29do the job.

08:31Your party stood against all of those things.

08:35Look, Joe Biden coming in and during COVID and being a governor through COVID did a hell

08:41of a job.

08:42But I think one of the things that we didn't do was is we assumed that we said, and it

08:46was true, that we were going to have a soft landing and our economy was better than the

08:50rest of the world.

08:51Better for who?

08:53Better for the working class who was saying groceries were too expensive, as they are

08:56now and going up.

08:58They got to see us talk about things, again, I go back to this, don't talk about food insecurity

09:04or housing type of issues.

09:06Talk about people being hungry and wondering where they're going to live or about their

09:09children's future, about real security.

09:11And so I think your question is spot on.

09:14I think we got intellectualized on this.

09:16I think the fact of the matter is Joe Biden did soft land the economy.

09:20He did usher us through COVID.

09:22None of us are saying we should be soft on the border, but we allow a vacuum and Donald

09:27Trump fills it, the 800 pound gorilla, and their narrative starts to stick.

09:32And we look weak.

09:33We look weak like we don't care.

09:35We look like we, look, Jake, I'm not going to say, you know, we need to do is we need

09:38to just arrest people and ship them to El Salvador.

09:41No, we need to do invest the money on border.

09:43We need to make sure that we have the judges necessary to adjudicate things faster.

09:47We need to make sure if you're going to be in this country here legally, when you are,

09:50you're going to be uplifted, celebrated and part of this great American tapestry.

09:53We didn't do that.

09:54And then they, it fills them.

09:56They'll find the example that is horrific where you have someone who's not here legally

10:00and they commit a crime that is horrific, but we don't do a good job of telling that.

10:05Don't you think your party needs to acknowledge that president Biden was not up for the job

10:10of running for reelection and that this was a major mistake by, he made that decision.

10:15I know, but you all went along with the idea that he was up for it and he wasn't and everybody

10:20saw it and the country rejected it.

10:23Yeah, well, I look, history will tell us to go back on that.

10:27That very well could be the case, Jake.

10:29What I'm concerned about is learning from those lessons.

10:32I would hope we would never do it again.

10:34Make a mistake, make sure we go through and get someone.

10:36But I don't know where it helps us going forward.

10:39I certainly am deeply concerned that Donald Trump is going to lead us down a horrific

10:43look.

10:44Thank God it's tariffs that he said, Donald Trump listens to no one.

10:46Remember Donald Trump has statements about, I don't think nuclear war would be that bad.

10:51I guess we're lucky that he went after tariffs instead of that route.

10:55We have an issue in this country that is going to impact us.

10:58And if there is not a loyal opposition, if there's not some soul searching on our side,

11:02if there's not reaching out to those folks who are in the streets, they're leading right

11:07now.

11:08And I would tell everybody, you better get with them.

11:10Yeah.

11:11Quick question, because we got to go.

11:12But you said you're not going to run for the Senate seat there.

11:16Are you going to run for a third term for governor?

11:17Are you possibly going to run for president in 2028?

11:20Well, I'm certainly thinking about running again in Minnesota, if that's what they want.

11:26I am not thinking about running in 2028.

11:28And my advice to folks is, if in this moment you're planning for 2028, you're going to

11:32get rolled by the people in the streets.

11:34You just need to be out there making sure you're helping and doing things like Cory

11:37Booker is doing, doing things like Bernie Sanders, AOC, things that we see people out

11:41talking to folks.

11:42So for me, I'm going to get through this legislative session.

11:44If the folks in Minnesota want me, I'm kind of inclined to do that.

11:48And I just want to play my part to make sure we cannot afford to allow Donald Trump or

11:52his successor to go forward, because you're seeing the pain.

11:55Good to have you back here, Governor Walz.

11:57Oh, and happy birthday.

11:5861 years young today.

12:00Congratulations.

12:0161.

12:02Thanks so much.

12:03Good to see you.

12:04Good to see you.

Category

Transcript

Recommended