Speaking at a South Carolina Democratic Party event on Saturday, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) called on Democrats to have the 'courage' to pass policies that he believes will garner support for the party.
00:00But I will make the case, I think it's been missing, and I want to be specific here, at a national level, at a national level of who we are, what's our party brand.
00:10Right now, I think governors have an opportunity as much as anyone to make a difference, and I would make the case.
00:19That's why you need to elect one here, by the way.
00:21You know, there's a program with your tax dollars that you can feed hungry children in the summer with a summer nutrition program?
00:35And you've got governors like right here that say, we don't want that money, we don't want to turn it away, we don't want to expand it.
00:41Or Medicaid, you can expand Medicaid coverage, don't want to expand Medicaid coverage.
00:47In Minnesota, though, I think we've got a little different proof plan.
00:50Now, you may have heard us, we talk about this a lot.
00:53In Minnesota, we are not the Democratic Party.
00:56We're the Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
00:59We're two parties that came together.
01:02There's a reason for that.
01:04We know who we work for in Minnesota.
01:06And we also know that those are folks, whether it's labor or ag or middle class folks, that you need to get the job done.
01:14So, look, I was just mentioning to some of your senators this morning, we were talking together,
01:20you think of Minnesota as being a blue state, oh, my, my, my, we are a purple state.
01:26From 1990 to 2010, we didn't have a Democratic governor, it was all Republicans.
01:32When I got elected in 2018, that was the first time in our state's history we ever had back-to-back Democratic governors.
01:39We'd never done it before.
01:42And, and when we took full power in 2022, where we had the House and the Senate and the governor's office,
01:53we had a one-seat majority, one seat in the Senate.
01:59And what I said when we all got together the day after the election was,
02:03we don't win these elections to bank that political capital so that we can run again and win again.
02:08We burn this capital as fast as we can to improve people's lives, every bit of it.
02:19And I said, we get everything done, we can go home and do something else and set up here and argue about politics all the time,
02:25because I don't know about you, I enjoy being here and everything,
02:28but I wouldn't mind being mowing my yard or golfing or doing something else.
02:32But it requires us to be here.
02:34So I said, let's get to work.
02:36And the first thing we did was, we created the nation's biggest child tax credit,
02:41cutting childhood poverty by a third,
02:44and making Minnesota having the lowest childhood poverty rate in the country.
02:51In Minnesota, if you or someone in your family gets sick,
02:54or you have a child, or you need to have something done,
02:57you get 12 full weeks of paid family and medical leave for the work to be able to do that.
03:06And I taught school for a couple decades,
03:08and I'll tell you what, the saddest damn thing in the world was to see a kid come in,
03:11put their number into the machine and see they had no money in their lunch account,
03:14and see them turn them around.
03:16So in Minnesota, we don't ask you to fill out any damn paperwork or say anything.
03:20Every kid who walks through the door of the school gets free breakfast and free lunch every single day.
03:25Every day.
03:27And we're damn tired of corporations having all the decisions about this,
03:34so we expanded the nation's largest and most aggressive expansion
03:38of labor rights and union organizing in the country.
03:46We invested in manufacturing.
03:48We are home to the per capita highest number of Fortune 500 companies,
03:52and we have the longest longevity of new company startups of any place in the country.
03:56We made the largest investments in our public schools,
03:59and we are now at a 30-year low of driving down violent crime across our state.
04:04So you get a tax credit, your kids can go to school in a good school with teachers being paid a fair wage and eat a fair meal.
04:16You can get health care coverage.
04:18If you get sick, you get paid family and medical leave.
04:21Your kids don't get shot dead in the classrooms as they shouldn't.
04:23And all of those things happened because we went from being in the minority to being in the majority by one vote,
04:33and we had a governor who was willing to sign those things into law.
04:36And guess what happened?
04:38People saw their lives improve, more money in their pocket, the middle class being in charge, and labor unions expanded.
04:44Those were things that the working class cared about.
04:50And guess what?
04:53If you do those things, they'll vote for you the next time.
04:57They will come back and do the work.
05:00So every day, we're proving what's possible is instead of Trump's cruelty and corruption,
05:08we focus on courage and competency.
05:10Have the courage to vote for those things.
05:12Have the courage to stand up and do what's right.
05:16Have the courage to not worry about if you get reelected as long as it improves someone's life.
05:20And get the things done.
05:26Embrace the big things.
05:28Sweat the little things.
05:29And we're not afraid.
05:30I'm not afraid to reach across and work with Republicans.
05:34But I'm also not afraid to stand up and say there's no way in hell that we are compromising on basic human rights and basic personal freedoms.
05:42So now, we're one of the friendliest states to start a business in.
05:51So Democrats, get this.
05:52You can stand up for working people.
05:54You can stand up for labor unions.
05:56You can stand up for fair wage.
05:58You can stand up for the idea that health care is a human right.
06:01But you can also be, because all of those things make businesses healthier, make the economy healthier, make businesses grow.
06:10We're the party of business.
06:12We're the party of the economy.
06:14We're the party that grows personal wealth.
06:19And I'll tell you what, we're also one of the freest states in the country where you make your decisions.
06:26We trust you.
06:27We're no damn nanny state that tells you what to read and who you sleep with and whatever else you do.
06:31Those are your decisions.
06:34Those are your decisions.
06:35And in the surveys that come out, there's two that I'm really proud of.
06:41We were recently ranked the best place to have a child in the country, from health care to the things that we have.
06:48And I'll tell you what, this one.
06:51We dropped to second in this category.
06:54And we got a little more work to do, but I think this matters.
06:57When they rate all the 50 states, Minnesota ranks second in happiness.
07:01We are the second happiest state.
07:06And it's cold as hell, too.
07:08And we're still happy.
07:11No such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.
07:15The reason I'll settle for second is Hawaii's first, so they're happy as heck.
