Walz says Trump has been 'more effective' this term

Gov. Tim Walz keeps a copy of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint for the Trump administration, on his desk as a kind of scorecard for Donald Trump's second term.

- Eric Garcia, The Independent

For much of his 91 days as Kamala Harris' vice presidential running mate in 2024, he invoked the conservative roadmap and warned that Trump would enact its policies should he return to the White House, even as Trump tried to distance himself from it. “It's what I thought they would do,” Walz told The Independent in an exclusive interview about the first few months of the Trump administration, the 2024 campaign and the way forward for Democrats. “I think they've been more effective.” The Minnesota governor is in a unique spot in the Democratic Party. Once mostly known as a frontline Blue Dog Democratic congressman and then by others as a progressive governor, Walz curried favour with various wings of the party coalition to become Harris’ running mate ahead of some other prospects.

Walz also hit Republicans with an attack that stuck throughout the veepstakes: calling them “weird,” which Walz sticks by now that Republicans are in power. “This is their obsession with other people's bedrooms, their just crazed economic theory around tariffs, the idea of hundreds of years of our allies who stand for the same values and to be thrown away,” he said. He also expressed disappointment that Republicans have not stood up to Trump when it comes to issues over the rule of law or affording everyone, including non-citizen asylum seekers, due process. And this does not even begin to go into Trump's late-night tirades. In the wee hours of Monday, the day of the interview, Trump called for an “investigation” into singer Bruce Springsteen for his endorsement of Harris and Walz. “Watching the craziness of Trump put out an Al video of him playing a Journey song because he’s pissed off at Bruce Springsteen, is — that's, that's not what an American president does,” he said. “I still believe a majority of Americans do not want to see a nearly 80 year old man pretend like he can play rock music because he's pissed off at an icon.”