Walz Speaks at Human Rights Campaign Event

… and let’s welcome the next Vice President of the United States of America, the Governor, Tim Walz.

But I’ve seen it all in a small town.

(00:05)
Had myself a ball in a small town.

(00:05)
Married an L.A. doll and brought her to this small town.

(00:05)
Now she’s small town just like me.

(00:05)
No, I cannot forget from where it is that I come from.

(00:05)
I cannot forget the people who love me.

Wow. Well, thank you everybody. Thank you everyone. Thank… Thank you, HRC.

(01:15)
Wow.

(01:18)
Well, thank you for inviting me and more importantly, maybe thank you for the privilege of being able to stand with each one of you. President Robinson, thank you for the kind introduction. I’d also like to say on a point of personal privilege, there’s a strong contingent of Minnesotans in the house. So, thank you Minnesotans.

(01:43)
For all of you here tonight and around the country listening who’ve done so much to advance the cause of equality and freedom. I’m proud to count so many of you as friends. I’m grateful that you brought your time, your talents and your treasures to be here tonight, and I’m fired up to be at your side. I got to tell you, because of all the things that are going on, all the places you could be, all the things you could have done, you came here tonight. One is, it’s the best party in the country tonight, so that’s why you’re here. But the deeper reason you’re here is for that very simple and beautiful reason; you love this country and that’s why you’re here. You love the principles that we stand for.

(02:23)
Well, for some of you who don’t know, I am Tim Walz and I’m the governor of Minnesota right now, but I like to make sure that I say that I was a school teacher for a lot of years, but right now I’m proud to be the running mate of the next President of the United States, Kamala Harris. The privilege of getting to know this phenomenal leader. From a prosecutor, district attorney, attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president. Yes, by the way, she’s more qualified than anybody that’s ever run for this office, let’s just be clear. But she didn’t just take those talents for herself. She fights every single day on the side of the American people.

(03:09)
And what I have to say, of all the things that the other side has messed up, the other things that they’ve done, the thing that I’ll not forgive them for is the thing that Vice President Harris is fixing most. She’s bringing joy back to our politics. Decency back to how we do things. And this is not a new thing for her. This started a long time ago, and for the folks of California, in 2010, our Californians who are here, in 2010, this is the joy she brought. So here’s the scene. Years earlier as the DA of San Francisco, Vice President Harris took on and took one of the toughest stances in the nation against hate crimes. She led the fight to end the hateful gay and transgender panic defense. We know what that leads to, and we know the countless deaths and misery that was brought upon by that. She took it on and she also officiated some of the first same-sex marriages in the entire country.

(04:15)
Then she went on to become the attorney general of the largest state in the country, and the moment it arrived, to defend marriage equality, and she threw her whole self into that fight. If you know Kamala Harris, she doesn’t just pick these fights when she talks about it, and this is the thing to keep in mind. All she does is win. All she does is win. So when the word came down that same-sex marriage had been legalized in California, two plaintiffs asked Kamala Harris to officiate her ceremony. While they were at city hall celebrating that marriage she got a call from two more plaintiffs saying that a clerk in Los Angeles County was denying their marriage certificate. So she grabbed the phone, and some of you’ve seen this. She asked them to put the clerk on the line and she did what she did best. She didn’t mince words and she made it very clear. She said, “This is Kamala Harris. You must start the marriage immediately.” And then she added, and I don’t know if this always gets in the videos, she added the best line to that. She told the clerk, “Have a good day and enjoy it. It’s going to be fun.” She hasn’t looked back from that day. As a U.S. senator she fought hard for the Equality Act, introduced a bill to make sure you ensured access to PrEP. And as vice president and I say this, it is not a stretch in the facts are there. This is the most pro-LGBTQ+ administration in American history. She helped President Biden pass the landmark Respect for Marriage Act, requiring every state and territory to fully honor same-sex and interracial marriage, and she helped stop the ignorant and Byzantine practice of banning gay and bisexual men from donating blood.

(06:21)
I think it’s important in this room for us to remember these things because keep in mind, there’s some other folks on the other side given one chance to get back in the White House, they will go back at every one of these things we talk about. We talk about progress and moving forward because she said it, “We’re sure the hell not going back on these things, we’re not going to go back, but be clear, they’re going to be there.” Things like strengthening mental health resources for LGBTQ+ youth. We know what the statistics are. They’re horrific for our young people from suicides to self-harm to all of the other things that go with it. We know that this fight is the most important fight that’s on our plate. So I have to tell you, she made human rights for LGBTQ+ individuals around the world, a top priority in this nation’s foreign policy. We must lead. We must be the country that leads on it.

(07:19)
She worked with President Biden on historic executive orders protecting folks from discrimination, and the reason she did it was pretty simple. Kamala Harris believes in equal justice under law, and that means, not very complicated, equal justice under law.

Yeah.

(07:38)
Woohoo.

It is not to be debated. It’s not that difficult. The precedence is set. But look, we know what this fight is. We know that we can all relate to some of this. And I’ll tell you this fight, and I think about it for me, for some of you maybe heard this, I was born in a small place called West Point, Nebraska. I grew up-

Woohoo.

Yay, somebody’s from West Point. There we go. There’s two of

The town I grew up in had 400 people, 24 classmates, 12 were cousins. Somebody brought up the prom dating to me. Yes, it’s interesting. But look, when you’re in a community like that, community was a way of life. My folks showed me, “Teach generosity to your neighbors. Work hard for the common good.” Those are values that I brought work as a social studies teacher and a high school football coach. Now, those of you who teach know this. You learn far more from your students than they learn from you, no matter how good of a teacher you are. You know how that works. So, some of my students, and this is in the late-’90s, were concerned about an uptick in bullying amongst the gay and lesbian community in our school. One of those brave students is here tonight. Jacob Reitan is a dear friend of mine who’s here. Look, I’m coaching football. I’m an old, straight, white guy. I’m teaching social studies. You’re all picturing the damn stereotype here. Turns out that I’m like opposite world of Tommy Tuberville though, so in this, for some of you. So, when Jake asked if I’d be interested in being the advisor to the Gay-Straight Alliance, I said, “Absolutely.” I understood what it meant to be that older, straight, white guy who was coaching football.

(09:45)
Allyship is a great thing, but what many of you in here knows is, it’s easy to be an ally when it’s easy to be an ally. What really matters is knowing who’s going to be at your side and stand up when it’s hard. And it was in those moments that those students inspired me years later. Look, I’m a 40-something guy with little kids who is teaching school, trying to pay the mortgage. The idea of running for office never got to me or thought about it. But those students inspired me. And what they saw in me is what I was trying to instill in them. This commitment to a common good, a belief one person can make a difference in other people’s lives.

(10:29)
So, in 2006, I took the leap, ran for Congress. No one told me at that time, and I, of course, apparently couldn’t google it. In that district, there had been one other Democrat since 1892. And in that red district, I was in a state that had banned same-sex marriage for a decade. But I knew I was right and I ran on the platform that supported equality. And this is what I said. I got asked at a debate if I supported civil unions. I said, “Sure, if that’s your thing.” But I said, “My marriage to my wife, Gwen, it’s the most important thing in my life. I love her deeply. Why would I stop anybody else from marrying the person they love? That makes no sense.”

(11:19)
Now, this was 2006, and some of you with a little more gray hair or less of it can remember this time, that the other side said, “Oh, a B-rate candidate finally showed his true colors by saying this.” Well, as it turned out, a majority of my neighbors agreed with us and they elected me to represent them in the United States House. And after it was over, some people came up to me and said, “Wow, you won in spite of being pro-choice and pro-gay marriage.” And I said, “No, no, no, you’ve got this wrong. I won because I was for those positions. That’s why we won.”

(12:08)
So, when I got to Congress, I showed up there and the House historian told me at the time, I was the highest ranking enlisted soldier at the time. I served on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. And I worked with my roommate, Patrick Murphy from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to overturn Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And was proud to be an early supporter for the Respect for Marriage Act, that we finally got passed and signed into law.

(12:36)
Now, I tell you this, again, no one should get a pat on the back for doing what’s right. For God’s sakes the bar is pretty damn low here to treat people like human beings. Equal justice under law. It’s not a high bar. It’s not a high bar, but we know the forces that are aligned against it. So, this is where champions rise up, whether it’s a young student at a school in Southern Minnesota or it was someone who I met and I wished I had not met under the circumstance it was, but someone who changed my life. I was there when we passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Prevention Act.

(13:11)
And I had the privilege when the final vote was coming up in the House and it was going to be close, I walked to the House floor through the tunnels from the Longworth House Office Building over to the Capitol. And I made that walk with Matthew’s mom, Judy Shepard, and the sheriff who found Matthew’s body tied to that fence post in Wyoming. And I remember walking with a mother who’d lost her son and hearing the sheriff tell me, “The only place that wasn’t bloody was where the tears ran down Matthew’s eyes.” And I watched a mother and the unbelievable pain that I couldn’t even fathom to lose a child this way, walk with her head held high to make sure that none of the rest of us ever have to get a call from someone. So, I just want to say my friend, Judy Shepard and her husband, Dennis, are here tonight. And I’d like us all to give them a big round of applause.

(14:40)
This room is full of heroes like that. Things that were done, some of them bigger, small things, ways to make people’s lives a little bit easier. But what I knew was when I had the chance to get elected to office and make a difference, look, there’s a lot of people … You don’t get elected to office to bank political capital so you can get elected again. You get elected to office to burn political capital, to improve lives as quickly as you can.

(15:08)
And so, when we got the majority in Minnesota, for the first time in over a decade, we had the governor’s office, we had the House, and we had the Senate by one vote. And we got busy. First thing we did is we banned conversion therapy in Minnesota. We protected transgender community and said, “In Minnesota, you are seen, heard, loved and respected, and safe. And safe in Minnesota.” And we did something a little bit, we banned banning books, especially banning LGBTQ books for themes in that. Think about it in this room. This is what these folks are focusing on, spending all their time, like reading about two male penguins who love each other is somehow going

… To turn your children gay, and that’s what you should worry about. But here’s what I’ll tell you. It’s a fact of life some people are gay, but you know what’s not a fact of life? That our children need to be shot dead in schools. That’s not a fact of life. Folks are banning books, but they’re okay with weapons of war being in our schools. Look, that’s not this country. It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t happen elsewhere. We’re going to make sure our children are seen, they bring their authentic selves, and then we’re going to make sure they’re safe when they get there. So thank you all.

(16:54)
What this election boils down to in a lot of ways, it’s fundamentally about freedom. Now, it’s not just a great song that Vice President Harris walks onto, although it is a great song that Vice President Harris walks onto. But it’s truly, fundamentally, what does freedom mean? And some of you in here, I keep coming back to it, some of us who are a little older because we’ve got to go back a little ways in history here. When Republicans used to talk about freedom, many of them actually meant it. They weren’t going to turn their backs on our allies. They weren’t going to leave Ukraine to themselves. They weren’t going to start doing the things they did. But that’s not true anymore. Donald Trump and J. D. Vance, their idea of freedom, that the government should be free to invade every corner of our lives, our bedrooms, our kids’ schools, even our doctor’s office.

(17:43)
And I say this. Where I come from, and I know where all of you come from, I respect my neighbor’s personal choices. I wouldn’t make some of the choices they make. But you know what? When it comes to personal things, bodily autonomy, your gender identity, when to start a family, marrying who you love, might sound a little bit old-fashioned on that but I think we just need to be really good neighbors. Everyone just deserves to be treated with respect, freedom to make that choice. And I keep reinforcing this because they talk about this. Government’s too big in all this. Big enough to be in my bedroom apparently, big enough to be in your uterus, big enough to be in every library, big enough to do that.

(18:29)
But here’s the thing. This society works best, whether it’s small towns or large towns, and I say this because I bet every state could say this, but in Minnesota, things work really well because we have a saying that I talk about a lot. Everything works better if you just mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. So nothing. This idea and this obsession, and you’ve heard me say this, they’re all angry that I’m being mean to them. The other night, Donald Trump did a town hall where he got to control what he said, and he reassured the audience there 11 times that he was not weird.

(19:21)
If you’re reminding someone you’re not weird, you probably are. Yeah, but look, my point was, who is asking for this agenda that they’re doing? Who’s asking for them to take away our freedoms? Who’s asking them to take away reproductive freedoms? And I spoke personally about this because it’s personal for so many of us in here, the decision of how and what way and what your family’s going to look like. Once again, that’s your decision. But for us, in my family, we had to go through fertility treatments. Thank God we had insurance. Thank God we had access to fertility treatments. And those of you, if you’ve been through this, whatever way that looks, it’s agonizing. Whether you’re waiting for adoption or you’re waiting for those phone calls, did the treatment work, and then finding out it didn’t and then starting again. It’s stressful. It’s hard. I sure the hell don’t need J. D. Vance giving me advice on it. It’s not helpful. It’s not helpful. And it’s a simple fix. You worry about your family, I’ll worry about mine. It’s a very simple fix.

(20:29)
So for us, I’ll have to tell you, when that call finally came and our daughter was born, it wasn’t by chance that we called her Hope because that was our belief. It was the strongest and most powerful word in the universe. And so my daughter Hope is here tonight with me by the way. And I don’t know if you saw it at the convention here last week, the vice president pretty much took back freedom from the other side, that that now belongs with us. And that’s what we’re saying, took back the flag. They haven’t cornered patriotism. And I’m not going to allow them to talk about family values while they’re doing everything possible to invade our personal lives and our families. And I think there’s a lot of people … This is just my pro-tip of the day.

(21:36)
Look, there’s two of us trying to … That have the privilege of, it’s kind of crazy in the country this big that there’s two people. One of the two is going to be the next Vice President of the United States. So my pro-tip to my opponent on the other side is quit talking about women’s childbearing issues. Quit talking about it. Because no one cares what your thoughts are on if my family counts or doesn’t. No one cares. No one cares.

(22:13)
And in Minnesota, and this is what I’m not going to take a back seat in. While those guys were banning books in their schools, we were banning hunger in ours. So if you’re going to talk about family values, then at least show up and vote when the child tax credit is there, which we know can reduce childhood poverty by a third. They didn’t do anything. When Donald Trump was in office, he made it more difficult. They didn’t do anything on lowering child care costs. Did you hear he’s got a plan on child care costs that no one in the world understood a damn word about it? Not one thing. But there are things you can do, and we did it in Minnesota. And one of the things you can do is you can start making sure that you’re doing things like the child tax credit and making it easier for same-sex couples to start and raise their families openly with love and pride and make sure that the support is there.

(23:12)
So that outdated, narrow ideology, there’s no one asking for it. But here’s what I worry about for all of you and for all of us. It’s not just what they did because they tried hard. This time, they’re not playing. They are coming to do the things that they said they wanted to do. And I said this as a football coach, if somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it. So when you keep hearing us, and I’ll talk about it every single day because I know what it will do. I know what it will do to destroy this country. This Project 2025 that’s out there to restrict freedoms, demonize this community, bully vulnerable children. The message is simple from all of us. And here in about 59

… Days you’re going to get a chance to send that message is leave our kids the hell alone. Leave our kids alone.

(24:12)
And I have to tell you this one too. And this is one that we keep remembering. And this is a thank you to all those folks. We talked about the don’t ask, don’t tell, but I want to make sure that we recognize this too. We’ve had thousands of brave transgender troops, decorated warriors who served this country in uniform. When Donald Trump was commander in chief, he belittled them and he banned them from service. Thankfully, President Biden and Vice President Harris rescinded that stupid bigoted policy.

(24:47)
If you want to serve this nation, you should be allowed to. And what we should do is respect that service. They should not get incoming fire from their commander in chief attacking their basic dignity, humanity, and patriotism. And I will say this, I didn’t serve for 24 years in this to have those guys diminish another troop’s service. I will stand with them every single time.

(25:14)
I know I’m preaching to the choir a little bit, but we got 59 days to sing, so the choir needs to sing. And I am a believer. Look, you heard me. I taught school for a couple decades, so I do know. And I supervised the lunchroom, by the way, for a lot of those times. So I’m once an eternal optimist. But two, I do know that fear is a good short-term motivator, but it doesn’t change behaviors. We’re not running against those guys. We need to know what they’re going to do. We need to know what we’re up against. We need to know what the threat is from them. But what we need to do over the next 59 days is get ready to tell people exactly what we’re going to do, exactly what Vice President then President Harris will do. So we’ll start by this, lowering taxes on working families and making sure those at the top and corporations can pay their fair share. They’re doing fine. They’re doing fine. We’re going to protect Social Security and Medicare, and we’re going to make sure the Affordable Care Act is strengthened.

(26:18)
And look, about a dozen states have it. If you’re in one of these states that have it, it’s great. But the rest of the country needs it. It is time for us to quit being the last country on earth to have paid family and medical leave for this. It is time to be done.

(26:37)
And it’s going to be very clear every single day, this freedom issue, that it’s going to be you and people make the decisions about their healthcare, not a politician. So look, everybody, everybody should be free to get an education. And that should be a path to the middle class. It shouldn’t be a path to crippling student loan debt for decades to come. We can fix this. And I’m going to say it once again. Our kids should be free to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the halls. It’s that simple.

(27:10)
Vice President Harris, fight, make sure that we continue to pass the Equality Act, enshrine anti-discrimination protections and LGBTQ Americans’ healthcare into law, housing, education, and so much more. Now, look, if it sounds like a tall order, I’ll say it again. I’m an eternal optimist. Think about this. When I was a kid growing up in Nebraska, being gay was illegal. Still technically illegal. Look how much has changed since this organization was founded 40 years ago. Can you imagine going back to me, a high schooler in the early ’80s, and saying, “You know what? We’re going to kick down the barriers. We’re going to open doors. We’re going to pass laws that lets you bring your authentic self, love who you want to love, and live the life that you want to live all by yourself with no interference from government”?

(28:06)
So I told you, hope and my hope is an incredibly powerful room, or incredibly powerful word. You look around this room, you can feel hope. You feel that people want to see this. We hope we win this election. We hope we pass these laws. We hope we lift people out of poverty. That’s a good thing to have. But my wife always reminds me of this. It’s not a damn plan. It’s not a plan to hope we win this election. We’ve got to have a plan and we’ve got to work for it. And I ask you to look around this room. We got about 3,500 people in this room.

(28:43)
What if we talk to one more person before this election? What if we do one more phone bank? What if we make one more door knock? What if we dig deep and give a little bit more to this campaign? Because what we know is this, politics is not an end. It’s a means to an end. If we want that hope to become reality, we’ve got to do the work to make it happen. I know you’re out there doing it. You came here tonight. You came here when you could have been somewhere else.

(29:10)
And in 59 days, we get to chart our way forward. We organize, we donate, we volunteer. And I’ve been saying this, when in life do you get a chance, in 59 days, to make an impact that will last for generations? Because we know if you want to go see what the alternative is, it’s the worst read in the world, but it’s 925 pages. It’s Project 2025. And as Vice President Harris said, we’re not going back to the days. We’re not going back to the discrimination. We’re not going to force our children into situations where they become suicidal. We’re not going to continue to demonize people because of who they are. And we’re not going to continue to allow people in this country to go hungry or to be shot dead because we don’t make decisions that can improve that. So we’ve got 59 days. 59 days. Each and every one of us. What every little bit we can do, we can make a difference. So I’ve been saying this, and I truly believe this, we can do anything for 59 days. Sleep when you’re dead. Worry about that later. But now is the time.

(30:21)
So it’s up to us. Vice President Harris, myself, our entire team, all of you, HRC. We’re fighting for a better country, a better world. We’re fighting for the folks who aren’t here tonight. We’re fighting for the folks who may not vote for us. But we’re doing it because it’s the values that this country were founded on. So as Vice President Harris said, if we’re willing to fight, we win. When we fight, we win. When we fight, we win. Thank you, HRC.

… Seen it all in a small town.

(30:53)
Had myself a ball in a small town.

(30:53)
Married an LA Doll and brought her to this small town.

(30:53)
Now she’s small town just like me.

(30:53)
No, I cannot forget from where it is that I come from.

(30:53)
I cannot forget the …