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Donald Trump launched into a scathing attack against Tim Walz on Wednesday morning, calling into Fox & Friends to brand the Minnesota governor a “shocking pick” for vice president who will “immediately” push the country towards communism.
“He’s a very liberal man and he’s a shocking pick,” Trump told hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade in an animated phone call to the network.
“There’s never been a ticket like this. This is a ticket that would want the country to go communist immediately, if not sooner.”
He continued: “He’s very heavy into transgender. Anything transgender he thinks is great.”
The former president spoke out hours after Kamala Harris announced she had chosen Walz, 60, as her running mate, calling him a “partner who can help build this brighter future”.
Following the announcement, Trump’s campaign team had quickly fired off a dramatic fundraising email claiming the Minnesota governor will “unleash hell on Earth” – fiery comments that led a wider Republican meltdown over Harris’s choice of VP pick.
Wednesday morning marked the Republican presidential nominee’s first public comments on the Democratic appointment, with Trump describing Walz as a “smarter version” of Harris who has a similar political stance as progressive Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders – picking up an attack line used by Lauren Boebert yesterday.
He also claimed that Walz’s pick is “very insulting to Jewish people,” a clear jibe at the policy-maker’s more-sympathetic views towards Palestinian refugees trapped in the Israel-Hamas war.
The former president said that he had only spoken to Walz once: when Black Lives Matter protests spread through Minneapolis in May 2020 following the murder of George Floyd.
Trump’s attack on Walz comes after the Minnesota governor-turned VP pick landed some blows on the former president and his own running mate JD Vance during his first rally with Harris on Tuesday night.
The Democratic duo were met with roars of applause when they kicked off their campaign speaking to the more than 12,000-strong crowd at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Walz called out his opposite number with a bruising joke as he called him out to the debate stage.
“I can’t wait to debate the guy... if he’s willing to get off the couch,” he said in reference to a viral online joke.
Walz’s swipe at Vance comes after he coined the now-iconic buzzword “weird” to describe Trump and Vance last month – an insult that the pair can’t seem to shake.
Josh Shapiro, who narrowly lost out to Walz as Harris’s VP pick, joined in with the crowd chanting that JD Vance is “a weirdo”.
