I traveled with Tim Walz after the second attempted Trump assassination. Here’s how he reacted

REUTERS

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Three days after Secret Service agents protecting former president Donald Trump fired shots at a gunman who was allegedly lying in wait for him as he golfed at one of his country clubs, the Harris-Walz presidential campaign is continuing with business as usual.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz declined to address the horrific events — the second attempt on the Republican presidential nominee’s life since a bullet came within inches of killing him during a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — as he boarded the campaign’s charter aircraft for a swing through battleground states Georgia and North Carolina. Hours later, when the plane landed in Macon, Georgia, Walz did not answer shouted questions from The Independent asking him if he had a reaction to the attempted shooting. But he finally addressed the matter the next morning when he arrived at a Harris-Walz field office in East Macon.

As the campaign volunteers — arranged at long tables through the office for phone-banking — looked on intently, Walz said it was “worth noting” what had happened to Trump in Florida.

He called it a “horrific situation” and said he was “thankful” for the Secret Service and law enforcement, gesturing to the security detail that surrounded the room where he was speaking as he did. He also said he was “grateful” that Trump was safe.

“I think all of us know we don’t solve our differences in this country with violence. We condemn it in all its forms. We solve our differences at the ballot box. That’s how we get this done,” Walz added.

Traveling with Kamala Harris’s running-mate can be a surreal affair. Instead of the indignities of dealing with the Transportation Security Administration, airport security consists of a dog sniffing your gear and a Secret Service agent riffling through your baggage while it sits on a hot airport tarmac. You stand under the plane’s wing as his motorcade arrives, shouting queries at the top of your lungs over the roar of an idling turbofan engine in hopes that Walz will deign to shout back an equally-hard-to-hear reply.

Once on board, if you’re lucky enough that the flight attendants on the charter aircraft do offer anything to eat, you make a point of eating it — whatever it is — because once you’re in the vans that shuttle reporters from event to event as part of a lights-and-siren motorcade, you never know when you’ll next have a chance to consume anything to keep your energy up.

The North Star State governor would later decline to answer a question from The Independent on his reaction to Trump placing blame for both assassination attempts on the rhetoric used by Vice President Kamala Harris and other top Democrats.

Though Walz comes off as an affable presence who normally wouldn’t hesitate to mix it up with reporters, the Harris-Walz campaign has taken pains to keep both “principals” from taking too many press questions, even when they’re traveling alongside a pool of journalists. And this week, Walz was ensconced at the front of the aircraft with rows and rows of staff — and armed Secret Service — between him and the press cabin, which was positioned at the rear of the plane.

On the plane with Tim Walz this week, the press cabin was separated by numerous rows from Walz and his security details (Andrew Feinberg)

That means it’s not unusual to have to ask numerous times before you get an answer — or to have to wait until you arrive at an event where the vice president or her running-mate is due to make remarks.

Speaking to the audience of enthusiastic volunteers and supporters in Macon after we’d landed, Walz told them that by their presence there, they “clearly” understood that “this idea of democracy” is “a joy to be a part of,” particularly since “billions of people around the world” aren’t in a position to decide on their own elected representatives.

The election Americans will take part in this November, he continued, will center around whether the country is “a place where the middle class is put forward, or a place where billionaires are put forward,” and decide whether America is “a place where our politics … is a joyful endeavor.”

“Politics is about community. Politics is about everyone matters and everyone’s welcome. That’s what we know,” he said. “It’s not about the smallest common denominator.” Quoting Vice President Harris, Walz added that “a lesson that Donald Trump could learn” on democracy is that true leaders “are the ones who lift people up” rather than “the people who beat others down.”

The governor’s remarks came as he opened his half-day visit to Georgia, which is set to conclude with engagements in Atlanta before he moves on to North Carolina for a campaign rally.

The Peach State narrowly delivered its electoral votes to President Joe Biden four years ago. Until Biden exited the presidential race in July, it appeared that it would go back into the Republican column this November. But Harris’s ascendancy to the top of the Democratic ticket and her selection of Walz as her running-mate has upended the race in an unprecedented fashion.

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With election day less than 50 days out, the combination of Harris — the first Black woman atop a presidential ticket — and Walz, the former National Guard soldier and teacher-turned politician, are newly competitive in a state that has been trending towards the Democrats for years. Even as Republicans continue to have a lock on all statewide offices save for Georgia’s two senate seats, the GOP knows it can’t get too comfortable.

Indeed, recent polling has shown Harris cutting into Trump’s lead in Georgia or taking a slight lead of her own. An average of polls from FiveThirtyEight shows her just four tenths of a per cent behind him, 47.6 per cent to 47.2 per cent.

A polling average computed by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ shows her just three tenths of a point behind Trump, 48 per cent to 47.7 per cent.

One Harris-Walz staffer working on the campaign’s efforts in the state said Georgia “is absolutely in play” this time around. And Walz told the volunteers in Macon as much as he wrapped his remarks.

He said that the election will certainly be a close one, with the outcome determined not by social media clout-chasing but by hard work on the ground.

“This is not going to be won in a Twitter fight. It’s going to be by neighbors calling up neighbors on the phone,” he said. “I think one of the things is we know it’s going to be a close race. It’s going to come down to a few states. Georgia’s probably at the center of that is a big piece. That’s the privilege. That is a privilege that you have because you are the people in this room that could very likely make a difference in putting Kamala Harris as Madam President.”

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