{"id":543,"date":"2025-03-02T14:29:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T14:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/02\/tim-walz-regrets-getting-sucked-in-to-addressing-trumps-pet-eating-lies-the-guardian-us\/"},"modified":"2025-03-02T14:29:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T14:29:53","slug":"tim-walz-regrets-getting-sucked-in-to-addressing-trumps-pet-eating-lies-the-guardian-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/02\/tim-walz-regrets-getting-sucked-in-to-addressing-trumps-pet-eating-lies-the-guardian-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Walz regrets getting \u2018sucked in\u2019 to addressing Trump\u2019s pet-eating lies – The Guardian US"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Tim Walz<\/a>, Kamala Harris\u2019s running mate in the November presidential election won by Donald Trump, says he deplores how much time he spent addressing the opposing campaign\u2019s decision to spread false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in Springfield, Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey sucked me in on\u201d that, Walz said in a recent episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast<\/a>. Echoing similar remarks that he made on a recent episode of the Fast Politics With Molly Jong-Fast podcast<\/a>, he added: \u201cI was just horrified and angry when they were demonizing folks in Springfield, Ohio. [And] there I was talking for almost a week about immigration, right where they wanted us to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, Walz said, Trump \u201cwas right, for whatever reason \u2026 that more people were OK with saying that than they were against\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Minnesota governor\u2019s commentary on the podcasts is some of his most extensive yet on one of the defining moments of his and Harris\u2019s defeat to Trump \u2013 who clinched a return to the White House \u2013 and his vice-presidential running mate, JD Vance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vance went<\/a> on CNN in mid-September, a little less than two months before the electoral polls closed, and essentially acknowledged that the rumors in question were rooted in \u201caccounts from \u2026 constituents\u201d but otherwise essentially a creation of his and Trump\u2019s campaign meant to draw viral attention to Springfield\u2019s relatively large Haitian population.<\/p>\n

Roughly 15,000 mostly Haitian immigrants had started legally trickling into Springfield \u2013 a city of about 60,000 \u2013 in 2017 to work in local produce packaging and machining factories, availing themselves of a temporary protected status (TPS). The status requires renewal after 18 months, and it was allocated to them because of political violence as well as unrest in their home country.<\/p>\n

Vance at the time said he felt it was OK \u201cto create stories\u201d about those people to get voters to focus on the White House\u2019s immigration policies while Harris was vice-president to Joe Biden, who had ended Trump\u2019s first presidency by defeating him four years earlier.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, at their lone debate more than a month later on 22 October, Walz invoked the widely debunked rumor that members of Springfield\u2019s Haitian community were stealing and eating local pets to accuse Vance of seeking to \u201cdemonize\u201d immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it becomes a talking point like this, we dehumanize and villainize other human beings,\u201d Walz said.<\/p>\n

The lies boosted by Vance upended daily life in Springfield for some who grappled with bomb threats<\/a> aimed at local hospitals and government offices.<\/p>\n

Walz told the New Yorker: \u201cThat bothered me on a real human basis. On that one, I was pretty fired up, pushing back, it wasn\u2019t fair, we need[ed] to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet none of it mattered. The Harris-Walz ticket ended up losing the electoral college to its Republican counterpart by a 312-226 margin. Trump and Vance, the former US senator from Ohio, also took<\/a> the popular vote by a margin of about 49.8% to 48.3%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were talking about immigration at a critical part of the campaign, and it was hurtful, and it pissed me off, and I was standing there to defend people,\u201d Walz said on Fast Politics. \u201cAnd it didn\u2019t do a damn bit of good electorally.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time Walz spoke to the two podcasts, one of the hallmarks of Trump\u2019s second presidency had been widespread workforce cuts affecting federal government agencies providing a wide array of services, including healthcare, military defense, weather forecasts and humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s cabinet had generally done little more than defend the cuts as substantial cost-reduction measures, despite a lack of evidence<\/a> that they would save as much money as the president and his billionaire businessman adviser Elon Musk boasted \u2013 and amid widespread concerns that the axed services could sooner or later bear a cost in the form of people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose people in all those positions are loyal to Donald Trump first and the American people fall right down the line,\u201d said Walz, who recently announced<\/a> his interest in pursuing a third term as governor of Minnesota \u2013 which has no term limits \u2013 in 2026. \u201cI appoint people who challenge me daily. That\u2019s how you\u2019re supposed to do leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s clear that he\u2019s building an authoritarian government that is [loyal] to Donald Trump<\/a> first.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Walz, Kamala Harris\u2019s running mate in the November presidential election won by Donald Trump, says he deplores how much time he spent addressing the opposing campaign\u2019s decision to spread false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in Springfield, Ohio. \u201cThey sucked me in on\u201d that, Walz said in a recent episode of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}