‘Fascist’ Trump has no plan, Gov. Tim Walz says in interview with WHYY News

The Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is starting another tour of Pennsylvania. He spoke with WHYY News over the phone as he prepared to make his way through the commonwealth.

Editor’s note: The following transcript has been edited for clarity.

Carmen Russell-Sluchansky: It’s generally accepted Pennsylvania is a must-win for your campaign. And I know your campaign has a much bigger infrastructure here than Trump’s campaign, but the poll suggests a tight race. What’s the strategy in these remaining days? What can you do to change that?

Gov. Tim Walz: Yeah, it is a tight race. Folks want to see their president put forward plans that make a difference. Kamala Harris has got a to-do list where Donald Trump has an enemies list. And what that means is rural hospitals, infrastructure investments, bringing down costs, protecting the ACA, women’s reproductive rights. The plan is to get that message out to people and we understand people are busy and that’s why we’ve got 50 coordinated offices. We’ve got ’em all across the state, 450 paid staff, tens of thousands of volunteers who’ve had over 160,000 sign-ups, and now we have 12 days to get there. Ballots are open, folks are voting already, making sure people make a plan to get that done.

And this is just the nuts and bolts, the blocking and tackling for the football coach in me. This is the fundamentals of winning a campaign. We’ve been under no illusion this thing was going to be close. While we’ve opened up multiple paths on this, you’re absolutely right, Pennsylvania is critically important. It’s critically important because it’s an important state, innovating in so many ways — folks that are leading the way — and we want to make sure that we’re putting things in place to keep the momentum going.

Russell-Sluchansky: I was walking around in North Philly the other day and I talked to several young Black voters and more than I expected said they were supporting Donald Trump or were undecided. They said that business grants aren’t what they need, because I was talking about Harris’ platform in terms of providing more business grants to their community so they can raise the economic level. What they talked about was rampant homelessness, the drug crisis and gun violence that they regularly experience. What is your message for them?

Walz: Yeah, it’s all of the above. If that’s the reality, they’re telling you that’s the way it is. And I think that’s why we’ve seen opioid deaths at a 12-month low, the biggest reduction we’ve seen dealing with that and gun violence. Donald Trump has no plan for this. While crime is lower now than it was under Donald Trump — at a 50-year low — those young men that are talking about every one of the crimes they witness or are victims of is too many. So I think the issue here is focusing on those things. We talk about the infrastructure for preventing that, whether it’s home ownership, whether it’s early childhood and early scholarships for pre-K. And then I think you get people in a position where they are more stable. That’s when those grants come in.

We were in Racine, Wisconsin, at a barbershop that’s also functioning as a community center, and I heard from some dynamic young folks saying, look, the lack of access to capital for Black Americans is simply unacceptable and they’re right. I think moving that capital to them in the form of these grants to get their business off the ground, tax credits and then the mentorship [is] necessary.

So they’re right. It’s all of the above. And what I would say to those young men as they’re listening is Donald Trump is offering nothing. Donald Trump’s tendencies now are fascist tendencies, he has a long history of his racial comments. His running mate, JD Vance, said voters just don’t like the racist part of Donald Trump. So I would ask those young men, give us an opportunity. We hear where they’re coming from and it’s unacceptable where they’re at making those services available. Absolute priority. But what I would also say, what Kamala Harris understands is that working with the community leaders is the way to get this done. Not setting more government programs to get in the way, but moving that capital to them. And I think that’s something they haven’t seen yet.

Russell-Sluchansky: Completely different subject. We’ve done a bunch of reporting here about super PACs and megadonors who are spending very big here in Pennsylvania. That includes spending by Elon Musk and some billionaires who are funding a lot of the advertising that we’re seeing —it’s a lot of advertising. Do you think that is having an impact on what we’re seeing in the polls?

Walz: This is quid pro quo. You can invest millions. It seems crazy to us. They write these huge checks. Well, their expectation is to get a payback on the back end, whether it’s tax cuts, less regulations, and then sticking to the middle class. I’ve been a strong critic of Citizens United, the ability to take off those safeguards. It pollutes the system where people start to feel like their votes don’t matter.

But look, the counter to that is what we’re doing, a strong ground game going to every corner of the country, making the case that our more smaller donors can make a difference in this. We’re getting and turning those into votes. Donald Trump hasn’t invested in that. He doesn’t care. He just floods the airways with his grievance, hate and divisive ads and skips things like last night; he should have been on the debate stage with Kamala Harris and he could have told us why he thinks Adolf Hitler’s generals are a good idea, but we don’t get to hear that. So yeah, I do think they make a difference. After we win, I think the vice president has talked about that, about ways of looking to make our elections more fair and open to everyone.

Walz: Thanks for your coverage. Appreciate it.

Russell-Sluchansky: Thank you, governor.