‘Never Underestimate a Public School Teacher’: Key Moments from Tim Walz’s DNC Speech

Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz gave a rousing 14-minute psych-up speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday night. The former high school teacher and football coach turned Minnesota governor tapped into his experience revving up players on the field to encourage Democrats to “do the blocking and tackling” to help Vice President Kamala Harris beat former President Donald Trump in the November election.

“We’ve got 76 days. That’s nothing. There’ll be time to sleep when you’re dead,” he said.

The speech elicited tears of pride from Walz’s kids, who were in the convention hall with their mother Gwen Walz and got emotional watching their father take the stage and talk about their family’s journey with infertility.

“That’s my dad!” shouted Gus Walz, a 17-year-old high school senior, with teary eyes as he stood up and pointed to the stage in an emotional ‘proud son’ moment that was captured on camera and has since gone viral. The Walz family told People earlier this month that Gus has an anxiety disorder, ADHD, and a non-verbal learning disorder.

After the Democratic vice presidential nominee finished the last speech of day 3 of the DNC, dozens of delegates from Minnesota stayed on the convention floor chanting “We want Tim,” holding up cutouts of Walz’s face and waving signs that read, “Coach Walz.” The group cheered wildly for 30 minutes and didn’t disperse until the convention organizers flashed the hall lights on and off multiple times.

Here are some of the hardest-hitting moments from Walz’s address.

‘Never underestimate a public school teacher’

Walz taught high school in Nebraska and Minnesota before running for Congress and winning in a long-standing Republican district. “Never underestimate a public school teacher,” he said Wednesday as he recalled his journey. Walz ended up serving in the House for 12 years and then went on to win two terms as Minnesota governor.

In a video shown before Walz came on stage, many of his former high school students described him knowing every kid’s name in his classes, building sets for the school play, and volunteering to be the faculty advisor when students wanted to start an LGBTQ alliance at the school.

Walz said he “fell in love with teaching” and that experience drove home for him the importance of knowing “we’re all in this together” and “that a single person can make a real difference to their neighbors.”

Of his time in Congress, he said he “learned how to compromise without compromising my values.”

Of Walz’s small-town high school class, ‘none of them went to Yale’

Walz took a dig at Trump’s vice presidential pick J.D. Vance, who grew up in difficult circumstances and ended up enlisting in the Marine Corps before graduating from Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He has previously accused Vance of looking down on his own origins in his best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.

Walz grew up in a town of 400 people in Butte, Nebraska. “I had 24 kids in my high school class and none of them went to Yale,” Walz said. 

Living in such a tiny community, Walz said, “you’ll learn how to take care of each other. That family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may not love like you do, but they’re your neighbors and you look out for them and they look out for you.”

‘We’ve got a golden rule: Mind your own damn business’

As governor, Walz said he’s cut taxes for the middle class, enacted paid family and medical leave, and cut the cost of prescription drugs. And he said he worked to provide free school breakfast and lunches for every child in the state. “So while other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours,” Walz said, criticizing Republican-led efforts to strip books from school libraries and reading lists.

“We also protected reproductive freedom because in Minnesota we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make,” Walz said, referencing his work with the state legislature to protect access to abortion in the state after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. “Even if we wouldn’t make those same choices for ourselves, we’ve got a golden rule: Mind your own damn business.”

Walz says IVF protection is ‘personal’

As he often does on the campaign trail, Walz used his DNC speech to put a spotlight on access to reproductive care, including in-vitro fertilization (IVF). He said the topic is “personal,” alluding to his and his wife’s journey to conceiving their children.

“If you’ve never experienced the hell that is infertility—I guarantee you, you know somebody who has—and I can remember praying each night for a phone call, the pit in your stomach when the phone had rang, and the absolute agony when we heard the treatments hadn’t worked,” he said. “It took Gwen and I years, but we had access to fertility treatments and when our daughter was born, we named her Hope.”

“Hope, Gus and Gwen, you are my entire world and I love you,” Walz added, as his entire family was seen in tears. “I’m letting you in on how we started a family because this is a big part about what this election is about. Freedom. When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office.”

A hunter who wants more gun restrictions 

An avid hunter and Army National Guard veteran, Walz said he’s a gun owner who believes in the constitutional right to own a gun but who wants to protect kids from being killed by assault weapons. During his years in Congress, Walz repeatedly won the annual Congressional shooting contest.

“Look, I know guns. I’m a veteran. I’m a hunter, and I was a better shot than most Republicans in Congress and I got the trophies to prove it,” Walz said. “But I’m also a dad. I believe in the Second Amendment. But I also believe our first responsibility is to keep our kids safe.”

Taking aim at how Republicans define ‘freedom’

Walz criticized Republicans for misusing the word freedom to justify limitations on abortions and allowing businesses to skate past regulations. He said Democrats think of freedom differently.

“When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office, corporations free to pollute your air and water, and banks free to take advantage of customers,” Walz said. “But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love, freedom to make your own healthcare decisions and yeah, your kid’s freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.”

Walz still thinks Trump is ‘weird’

Several months ago, Walz garnered significant attention for labeling the Republican presidential ticket as “weird,” a message that quickly dominated the Harris campaign’s communications strategy. He continued to push that narrative during his speech at the DNC, calling Trump’s agenda “weird” and “dangerous.”

“I coached high school football long enough to know, and trust me on this, when somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it,” Walz said, attempting to link Trump to Project 2025, the controversial Heritage Foundation package of policy proposals for a future Trump Administration that Trump has sought to distance himself from.

Walz listed several ways the Trump-Vance ticket could hurt some Americans, such as repealing the Affordable Care Act, gutting Social Security and Medicare, and banning abortion nationwide with or without the support of Congress. “It’s an agenda nobody asked for,” he added. “It’s an agenda that serves nobody except the richest and the most extreme amongst us. And it’s an agenda that does nothing for our neighbors in need.”

“Is it weird?” Walz asked. “Absolutely. Absolutely. But it’s also wrong and it’s dangerous.”

‘What a leader is’

Walz took aim at Trump’s vindictive and erratic leadership style, telling the crowd that the high school student body presidents he knew as a teacher “could teach Donald Trump a hell of a lot about what a leader is.”

Leaders “do the work,” Walz said. “So I don’t know about you. I’m ready to turn the page on these guys.”

He added that Democrats have “something better” to offer the American people: Harris’ experience taking on transnational gangs and corporate fraud as a prosecutor and working across the aisle as a U.S. Senator and Vice President, Walz said, has made her ready to “fight on the side of the American people.”

‘Boy, do we have the right team’ 

In reference to his high school coaching days, Walz used several football analogies to explain how Democrats can win the presidency: “You might not know it, but I have not given a lot of big speeches like this,” Walz said to close out his speech. “But I have given a lot of pep talks.”

“So, let me finish with this,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee added. “Team, it is the fourth quarter, we are down a field goal, but we are on offense and we’ve got the ball.” Walz continued: “We are driving down the field. And, boy, do we have the right team. Kamala Harris is tough, Kamala Harris is experienced, and Kamala Harris is ready. Our job is to get into the trenches and do the blocking and tackling. One inch at a time, one yard at a time, one phone call at a time, one door knock at a time, one $5 donation at a time.”

Walz’s speech at the DNC offered many Americans their first glimpse of who he is, presenting an opportunity for the campaign to highlight his work as a teacher and football coach. Before Walz spoke, several former football players from Mankato West High School, where he once coached, ran out onto the convention stage.

“We ran a 4-4 defense,” Walz said in his speech. “We played through to the whistle on every single play, and we even won a state championship. Never close the yearbook, people, but it was those players and my students who inspired me to run for Congress. They saw in me what I had hoped to instill in them—a commitment to the common good, an understanding that we’re all in this together, and the belief that a single person can make a real difference for their neighbors.”