Walz says Dems weren't 'bold enough' to double down on DEI, immigration
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the Democratic Party has gotten into its current mess because it wasn’t "bold enough" to stand up for diversity, equity and inclusion and immigration.
The former vice-presidential candidate appeared Thursday at a town hall event in Rosenberg, Texas, alongside former Rep. Beto O’Rourke. He told supporters "I'm just going to note this s--- show of a [Signal] text chain that was going on could have used a little diversity, equity, inclusion in the people who were there."
"So I think and I'm going to own this, when we see people back off and we see corporations back off to the threats, instead of leaning into and knowing we're doing this because it's not only morally the right thing to do, it’s economically the right thing to do. And our culture proves that our strength is our diversity," Walz continued.
"We've been talking about this for years as a country of immigrants, and we let them define the issue on immigration. We let them define the issue on DEI, and we let them define what woke is," Walz declared. "We got ourselves in this mess because we weren't bold enough to stand up and say ‘you damn right we're proud of these policies. We're going to put them in, and we're going to execute them.’"
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Walz added that Republicans are "going to use fear" and "they're going to do whatever they can.
"What I would say is we need to make sure we're highly organized," he told the audience.
"One of the groups that has benefited greatly by us understanding that diversity, equity and inclusion and having policies around that, were veterans themselves for hiring. Veterans are a part of the group when the federal government hires people based on that," Walz also said.
"The rest of it is, as we all know, in Minnesota, pretty white, pretty cold, much like you see in the Northern hemisphere, northern states, population going down, 70% of our workforce over the next 20 years is going to come from communities of color," he added. "Our very existence depends on diversity, equity and inclusion."
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Last week, Trump said Walz contributed to the Democrats’ loss in the 2024 election.
Trump’s comments came in response to statements Walz provided in a podcast with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in which Walz predicted he could kick the "a--" of most Trump supporters.
"Well, he's a loser. Yeah. No, I think so. He lost an election," Trump said. "He played a part. You know, usually a vice president doesn't play a part. They say. I think Tim played a part. I think he was so bad that he hurt her. But she hurt herself. And Joe hurt them both. They didn't have a great group, but I would probably put him at the bottom of the group."
Fox News’ Diana Stacey contributed to this report.