Donald Trump hit back at Tim Walz after the Minnesota governor, whom Kamala Harris announced as her 2024 running mate earlier this week, branded him “weird” during a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Speaking to his supporters at a rally in Bozeman, Montana, on Friday, Trump said “we’re not weird, we’re very solid people,” before adding: “They’re weird.”
Harris unveiled Walz as her vice-presidential nominee on Tuesday and, that evening, the pair held their first campaign rally together in Philadelphia. Speaking about Trump and Ohio Senator JD Vance, whom the former president chose as his vice-presidential nominee, Walz said: “I just have to say it—you know it; you feel it—these guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell.”
Responding at his Montana rally, Trump listed a series of policies he said Walz had implemented as Minnesota governor, before refuting the claim that he is “weird.” Newsweek contacted vice president Kamala Harris, Governor Tim Walz and Donald Trump 2024 presidential election campaign for comment by email on Saturday outside of regular business hours.
Referring to Walz, Trump said: “He signed a bill to give illegal aliens free health care, he abolished Columbus Day, he ordered tampons to be put into boys’ bathrooms… He signed a law letting the state kidnap children to change their gender so that they go home, but I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about her [Harris]. This is her ideology; this is why she picked him. And he signed a law allowing pedophiles to claim human rights protections under the state law…
“Think of the things I just said, then he said, ‘you know I think JD Vance is weird.’ You know it’s a word that they use; I think he calls me that, too. No, we’re not weird; we’re very solid people. We want to have strong borders; we want to have good elections; we want to have low interest rates; we want to be able to buy a house; we want great education… actually, I think we’re the opposite of weird. They’re weird.”
Michael Ciaglo/GETTY
A number of the policy changes that Trump said Walz made as governor have either been contested or debunked by other sources.
Trump’s claim that Walz “ordered tampons to be put into boys’ bathrooms” appears to refer to legislation he signed into law saying that tampons “must be available to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12.”
A Republican lawmaker attempted to amend this so it would apply to only female restrooms, but this was unsuccessful.
The assertion that Walz “signed a law allowing pedophiles to claim human rights protections” seems to refer to legislation he approved; it removed previous text stating sexual orientation “does not include a physical or sexual attachment to children.” However, a fact check from PolitiFact concluded this wouldn’t give pedophiles legal protection from discrimination.
Speaking to MSNBC, Chris Quinn, editor of local news website Cleveland.com, said he thought it was appropriate to call the state Senator Vance “weird.”
Quinn added: “I wish we had come up with the word ‘weird’ because it is so appropriate for what he’s saying.”
In response, Luke Schroeder, a spokesman for Vance, told Newsweek: “Chris Quinn is a partisan hack and everyone in Ohio knows it, including his own employees.