Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz used some of his sharpest language on the campaign trail Thursday in remarks going after both former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
Speaking at a rally in Erie, Pa., Walz borrowed a line from Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic governor by saying that “whenever Donald Trump’s talking about America, he’s s— talking America.”
Shapiro has said numerous times that Trump is “s— talking” the country, which Walz acknowledged when he paraphrased the Pennsylvania governor.
Walz, who was first elected as governor of Minnesota in 2018, went on to say that Trump got his “butt whipped fair and square and lost” in the last election, and that he “tried to violently overthrow our democratic government.”
When reached for comment, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said that Walz “set his state on fire during the riots and has devastated his citizens since he’s become governor. He and Kamala Harris are weak, failed, and dangerously liberal.”
Trump has falsely claimed for years that he won the 2020 election, though he acknowledged in a podcast episode released Tuesday that he lost the race “by a whisker.” He has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges related to efforts to overturn the election results and has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Walz on Thursday also referred to the Republican Party as a “cult.”
“This country needs two functioning political parties, at least,” he said. “We don’t need one, a cult on the other side, we do not need that.”
The comments from the Minnesota governor come less than a week before the first debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Walz and the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, are scheduled to debate each other on Oct. 1.
Democrats and Republicans are in a fierce fight over Pennsylvania, a state President Joe Biden flipped blue in 2020 by a slim margin — with 50% of the vote to Trump’s 48.8%. In 2016, Trump narrowly beat Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, securing 48.6% of the vote to Clinton’s 47.9%.
National polling indicates that Harris and Trump are locked in a tight race, much of which will likely come down to a handful of battleground states like Pennsylvania.
Isabelle Schmeler is a researcher on the 2024 politics desk.
Katherine Koretsky and Emma Barnett contributed.
