Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) believes President Donald Trump might be doing a “favor” for Democrats with his federal spending cuts and gutting of entire departments.
In an interview with Semafor’s David Weigel, the former vice presidential candidate at one point spun Trump’s administration as an “opportunity” for Democrats.
“How much can Democrats can rebuild, of what Trump is un-building right now? We’ve seen cases where employees are laid off, a court orders them back, but they’re still laid off. Do Democrats run in 2028 on re-establishing it?” Weigel asked Walz.
“I use the analogy of the car running out of gas. Car runs out of gas, you go get a can, you pour some in, you start it up, and it’s all fine. This is the car running out of oil, and it’s broken. And what I’m saying is, he is breaking it,” Walz said.
The governor added that Democrats “need to acknowledge” that the Department of Education and others being targeted by Trump do not “work perfectly.”
Walz argued:
I think we need to start messaging right now. We need to put our experts on this. How will we build back next time? I think it’s an opportunity. I think it’s an opportunity to create the agencies the way we saw them in the first place, functioning better, without all the barnacles. So, Trump might be doing us a favor. He stripped it down, he blew the motor up. We’re going to put a new motor in it and take off. And I think that’s how we have to start thinking about it.
In the Semafor chat, Walz said he believes Trump is different from his first term and the governor is less inclined to “cultivate a relationship.”
“The first time, with Trump, I tried to cultivate a relationship to a certain degree,” he said. “He even praised me a few times. My idea was to keep my head down, not draw a contrast to Minnesota, and do the best we could. That’s not going to work this time with this guy.”
