Failed 2024 vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is launching a national town hall tour in Republican-controlled House districts, telling CNN that he wants to tell people “they can mobilize to fight back” against President Donald Trump.
Walz, a former U.S. congressman who has been governor of Minnesota since 2019, told CNN this week that his work as former Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate is not over.
With town hall events already scheduled in Iowa’s third congressional district on Friday and Nebraska’s second congressional district on Saturday, Walz told CNN, “There was just a primal scream of folks recognizing what’s going on with the Trump administration, their authoritarian tendencies, and what they viewed was a lack of a proper response from their representatives.”
“It was about these Republican representatives recognizing this stuff’s really unpopular, so they’re going to quit the town halls,” he said. “These folks need to be heard. They need to be heard, and to be candid with you, Democratic leadership needs to hear them.”
Politico reported that the chair of the House GOP’s campaign arm, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), told his colleagues in late February to stop holding in-person town halls as liberal backlash against the Trump administration’s cuts in federal spending grew.
Hudson’s request also came as allegations that some left-wing town hall attendees had been “paid” to protest in Republican districts came from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Breitbart News reported.
Walz is reportedly in the midst of planning more upcoming town hall stops in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio in the near future, with more on the horizon.
“There was just a primal scream of folks recognizing what’s going on with the Trump administration, their authoritarian tendencies, and what they viewed was a lack of a proper response from their representatives,” he told CNN on Wednesday.
In an X post later that evening, the Minnesota governor wrote, “I’m hitting the road, traveling to red states across the country to lend a megaphone to the people”:
“Your congressman may not want to listen, but they’re going to hear from us anyway,” Walz added.
In his statement to CNN, he said that he would tell Republican district constituents that “it doesn’t have to be this way,” referencing the Trump administration’s moves to dismantle the Department of Education as an example.
“I’m going to say ways that they can mobilize to fight back, ways that I think are the most effective ways. And I fully expect them to tell me ways that they’re looking for,” Walz added.