Tim Walz, a.k.a. America’s dad, dropped by The Daily Show on Monday, where he told host Jon Stewart that there’s room for everyone under the Kamala Harris–Walz ticket—even former Republican vice presidents like Dick Cheney.
Stewart kicked off his conversation with a pressing political question: Why are his beloved New York Giants doing so terribly this season? The Minnesota governor had an answer: “They should have kept Saquon,” Walz said—referring to former Giants running back Saquon Barkley, who now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. “Pay the money.” Walz’s idea spurred a few audible negative reactions from the live studio audience, but Stewart ultimately agreed with the state-championship-winning former high school football coach.
The two quickly moved on to real political conversation. A vocal critic of Cheney during his tenure as George W. Bush’s vice president in the early aughts, Stewart was skeptical of Walz and Harris’s decision to tout Cheney’s support and campaign alongside the former VP’s eldest daughter, former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney. “The Cheney thing—do we really have to do that?” asked Stewart. “It goes broader than that,” replied Walz. “Look: Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney, Taylor Swift.” Here, Stewart pushed back: “What country did Taylor Swift get us to invade?”
Still, Walz made a case for why the Cheneys’ endorsement of Harris and Walz is a good thing for the Democratic ticket. “I know it’s hard to imagine, [but] there’s a lot of folks still deciding what they’re gonna do…. The folks I’m talking to…they’re folks that are probably—they are Republicans, and they say it,” said Walz. “A Republican introduces me in Omaha—he said, ‘I can’t stand with this guy anymore. That’s not the party of Reagan. This isn’t freedom.’ Whatever it may be, it’s a lot of those folks that are trying to find permission to get off the MAGA stuff and move over. So they’re still listening. They’re finding a way.”
Walz emphasized how many Republicans feel they no longer have a place in the GOP and are actively looking for an alternative to Donald Trump. “For a lot of ’em, they’ve never crossed over that line,” he said. “And you can say it about Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney and some of those that did show some courage to cross over; they don’t agree. These are folks that were told…‘I’m historically Republican, I’m gonna vote Republican.’ But they don’t have a home anymore. And I think for a lot of cases, they hear the noise that’s out there. But that’s why I’m out there talking to ’em.”
While Stewart heard out and ultimately agreed with Walz, he still took some shots at former VP Cheney. After Walz spoke at length about the importance of gun control, Stewart found a sly way to reference the time when the elder Cheney accidentally shot hunting partner Harry Whittington in the face while quail hunting. “One of the real first qualifications of being a vice president is obviously rifle safety,” Stewart quipped. “I can’t think of a vice president in recent memory that used a shotgun irresponsibly.”
“It doesn’t mean they agree with us,” said Walz of the Cheneys’ endorsement. “We’re not gonna take their foreign policy decisions and discussions, you know, and implement those.”
Stewart had a one-word reply for the VP candidate: “Promise?”
