‘I Didn't Get It Done': A Reflective Tim Walz Wants to Make Good
Nearly seven months since his ticket lost the 2024 presidential election, Tim Walz is trying all at once to make amends for everything he thinks went wrong.
He is going to Republican areas where Democrats lost ground. He is sitting for countless interviews after former Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign limited his media exposure. And as his party engages in collective finger-pointing, he is among the few Democrats admitting that they themselves made mistakes.
'I know my job and I didn't get it done,' Mr. Walz, the governor of Minnesota, said last week on a podcast hosted by former Senator Jon Tester, the Montana Democrat.
The Tim Walz atonement-and-explanation tour had its biggest audiences to date on Saturday, when he delivered speeches to Democratic Party conventions in South Carolina and California.
'This dude's the last guy I want to tell us about 'we lost our way.' You're the guy who lost,' Mr. Walz said to the crowd in Columbia, S.C., on Saturday morning, imagining what listeners might be thinking. But, he added, 'none of us can afford to shy away right now from asking the hard questions and doing the things we need to do to fix it so that we win elections.'
His approach stands in stark contrast with how his running mate has dealt with their loss. Ms. Harris gave a paid speech in Australia, appeared at the Met Gala in New York (though she skipped the red carpet) and spoke for barely more than 15 minutes to a political group in San Francisco. Even as she weighs a run for governor of California, it was Mr. Walz who was the main attraction at that state's Democratic convention.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
18 minutes ago
Senate parliamentarian will have final say on some provisions in Trump's funding bill
No one elected her and you don't hear much about her, but she's about to be one of the most important people on Capitol Hill. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough can usually be seen perched atop the Senate dais, helping to make sure the Senate floor runs according to the rules. But she's about to step into the role as arbiter of the Senate's reconciliation package, where she'll have the final say in whether a number of key provisions in the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act are in keeping with the Senate's rules. Senate Republicans want to make changes to the bill the House passed by a single vote and sent to them. But Senate rules could force a number of changes they find less desirable, too. A veto of any provision by MacDonough could mean major parts of the package are thrown to the wayside, so her rulings will be watched closely by Democrats and Republicans alike in the coming weeks. MacDonough is responsible for making calls on whether the provisions in the bill are in keeping with the Byrd Rule, named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd, who helped institute the rules governing budget reconciliation packages like President Donald Trump's "one big, beautiful bill." MacDonough has been parliamentarian since 2012 after serving as senior assistant parliamentarian for 10 years. She is the first woman to fill the job since it was created in 1935. She was called to make several rulings when Democrats used reconciliation to get then-President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 as well as the COVID relief package the year before. She also advised Chief Justice John Roberts during Trump's impeachment trials. The Byrd Rule In order for the Senate to use the reconciliation process, which allows it to pass budget packages like this with a simple majority of votes instead of the usual 60 necessary to overcome the Senate's filibuster, everything in the bill must follow the Byrd Rule. In the Senate, the process of the Budget Committee reviewing the bill and the parliamentarian to make sure it's up to snuff is sometimes referred to cheekily as the "Byrd Bath." So what are the rules? The Byrd Rule bars the Senate from including any "extraneous provisions" in budget bills. Anything in the bill, according to the rule, should be necessary to implement the underlying budget resolution that Congress already passed. Simply stated: If a policy provision doesn't have an effect on the budget, it can't be included. Even budget changes that are "merely incidental" to policy provisions are considered out of order. Now, things are always a bit more complicated in the Senate. The Byrd rule also prohibits Congress from touching Social Security in a reconciliation bill, from increasing the deficit for a fiscal year beyond the period included in the bill, and more. But its basic form is this: everything in the bill must be related to the budget. It may seem in the weeds, but this review process can have meaningful impacts on reconciliation bills. In the Democrat-backed "Build Back Better" package in 2022, for example, the parliamentarian struck a number of provisions Democrats wanted focused on immigration reform. Democrats ended up having to give up those provisions to pass their package under then-President Joe Biden. Big policy agenda items that are critical to some Republicans in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could in theory be slashed out by the parliamentarian, so the process matters. What does it mean for Trump's megabill? There are a number of provisions facing a tenuous path in the Senate because of the Byrd Rule. Democrats are already vowing to fight policies they say are out of order. "In the Senate, our committees have been working overtime to prepare for the Byrd Bath, targeting the litany of policies included in the Republican plan that are in clear violation of the reconciliation rules and in some cases, an assault on our very democracy," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a letter to his colleagues Sunday night. We'll ultimately have to wait for MacDonough to rule, but if it sounds like policy and not budget, it might be at risk. Here are a few provisions in the House-passed bill that appear to be potentially at risk of being struck out by the parliamentarian. This is not an exhaustive list and doesn't account for things that Senate Republicans might want to change or remove from the bill: AI regulations: The House bill includes language that prohibits state and local governments from enforcing "any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems" over a 10-year period. Federal court provisions: The bill creates a new requirement that could restrict how parties suing the federal government get relief in court. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, as recently as Friday suggested at a town hall, when pressed by a constituent about the provision, that it likely wouldn't pass muster in the Byrd Bath. "I don't see any argument that could ever be made that this affects mandatory spending or revenues, so I just don't see that I don't see that getting into the Senate bills," Ernst said then. Planned Parenthood funding ban: The House bill includes a provision that would ban Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood if it provides abortion services. The parliamentarian stripped a similar provision from a 2017 reconciliation package. It stands to reason she could rule similarly this go-round.
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Corcept: Q1 Earnings Snapshot
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — Corcept Therapeutics Inc. (CORT) on Monday reported first-quarter net income of $20.3 million. The Redwood City, California-based company said it had net income of 17 cents per share. The results met Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was also for earnings of 17 cents per share. The drug developer posted revenue of $157.2 million in the period, missing Street forecasts. Four analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $178 million. _____ This story was generated by Automated Insights ( using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CORT at Sign in to access your portfolio
Newsweek
23 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Joni Ernst Gets New Challenger After Medicaid Backlash
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Iowa Democrat J.D. Scholten has announced that he is entering the 2026 race for Republican Senator Joni Ernst's seat. The decision was "prompted in part" by controversial remarks Ernst made about possible Medicaid cuts, ABC News reported. Newsweek contacted Scholten and Ernst for comment on Tuesday via email outside regular office hours. Why It Matters Scholten, who plays professional baseball for the Sioux City Explorers, has emerged as a rising figure within the Iowa Democratic Party over the past few years after narrowly losing to Republican Representative Steve King in a 2018 U.S. House election. Iowa is one of 33 Senate seats up for election in next year's midterms, in which Democrats are hoping to retake the upper chamber. Senator Joni Ernst speaking at the 2025 Hill and Valley Forum at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C., on April 30. Senator Joni Ernst speaking at the 2025 Hill and Valley Forum at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C., on April 30. Tasos Katopodis/GETTY What To Know During a town hall event on Friday, attendees challenged Ernst over the effects that a Republican-approved budget bill could have on Medicaid. She responded, "Well, we're all going to die." Speaking with ABC News, Scholten said the senator's comments "really hit home" with him. The state representative added, "We need better leadership than that." The Republican tax and spending proposal, dubbed the "big, beautiful bill" by President Donald Trump, seeks $880 billion in budget cuts that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts could lead to 10.3 million people across the country losing Medicaid coverage by 2034. However, Republicans insist that the measure targets undocumented migrants and those who are making insufficient effort to find work. Ernst responded to criticism of her town hall remarks with a seemingly satirical Instagram story. In the video, which appeared to be filmed in a cemetery, she said: "I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. So I apologize, and I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well." The Republicans' budget package, which includes wide-ranging tax cuts along with more spending for defense and border security, narrowly passed the House on May 29 in a 215-214 vote. Republican Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul have criticized the legislation, which must pass the Senate before Trump can sign it into law, over its estimated effects on the national debt. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would increase the nation's debt by $3.1 trillion. What People Are Saying Democratic state Representative J.D. Scholten told The Gazette: "After her comments over the weekend, I've been thinking about it for a while, but that's when I just said: This is unacceptable and you've gotta jump in. At the end of the day, though, it's not about her, it's not about me, it's about the people of Iowa deserving better. I don't think there's anything worse that you could do than cut Medicaid, cut SNAP benefits for everyday Iowans just so you can give billionaires bigger tax breaks. That is not Iowa in my mind." Senator Joni Ernst said on Instagram: "I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall. See, I was in the process of answering a question that had been asked by an audience member when a woman who was extremely distraught screamed out from the back corner of the auditorium, 'People are going to die,' and I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. "So I apologize, and I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior Jesus Christ." What Happens Next Scholten is set to enter a primary with fellow Democrats vying to stand in the general election, which is scheduled for November 3, 2026. The Democratic Party hasn't won a U.S. Senate seat in Iowa since 2008. In 2020, Ernst won reelection to the Senate with 51.7 percent of the vote against 45.2 percent. It would be a major upset if she lost her seat in the midterms.
