Meet Tim Walz, the running mate of Kamala Harris who let his state descend into chaos during the 2020 BLM riots and supports child sex change surgeries

Chances are you heard Tim Walz's name for the first time today after Vice President Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate for the November election. This is no exaggeration. According to a new national NPR/PBS/Marist poll released Tuesday, before he was made official as a vice presidential candidate,71% of Americans said they've never heard of Walz or don't have an opinion of him. Conversely, 17% viewed him favorably versus 12% who viewed him negatively.

If these data are accurate, it means that a majority of the electorate still does not have a formed opinion of Walz. Walz is popular in his state, Minnesota, where he has served as governor since 2019 and earned approval ratings above 50%. Before becoming governor, Walz was a congressman for 12 years (2007-2019) and spent 24 years in the Army National Guard, where he reached the rank of master sergeant.

However, Walz's record as governor, which did not attract national attention until today, shows that he was the most "woke" among the names on Harris' list of potential running mates. These are his most controversial positions.

Minnesota, epicenter of BLM riots in 2020

Minneapolis was the epicenter of racial protests following the controversial death of George Floyd in 2020. As the hours passed, the protests turned into riots, with Minneapolis and the surrounding area burning and a wave of looting and vandalism overwhelmed authorities, especially Tim Walz, who was paralyzed for several days without activating the state's National Guard as businesses, public property and police stations were vandalized.

"This was the moment I filled in 2020 when BLM rioters attacked Minneapolis Police as they evacuated the 3rd Precinct. Under Gov. Walz’s leadership and despite days of rioting, the MN National Guard hadn’t fully deployed at that point," criticized reporter Julio Rosas on X.  He was on the ground when Minneapolis began to experience the wave of rioting.

At the time, Walz faced harsh criticism for not deploying the state's National Guard and not using emergency powers before the situation escalated. The governor excused himself, saying it was a difficult time and that he understood the protesters for the "pain" caused by Floyd's death.

One of the critics was former Senate majority leader, Republican Sen. Paul Gazelka. He railed against Walz and called his inaction "a failure of leadership." 

"Instead, it’s the city up in smoke because the governor didn’t take the right action," Gazelka said at the time.

Walz himself acknowledged in 2020 that questions about his delayed response were a "valid criticism." However, he excused himself, saying that he was concerned about sending a larger police presence to demonstrators protesting "police violence." He feared that the situation would further inflame the situation and would further inflame tensions, but nonetheless, dozens of small Minneapolis businesses were destroyed during the riots.

Sanctuary state for illegal migrants

Under Walz's leadership, and in the midst of the immigration crisis, Minnesota became a state with "sanctuary services" for illegal migrants. This fact is being highly questioned by Republicans, who have taken advantage of Harris' announcement to focus their attention on the Democratic running mate and his stance on illegal immigration.

Overall, during his tenure, Walz backed support for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, created an "Office of New Americans" to help immigrants and refugees integrate into the United States, and, in 2018, while still a congressman, made public calls for his state to become a "sanctuary."

According to Axios, already as governor, Democrats pushed measures to make illegal immigrants eligible for a free college program. Walz approved it.

The initiative Walz approved, dubbed the 'North Star Promise,' covered tuition at two- or four-year schools in the University of Minnesota or statewide systems for non-U.S. students whose families earn $80,000 or less a year.

Also, Axios reported that Walz passed new laws allowing illegal migrants access to MinnesotaCare, the taxpayer-funded public insurance program for low-income residents.

Walz's positions were by no means surprising. In 2018, before taking office as governor, he appeared to endorse the position that Minnesota become a sanctuary state.

"My position on Minnesota becoming a sanctuary state boils down to who has the responsibility for enforcing immigration laws," he told CBS News that year. "Here's what I believe: Congress has given federal agencies the authority to enforce immigration laws in Minnesota, and I support their doing so. Congress has not given local law enforcement that same authority. The role of law enforcement is to enforce state and local laws, not federal immigration laws, and I strongly believe that they should not do so."

Just this week, Walz criticized Trump's immigration policies, jokingly saying that if the former president builds a wall, he would fund a tall ladder for migrants to cross it.

"He talks about this wall, I always say, let me know how high it is. If it's 25 feet, then I'll invest in the 30-foot ladder factory," Walz told CNN. "That's not how you stop this."

Sanctuary state for sex change operations on children

Probably Walz's most compromised record relates to controversial sex-change operations for children, which have been banned in other Republican governors' states.

In 2023, the Democratic governor signed an executive order that made Minnesota a sanctuary state for these controversial surgeries in response to bans in red states. 

According to National Review, the legislation, known to supporters as the Trans Refuge Bill, grants legal protection to children and their families who travel to Minnesota for such surgeries, "including puberty blockers, reconstructive genital surgery, and hormone therapy, as well as the medical practitioners who provide it."

"The law prohibits Minnesota courts or officials from complying with child removal requests, extraditions, arrests, or subpoenas related to a child’s sex-change procedures received in Minnesota, even if they’re a crime in another state," the media outlet reviewed.

This stance by Walz is drawing hundreds of questions on social media from critics of the surgeries who claim that children should not be subjected to surgeries that will scar them for life because of their irreversible nature.

"Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota thinks kids should be able to undergo s*x change surgery, cut off their body parts, and get sterilized and chemically castrated by injecting irreversible puberty blockers and hormones which are linked to many dangerous long-term side effects," reads the viral account Libs of TikTok.

Excess of power during the pandemic

Although it's been a while, Kamala Harris' running mate is also being questioned for supporting controversial quarantines or closures for several months, despite the fact that some states decided to open their economy and it was shown that confinements had no effect on decreasing COVID-19 contagions or deaths.

Walz was one of several Democratic governors who exercised their executive power to close schools, businesses and churches during the pandemic.

Moreover, in an act of censorship and surveillance virtually unprecedented in U.S. history, Harris' running mate created a hotline for residents to report neighbors who ignored draconian confinement measures during that first year of the pandemic. As reported by Alpha News, law enforcement received more than 10,000 mailings with complaints.

Tom Emmer (R-MN), the Republican majority leader in the House, told the New York Post that Walz is the clear case of a politician who has no respect for fundamental rights and who supported the use of state force to suppress individual liberties and increase surveillance on Americans.

"From overseeing the largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the country, to asking neighbors to tattle on one another for violating lockdown mandates, to forcing hospitalized COVID patients back in their nursing home facilities — Tim Walz proved during the pandemic he does not have the competency to lead in times of crisis."

Ties with China and Walz's controversial position on Cuba

Finally, Walz is being vetted on his foreign policy positions, although this is still an unknown area.

One of the most prominent histories in his long-standing ties to China, where he served as a professor one year and also served as a facilitator for many young Chinese to come to the U.S. to study history and English

According to Newsweek, Walz earned a bachelor's degree in social science education from Chadron State College, Nebraska, in 1989. Before that, he studied East Asian Studies at the University of Houston in 1985.

After graduating, Harris' running mate spent a year in China teaching high school as part of Harvard University's WorldTeach program.

"Walz was among the first government-sanctioned groups of American educators to teach in China," the magazine reviewed.

Also, while a member of the Army National Guard, Walz taught American history, culture and English to Chinese high school students.

Walz, evidently marveling at his experience in China, also spent his honeymoon in the Asian giant with his wife, Gwen, also a teacher.

Newsweek reported that Walz, with Gwen, created Educational Travel Adventures, Inc., which organized annual student trips to China. These trips were organized until 2003.

However, it is unclear how ties to China might affect or be determinative in shaping foreign policy during an eventual Harris-Walz Administration.

Where Walz does appear to have a clearer position is with Cuba, a country ruled by socialist dictator Miguel Diaz Canel, the successor to the Castro brothers.

Walz, following the bipartisan Minnesota tradition, supports the position of lifting the embargo against Cuba.  This position is questioned by critics of the Castro regime and Cuban-American congressmen of both traditional parties.

For example, in 2010, Congressman Walz voted in favor of a bill passed by the Agriculture Committee to lift travel restrictions to Cuba and allow U.S. farmers to sell food to Cuba using U.S. banks as intermediaries on credit terms.

He also co-sponsored the Cuba Free Trade Act in 2015, which would have repealed the embargo.