Walz Stopping Mid-Speech to Check on Distressed Rallygoer Shows He’s ‘a People Person’: Democratic S

And as you can see, we have a friendly face here with us. Dante Mills is live with us in the studio. Yes, good to see you guys. Thanks, Dante. He's a Democratic political strategist and trial attorney and founding partner at Mills & Edwards. Great to have you here bright and early, Dante. Yes, good to be here. It's a lot of news, a lot of things happening in politics. Absolutely. And you know, we're going to get to these policies in a minute. But first, let's start with Walls. He stopped mid-speech at a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Wednesday. That's when he heard someone calling for help. Apparently, they were too hot. And Walls asked for someone to help and try to get them some water. What does that say about Walls' character? Well, it shows who he is and why vice president Kamala Harris chose him to be the nominee for vice president because he's a people person. And it's not political. It goes back to his time as a teacher. He talks about being the person inside the lunchroom, dealing with the students there and making sure that everybody was OK. So he has that knack for him for just being mindful of everybody around him and putting other people first. And it's not something that you can fake. I don't think he was faking it or doing it to get political attention. Definitely not. It's just who he is. And I think it says a lot about his character. And this is a time where people are looking at the character of the politicians and the candidates. And it matters. They're in a microscope. Absolutely. It makes a difference. And I think this says a lot about him and kind of reinforces why he was chosen as the vice presidential pick. Got it. So also tell us about the pivot counties that voted for Obama twice, but then Trump in 2016. So what is Walz standing to win them over? Well, he's doing what we just talked about. He's being that normal, everyday person that you want to be around. And we used to talk about politicians that you would want to have a beer with, right? Somebody that you would just want to have a normal conversation because you think that they understand you and they know who you are. They know what you want to do with your life, which is simply everybody just wants to take care of their family, be able to afford groceries to feed their kids. And that's what Walz projects. So when you look at those counties, they're working class counties. They're counties with people who work in factories, working on assembly lines and manufacture dealers and things like that. And progressive politics, it used to be a bad word, progressive. But now it's not. Now progressive simply means taking care of each other. And how can we put America first, but keep each other safe, keep each other protected and make sure we have enough money to feed our families. And that seems to be what people are going towards. I think in the last cycle, former President Donald Trump got a lot of those voters because he talked about putting America first. He talked about keeping people working, things like that. But that shift is happening now. And I think Walz is somebody that can present that and give those voters a different option. They can allow them to look at the Democratic ticket and say, these people care about us. They care about our families. And we're going to back them. Yeah. And Walz is basically doing the unthinkable. He's getting these white, working class, conservative minded voters to go on board with his progressive policies. And you think about it, the district that Walz represented in southern Minnesota has eight of those pivot counties. And when he won in 2006, initially, that was just a huge House upset. Now, feel free to expand on that. Walz is somewhat of a progressive, as we mentioned. Where does he stand on all these policies? So Walz, what he does is he puts people first. And that's one thing that he always goes back to. How can I help everyday Americans? That's why he did things like establish the lunch program in a state where all students got free breakfast and free lunch, because he knows what it's like to look at those students and know they can't learn if they're hungry. Right. So it's basic things like that where you talk about, yes, you want to have a platform politically. What are you going to do with foreign policy? What are you going to do with the economy, with the border? But you also just want to have somebody that's normal, that understands everyday problems. And I think that's Walz platform. They say all politics are local. They are. They are local. But funny enough, those local issues, they translate generally. So if he established a free lunch program for kids in Minnesota, there's kids in Alabama or Arkansas or South Dakota or Florida who could use those lunch programs. So, yes, paying attention to those around you. You can expand that if you're in the office of vice president and make everybody in this country lives a little bit better. And that's why he's such an appealing candidate and adds to this Democratic ticket. Right. So a very compassionate, kind of friendly neighborhood politician approach. So Harris is also planning a campaign stop in Las Vegas Saturday. So what is she and Walz? What are they going to shoot at and looking to accomplish also ahead of the DNC? Well, she still has to introduce herself. And it seems a little bizarre because she is the vice president. And you would think everybody knows who the vice president, but they really don't. She was following President Biden's platform. So America doesn't really know what she stands for yet. She's starting to introduce that. And she's only been a candidate for a little over two weeks. So she's still in the introductory phase. And I think she's going to continue to do that in Las Vegas. She's going to give that kind of that that stump speech where she's speaking from a teleprompter, just kind of letting people know where her platform is going to be. I think at some point she needs to pivot and go with some direct Q&A's with the press. So she can answer questions. Yes. Questions that people have, not just reading off a speech. Trump does that. He did that yesterday. He did it for over an hour where he answered questions, had a back and forth with reporters. The concern with Vice President Harris right now is she may not be ready yet because she wasn't training to be in this position. So there's some some some positions and some some views she has to kind of nail down before she just gets out there and start talking off the cuff. But it's getting to that time. People want to know what she thinks directly, not what's in a canned speech. She's going to continue that in Vegas. But I think as we get to the DNC, the Democratic National Convention, she's going to have to kind of come off of those teleprompters and start interacting more with the people and with the reporters. So we just got a few more seconds here. What's the biggest challenge that Harris faces as she goes into the White House bid? Making sure that everybody knows who she is. So this election, this election is going to come down to the people in the middle. And how many of those people can you get out of the house to go vote? And you have to have people excited to do that. Not just the Democratic stalwarts who are going to vote Democratic no matter what. The independents in the middle. But they have to know who she is in order to be excited about her and get off that couch if it's raining or cold and go vote in November. Yeah. So, I mean, she did face a little bit of criticism for not taking any questions for a while. And now she did promise to sit down for a full interview. So let's look forward to that. And that concludes our interview with you. That's all the time we have. Unfortunately, Dante Mills, thank you so much for coming. Thank you for having me. Thanks, guys.