Political Happy Hour:

The interesting thing is they don't have the money to make it permanent right now. They'll need the legislature to probably authorize that money. So it'll be interesting to see if the next governor wants something like that back and where it would live. Because I know this sounds a little questioning, but there's territory battles within law enforcement. Like, no, that's our case. No, that's our case. You guys didn't move fast enough. Now it's our problem. And so I think as you start to think about those dynamics, personalities, relationships, turf wars, even amongst law enforcement, it takes somebody at the state level to say, we're going to be the keeper of the data and then we'll share it back out and let's just start working on it. I think that was today. We're doing it. Let's start working on it and let's see if it helps. But this has become a hot topic on the campaign trail, especially in the U.S. Senate and the governor's races. Uh, just today at the debate, they talked about this recent, this recent crime issue. Obviously we had the shooting outside the Eden Prairie high school football game. We had a shooting on a residential street in Bloomington at a gas station in Prairie, all these local law enforcement organizations saying this is Somali American, primarily youth who aren't younger, younger. Yeah. Who aren't dealing with drugs or money, but they just are fighting. They're fighting with guns. This is, and it's like, again, they're not fighting over drug turf, car turf, anything like that. And this was one of the puzzling things I remember from the pandemic when Kias and Hyundais started getting stolen a lot. I was like, are they stripping them down, selling them for parts? No, it was all about the joyride. And law enforcement was like, there's no major criminal enterprise that we're trying to break. You're just trying to get kids to stop taking joyrides with guns. Okay, well, I think we do have a clip from that. Kara's going to pull it up here. Because this was, this, everybody was at this press conference. Yes. So not only have we had multiple candidates come out in recent weeks with their public safety plan, we now have this task force, or whatever they want to call it, between multiple law enforcement agencies, federal, state, and local. Here was Drew Evans, the superintendent of the BCA, earlier today. Yesterday, some of our Somali-American police officers held a listening session and worked just last night. The Department of Public Safety has a listening session that we're working on currently to come together with the Somali community. Because as we said last week, this group up here in the meeting that we had that was very robust agreed that Somali-American gang and group violence is a problem and that the Somali community is not the problem. Meaning that we have a group, a relatively small number of people that are committing harm in our communities, and it's a new and emergent issue in terms of how decentralized it is and impacting so many communities across the Twin Cities, and that requires an approach that's unique compared to some of the things that we've done in the past, and I'm confident with the partners standing up here today that we'll be able to address that. The agencies standing here today represent just a part of a larger team. Collaboration across all federal, state, and local partners in Minnesota is strong. This new collaborative effort has been built on years of joint work, including from our Safe Streets Task Forces, which link federal tools with local investigations and allow us to take the most violent networks off the streets together. The FBI brings enterprise-level investigations, national intelligence resources, and federal statutes that dismantle those networks and secure long-term judicial consequences that help stabilize communities and prevent cycles of retaliation. However, we rely on community partners to be our eyes and ears. Community leaders know the problems facing their neighborhoods may be better than anyone. Working with our community partners is not only the smart thing to do, it's the right thing to do. Partnership is what has worked, what is working, and what will continue to work. Overall, violent crime is dropping across Minnesota because of these joint efforts and we're committed to sustaining that progress. But even with crime declining, a small group of violent actors continues to inflict real violence in our neighborhoods, in our communities. We'll continue to be laser focused and relentless in investigating and preventing these violent acts. yesterday, some of our... I want to ask you, Boyce. You have these agencies coming out announcing this task force, but you also have every single one of these candidates, for the most part, coming out and saying, here's my public safety plan, here's how I would tackle it. Is this really a thing that a politician will do? Because to me, it seems like here we have law enforcement organizations that are doing it without any politicians getting involved. I think that's about the time we're in. Think about the time we're in. Traditionally... LAW ENFORCEMENT WOULD DO THIS WITH THE BLESSING OF THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE STATE. TIM WALLS IS NOT PART OF THIS CONVERSATION. NOR HAS HE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT SOMALI GANG VIOLENCE. I THINK THERE ARE TWO THINGS TO THAT. ONE IS HE KNOWS HE IS A LAME DUCK AND DOESN'T WANT TO ESCALATE. TWO IS LOCAL LEADERS ARE LIKE, WE'LL JUST TAKE CARE OF IT. INTERESTING STATEMENT FROM MARY MORIARTY, WHO WAS NOT AT THE NEWS CONFERENCE, JUST CAME in the inbox saying, oh, by the way, our intelligence group at the Hennepin County Attorney's Office will be really helpful for this. And we'll collaborate with these folks to keep our kids safe. And this is the same office that just two weeks ago said, there's no gang problem. There's not a bunch of people running around. But they have an intelligence department that's going to contribute to this. So I think this is why the gubernatorial candidates are like, here we go. What are we going to do? I look at this as the bridge to get us to January when the next governor's there. Just feels like a little bit of grandstanding because a U.S. senator is not going to come up with a safety plan for the state of Minnesota. But I will say this, when Andy Lugar came in the second time as U.S. attorney and we had a lot of young gangs violence car theft he used the federal penalties to deter and he's talked about it he like went and met with them hey guys keep doing this you're going to federal prison this isn't local state like we have strong tools and it was a deterrent and he said this is one of the fascinating things he once said the some of the leaders of the gangs would say make sure you put it on TV. And he's like, your gang members aren't watching TV. They're like, no, we'll clip it and text it to him to get him to stop stealing cars for no reason. He was like, okay, I'll say it on TV and you can clip it and send it to him. So the harsher penalty does impact these kids who don't think there's going to be a consequence. And then they think they could go away for 10 to 15 years. And there's a reality if the feds are involved. Andy Luger says that's been impactful. Okay, we have some other headlines that we need to tackle, but Kara's telling me we need to take a break. So we're going to take a break. We'll be back after this. Last week during an interview with Newsmax, President Donald Trump said that he wants to come to Minnesota to campaign. I think he said he wanted to do not one, but two visits possibly. What do you think about this? Tell me what he said and what you think. Well, he said, I'll go to Minnesota. I want to go there and campaign. I won it three times. Again, President Trump says a lot of things that don't happen or aren't real or are lies. He did not win the state three times. He did not win the state three times. But it was also, Republicans told me he thought it was a little bit of a poke at Michelle Tafoya after she ran an ad saying, I will stand up to President Trump on key issues. I will be Minnesota's senator. He doesn't like that. And he must have saw the ad or whatever. Look, I don't know if he's coming. I think if he does come it'll be in the first district where it is Brad Finstead's in a close battle it could gin up some Trump voters who wouldn't vote in a midterm um but it'll put Lisa Demuth and Michelle Tafoya in a tough spot if they are not on stage with them and we know that there's retribution there so we'll see um but the the other thing that came out last week who were gone was the favorability of Donald Trump in Minnesota and Tim Walz in Minnesota were the same. Very, very low. And that presents the quagmire that we're in is who's popular and who's not. So it puts Demuth and Tafoya in a tough spot because they need those MAGA votes, but they also want to draw the moderates, the independents to vote for them. And so they don't want to stand too closely next to him. And they've both been very clear that they have a different style they wouldn't do some of the things he does they don't support all of his policies and you just don't want the top of your ticket to have to answer those questions in the final two weeks of the campaign especially Tafoya has she she i mean she she has stances that are not not traditionally republican you know she calls herself a pro-choice republican she has from the beginning she didn't like the way that ICE was rolled out um the operation metro surge here so especially for her it seems this is a sticky situation she was asked about it in the debate last week she was asked if she'd campaign with him and she said she didn't answer the question she said i'm talking to minnesotans i'm care about minnesotans that's all i care about is minnesota similarly peggy flanagan was asked if she would campaign with Tim Walz she also did not answer the question which by the way is a lot more telling than michelle tofoya not campaigning with Donald Trump, is that Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor, couldn't say she would campaign with the governor, who she's co-governed for eight years with. And I think that those are the inside angles we should cover here on The Happy Hour, but also that make people go, huh, there's more to this story than we're hearing. I think there's a lot more there. Big news today was the first gubernatorial debate. So we had the two lead candidates, Lisa Damuth and Amy Klobuchar, in their first debate. This was hosted by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce up in Brainerd. So it was business focused, but they touched on everything. Yeah, they really did. And you got to see kind of their style. I mean, Amy Klobuchar hasn't had a tough debate in a long time. She did presidential debates. Lisa Damuth had very few debates during the primary. I had both of them on the stage at Farm Fest, where they were both just trying to get through that primary a week later. But I think we saw kind of these issues. And obviously, fraud is the number one issue that people want the governor to solve. They both have their answers. But we've all heard their answers so many times. Are they switching them up at all? I think we have a clip just to see kind of how they answer that fraud question. In Minnesota, the most expensive thing has been fraud for all of us here in the state of Minnesota. The next thing, when you look at it, Democrats in the state of Minnesota with one party control put in an automatic gas inflator. I have already said that I will pull that back when I am elected as governor. You also heard about gas prices, but I happen to know that the senator voted against the Keystone Pipeline, which would have brought in 830,000 barrels a day. And so we can talk about federal issues that are impacting us, but we definitely need to look at what is impacting us here in the state of Minnesota because of failed Democrat leadership for far too long. So gas prices, I think everyone knows. They were something like $2.50 before the president started this war. And now they're well over $4 in Minnesota. Voters know what's going on. People know what's going on. As for Tim Walz, I have been very clear. I would have caught that fraud. I would have done something about it. We have very different backgrounds. Secondly, when they had that surplus, I would have used it to pay for things that aren't as sexy like infrastructure, get this technology done, and do things like that. I would have clearly not pardoned a sex offender. So I could list a number of other ways I'm different than Tim Walz. I know you wish you were debating Tim Walz, but I'm the one here right now up here. I could list all the ways that I'm different from Tim Walz. Was this the most distance you've seen Klobuchar put between her and the governor so far during this race? Yeah, I think she would like to distance herself further. She's worried about upsetting other Democrats that are Tim Walz fans that don't want fighting within the party. but she was pretty clear there and you could see her you know say not only i can list the ways i'm different i would and then she goes to the second i wouldn't have pardoned a sex offender um no and so i that was recent that was recent i think the biggest thing on this answer is klobuchar led with fraud when she launched her campaign dameth has continued to talk about, Damouth has another news conference tomorrow on whistleblower protection in state government so she's going to start start keep talking about it, debate today, news conference tomorrow on whistleblower protection, another debate on Wednesday and so these two are going to really face off Wednesday night, we're going to have full coverage here, but I think that fraud and who do you trust on that is those undecided voters, that's the one issue that you think they're going who do I really trust to clean up state government. Another interesting thing that we heard in that debate is, at least to me, was Klobuchar said, I will not raise taxes. Right. I'm not so sure that would be popular among her Democratic colleagues. No, there's a lot to be anticipated if Klobuchar wins of how different she'll be and how she may frustrate her own party quite a bit. Governors traditionally get about 80 percent of what they want out of the legislature Eighty-five percent of this legislature has only served under Tim Walz, who is very much a 50-50 person You take your 50, I'll take my 50. And you look at the trifecta Lisa Damouth brought it up there. There's an automatic inflationary increase in the gas tax every year from the Democratic trifecta. So it's all going to kind of come back to that. And I think there's some of those pieces Amy Klobuchar is going to try to unwind, they also talked about stadiums, yeah I mean they talked about all of it, yeah well sports stadiums always a hot topic, always a good talker, seems like there's a lot more to talk about though than stadium, they you know they the other conversations they had, an economic club event last week where they talked about growth in the economy, I did a long-term care one, I know they've done a children's health one so there's been other forums where they haven't debated but they've laid out their plans on these issues the one thing they've both laid out is a housing plan and that is one of those bottlenecks in our economy that if you can't get housing then you can't build jobs so how do you you know build the capacity in housing uh there's one more thing that i want to talk about but we're going to squeeze in a break we'll talk about it after uh and it has to do with Klobuchar and her record when it comes to personal relationships has been in the media a lot. We'll talk about it right after this break. Welcome back. Still talking about that gubernatorial debate that happened today, this morning up in Brainerd between Lisa Damouth and Amy Klobuchar. Something that was brought up by Damouth during this debate was past reports about Klobuchar's treatment of her staffers. Yes. This is also a Star Tribune story over the weekend. This came up pretty visibly in 2019, February of 2019, while Klobuchar was running for president. She had announced that January. The New York Times, BuzzFeed did stories about how she had treated staff with little vignettes about certain things like, you didn't bring silverware, I'll eat my salad with a comb, stuff like that. It largely went away. She obviously dropped out of the presidential race. She didn't run for the Senate for five years later. Royce White was her opponent. But the Star Tribune raised the question of how she treats her staff in a story this weekend. And then Damouth brought it up and said something to the effect today of, I always respect my staff. I always want it to be a warm, if you work for me, you won't have office supplies flying at you or something to that effect. Obviously trying to get under Klobuchar's skin. Obviously trying to kind of poke her and prod her and talk about what kind of leader or manager she is. What I would say is these stories have been out there. I don't know how many voters pay attention to them. I think since 2019, Klobuchar has probably been a lot more careful to it. But what I would say is I've known Amy Klobuchar a long time. She is uber prepared for every day and every meeting, and that makes staffing her very, very demanding. I talked about this on Friday. on the radio and I just said, I think you can't abuse staff, you gotta be respectful. But being demanding of staff is probably a good thing if she's the governor because we saw and read about Tim Walz not being demanding, not asking the right questions, not being tough. And so I think it is one of those places where if anybody is worried about this, they're They're probably like, I'd rather err on that side than not on that side. So it'll be interesting to see if Damouth brings this up on Wednesday. Look, I don't think it's an issue that moves voters, but it becomes a talker. And it's a way to kind of, again, get under Amy's skin in a way that maybe she gets off her game. Maybe she's less disciplined. It didn't destroy her career when all these allegations came out in 2019. certainly then it's probably likely to not derail her career this time around. It's already been out there for years, like you said. It is interesting to see now people defending, like you said, defending her style as saying, well, it's what Minnesota needs. The former St. Louis Park mayor, Jake Spano, said, this is what Minnesotans are begging for right now. They want somebody in the role of governor who's not going to miss a deal, who's going to make sure people are held accountable. yeah so turning around that tough demeanor as a positive that's interesting to me that there that there are people in her camp who are trying to turn this around saying well yeah she's tough on her staff is that necessarily a bad thing especially when you're dealing with fraud no and i can tell you jake spano st louis park guy kids were in hockey together and there was once a sunday during the economic collapse of 09 that jake spano was getting the briefing book on that massive bill to get the economy back on track. He was doing his briefing while we watched our kids at the hockey rink. It's that kind of demand that she wanted that book before she went to Washington Monday. So she was writing. And that's the kind of work that the staffers have to put in. And oh, by the way, that's the way I grew up in the business, too. Yeah. So probably not going to work for Damon. It's not a it's not a game changer of an issue. Yeah. All right. That's going to do it for us today. We'll be back again tomorrow at 430. We hope you'll tune in. That's Political happy hour for today. We're going to send it over to the 5 o'clock news now. Have a great night.