Just in case you were starting to miss the entertainment value Tim Walz provided on the campaign trail as Kamala Harris’ running mate, the Minnesota governor appears to be reemerging on the public stage.
Earlier this month, Walz said he would “certainly consider” running for president in 2028, and, in an interview with California Gov. Gavin Newsom released this week, he appeared to be picking up where he left off in terms of failing to understand what voters – particularly, men – actually care about.
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by National Review’s Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke to discuss Walz’s latest comments about masculinity and what they show about the state of the Democratic Party.
The Comments
After taking a beating for inviting MAGA firebrands like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his new podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom, the California governor welcomed Walz on the program to discuss – according to the episode description – “how the Democrats are losing men and why the party’s brand of populism isn’t resonating.”
It quickly became clear why both things are true when Walz tried to play the role of tough guy. He first admitted there was “disconnect” between the Democrats’ policies and “how people view them,” which Newsom agreed with because he said Harris and Walz “ran an incredibly effective campaign in terms of highlighting the needs of the American people.”
That led Walz to wonder if the issue is that the party “appears weak” – something he believes he experienced firsthand. “I saw it for me and, not that I spend much time thinking about this, but it just baffled me how much time [Republicans] spent trying to attack me that I wasn’t like masculine enough in their vision… which I think, again, is their obsession their weirdness,” he noted.
“They spent all their time, these guys on Fox News, that Walz is gay, he’s not masculine, you know, he doesn’t coach football the way he should,” Walz continued. “There is misogyny in here that is happening.”
Newsom said the “notion of masculinity” has played a big role in the culture wars in the last decade, but he stopped short of validating Walz’s “misogyny” accusation. When Walz asked Newsom how to “fight it,” he also claimed he could “kick most of their ass” and “out run them.”
And while Newsom voiced his concerns over the left “losing so many men” of different backgrounds to the right because of podcasters like Kirk, Bannon, and and the like, Walz seemed befuddled. “These are bad guys though,” he lamented. “How do we push some of those guys back under a rock?”
When Newsom suggested Democrats have to get to the root of why these personalities “persist” in “actually influencing young kids every single day,” Walz returned to the party’s go-to talking point. He blamed their popularity on – wait for it – “racism and misogyny.”
The Fallout
Megyn said there was so much to dissect from the exchange. “Like, ‘I’m going to kick their ass’? Okay, sure, Jan… The sort of the manosphere that helped get Trump elected, they’re ‘bad’ and then ‘how do we kick them back under a rock?’ The leftist instinct to silence is always there when it’s not their POV,” she explained. “And then just the cherry on top was the ‘it’s all racist.'”
She joked that it is almost hard to believe the exchange wasn’t satire. “If I sent you into a back room with a bot and you were to program it to say the things that the left believes about the right half of America, that is what you come out with,” Megyn said.
The irony, Lowry said, is that Walz was selected to the Democrat ticket specifically to “to appeal to ordinary Americans” and “rural men,” both of which he seems to have no handle on. “I’m not a big Gavin Newsom fan… [but] Newsom is right about ‘let’s understand what is going on and maybe find out a way to appeal to these people,'” he said. “But Walz is with the left with the, ‘No, they’re horrible, they’re racist, they’re misogynist, nothing to learn, nothing to understand. We’re righteous and they need to go away.'”
That is the “attitude,” Lowry added, that has cost Dems several elections. “We have seen it for a long time for the left, but it was the attitude that sunk Hillary Clinton in 2026,” he noted. “And they are still not over it.”
In Cooke’s view, Walz is struggling to make sense of his own argument. “He can’t decide… whether or not he wishes to condemn what he sees as toxic masculine men or emulate them,” he explained. “It’s an odd thing… to say ‘we need to put them under the rock.’ ‘They’re bad people’… But to start the segment saying, ‘I’m going to kick their ass.'”
Ultimately, Cooke said Walz continues to prove why the “weird” label is best applied to him and not his 2024 opponents. “It will never cease to be weird that having put together a ticket that consisted of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the Democrats went on a two week offensive where they described, verbatim, J.D. Vance as being ‘weird,'” he concluded. “Tim Walz is one of the most weird people I’ve ever seen in politics.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Cooke Lowry by tuning in to episode 1,030 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.