Joe Scarborough says Tim Walz brings political imbalance to Harris ticket

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Tuesday that Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz doesn't bring political balance to the Democratic ticket because he's as progressive as Vice President Kamala Harris.

Harris chosen Walz as her running mate Tuesday to face Republican nominee Donald Trump and vice presidential nominee JD Vance. Scarborough said Walz and Harris are considered progressives who may not appeal to the Democratic Party's moderate base.

“Progressives seem to love Walz, he's a progressive,” Scarborough said. “There wouldn't be much of an ideological balance between Kamala Harris and Governor Walz … there would be two people seen as progressives within the Democratic Party instead of an ideological mix like you might have with Shapiro. That's the whole idea that will they excite the grassroots and that this will be a grassroots election?Do they care who the moderates in Pennsylvania or other states think?

Joe Scarborough says Tim Walz is as far left as Kamala Harris pic.twitter.com/8XD1dKHXQK

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 6, 2024

The Rev. Al Sharpton said the candidates must moderate the ticket to “make sure the American people” will hear all sides. He said Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro would have provided a moderate balance to the ticket, but argued that Walz's good qualities “outweigh the bad.”

“But I think you have to balance if they just want to energize the base and continue [the] progressive and ideologically we go to a ticket. Whether you want to have a balance to make sure Americans hear all sides, and Shapiro represents that without going too far,” Sharpton said.

Scarborough argued that Walz was a safer choice than Shapiro as many Democratic voters he hesitated to support the governor of Pennsylvania for being Jewish. The MSNBC host noted that Walz has been as supportive of Israel as Shapiro and a bigger supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Walz appears to be far left of center on issues related to transgender minors, illegal immigration and abortion. The governor of Minnesota signed legislation granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in the state on March 7, 2023.

Waltz beyond signed an executive order to allow minors to receive gender hormone and sex reassignment surgeries on March 8, 2023, saying he wants all Minnesotans to feel “safe, valued, protected, celebrated and free of exist”. The executive order also prevented Minnesota from helping states “criminalize” the procedures or arrest people accused of violating out-of-state sex-change laws.

Vouchers signed the state's “trans sanctuary” legislation into law on April 27, 2023, to prevent the enforcement of out-of-state laws that would remove a child from their parents to receive transgender medical procedures.

The governor of Minnesota codified abortion in the Minnesota Constitution by signing the Reproductive Protection Options Act into law in May 2023, which does not set limits on when an abortion can be performed in the state. The law was signed as Walz supported a comprehensive set of left-leaning legislative priorities at the end of the Minnesota State Legislature's 2023 legislative session.

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