MINNEAPOLIS − Gwen Walz, wife of Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz, bashed former President Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance at a dinner for the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday, giving her own take on her husband’s signature phrase.
“Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, please mind your own business!” Walz said at the event for the LGBTQ+ civil rights organization in Minneapolis. She instructed the crowd to repeat the words, and they did in unison. “We’re going to use that word ‘please’ in there because remember, we’re being teachers.”
The former educator, who spoke to a room of 600 at the Hyatt Regency hotel, praised her husband’s record of advocating for the LGBTQ+ community in Congress and as governor, including signing an executive order to protect gender affirming care and banning conversion therapy.
In 1999, the governor became the first faculty adviser to his high school’s gay-straight alliance group in Mankato, Minnesota. The student who formed the group, Jacob Reitan, sat in the audience on Saturday.
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“We knew what these students were facing, our classrooms, and the both of us, had to be safe harbors,” she said. “I began every semester by saying, ‘this class here is a safe space for all students, including those who are gay.’ And each semester, I had to report to the principal’s office for that statement.” The crowd erupted in laughter.
The 58-year-old mother of two detailed recruiting her husband’s football team to help with the high school’s production of Bye, Bye, Birdie in an attempt to make progress between two diametrically opposed social groups. She received another roar of laughter when she joked, “You probably have all been in that one” to the audience.
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Walz has played an active role on the campaign trail since her husband joined Harris’ ticket last month, visiting battleground territories in solo and joint appearances, even playing combative roles in taking on comments made by Trump and Vance, an Ohio senator, often criticizing their stances on reproductive rights.
During the event, Walz tied Trump and Vance to Project 2025, a 900-page far-right political playbook from the conservative group The Heritage Foundation. Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself from the roadmap − which includes a number of anti-LGBTQ+ agendas − despite multiple of his allies being involved in its creation.
“They want to pretend you do not exist,” Walz said. “No, we have fought too long and hard beside one another, and we have too much to still claim. We are not going back.”
Earlier this month, the governor spoke at another Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington, D.C., where he slammed Vance for saying schools’ shootings were a “fact of life” following a mass shooting at a Georgia high school that left four dead and nine injured.
In reference to Republicans’ continued efforts to ban books in schools that contain LGBTQ+ issues, the governor pushed back, telling the crowd of 3,500 that children’s safety is paramount.
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“This is what these folks are focusing on spending their time on, like reading about two male penguins who love each other is somehow going to turn your children gay,” he said. “It’s a fact of life some people are gay, but you know what’s not a fact of life? That our children need to be shot dead in schools. That’s not a fact of life.”
If elected to office, Walz said her husband and Harris would continue to be advocates for the LGBTQ+ community.
“This election is fundamental, it is something generations before us marched and fought and bled for, and it is our freedom,” she said.
— Sam Woodward is the Minnesota elections reporting fellow for USA TODAY focusing on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s candidacy. You can reach her at swoodward@gannett.com, on X @woodyreports, and on Threads @samjowoody.
