Gov. Tim Walz vows to fight Donald Trump's agenda while working to understand his appeal

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Gov. Tim Walz vows to fight Donald Trump's agenda while working to understand his appeal

2024-11-09 07:01 Last Updated At：07:11

EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — Gov. Tim Walz vowed on Friday to make Minnesota a safe haven for the values that drove the Democratic presidential ticket he helped lead, while at the same time promising to work harder to understand the concerns of President-elect Donald Trump’s voters.

Inside a high school auditorium in Eagan, Minnesota, a suburb just south of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Walz addressed a crowd of supporters with his reflections on Trump’s election victory, an outcome he said left him searching for answers.

“It’s hard to understand why so many of our fellow citizens, people who we have fought so long and hard for, wound up choosing the other path,” Walz said. “It’s hard to reckon with what that path looks like for the next four years.”

Several audience members donned Harris Walz camo campaign hats and exchanged hugs before the governor took the stage. They gave him a standing ovation and chanted his name as he and his wife, Gwen Walz, delivered remarks.

Tim Walz thanked Kamala Harris for selecting him as her running mate and for her friendship. His ascension to the Democratic ticket allowed him to learn more about the country he had hoped to serve as vice president, he said. Even in the face of defeat and a polarized political climate, Walz maintained that most Americans shared similar concerns.

“People really want the same basic things out of an American life. And I want to be clear when I say basic things. I mean things like meaningful work, safe neighborhoods, good schools, affordable quality health care. But I also mean something more,” Walz said. “It became clear to me, people want security. I mean that broadly. They want to feel like their life is built on a solid foundation that won’t collapse under them.”

Walz also said Americans wanted the freedom to live their lives as they see fit, a message that had been a cornerstone of the Harris-Walz campaign. To that end, Walz promised to make Minnesota a bulwark against a second Trump administration's potential attacks on abortion rights, immigrants and labor unions.

"Look, we know what’s coming down the pike. We know it because they told us," Walz said. “The moment they try and bring a hateful agenda in this state, I’m going to stand ready to stand up and fight.”

Walz returned home from the presidential campaign trail to a new era of divided state government, now that Republicans appear to have broken the full Democratic control that helped put him on Kamala Harris’ radar. He was elected governor in 2018 and was reelected in 2022 in an election that handed Democrats both chambers of the state Legislature.

In his remarks on Friday, Walz touted several of policies Democrats were able to implement during that period, including stronger protections for abortion rights, child tax credits, paid family and medical leave, free school meals for all kids and gun safety measures. Those policy victories allowed him to tell a story on the presidential campaign trail about Minnesota's progress, he said.

First lady of Minnesota Gwen Walz, who often joined her husband on the campaign trail, said Minnesota would remain a safe haven. In processing the election results, she said the Walzes have found solace in their favorite bible verse: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have kept the faith."

"Minnesota, we have kept the faith,” Gwen Walz said.

Even as the governor implored opponents of Trump’s agenda to keep fighting, he also called on all Americans to bridge political divides that widened during the election.

“Maybe when we get a little break rom this campaign, we will be able to look at each other and see not enemies, but neighbors,” Walz said. “Maybe will sit down over a coffee, or a Diet Mountain Dew and just talk.”

Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski contributed to this report.

FBI says driver in New Orleans rampage acted alone, was '100%' inspired by Islamic State group

2025-01-03 02:37 Last Updated At：02:42

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The U.S. Army veteran who drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers acted alone, the FBI said Thursday, reversing its position from a day earlier that he likely worked with others in the deadly attack that officials said was inspired by the Islamic State group.

The FBI also revealed that the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas, posted five videos on his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he proclaimed his support for the militant group and previewed the violence that he would soon unleash in the city's famed French Quarter district.

“This was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act,” said Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, calling Jabbar “100% inspired” by the Islamic State.

The attack killed 14 revelers, along with Jabbar, who was fatally shot in a firefight with police after steering his speeding truck around a barricade and plowing into the crowd.

It was the deadliest IS-inspired assault on U.S. soil in years, laying bare what federal officials have warned is a resurgent international terrorism threat. That threat is emerging as the FBI and other agencies brace for dramatic leadership upheaval after President-elect Donald Trump's administration takes office.

Seeking to assuage concerns about any broader plots, Raia stressed that there was no indication of a connection between the New Orleans attack and a Tesla Cybertruck explosion Wednesday outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel.

The FBI continued to hunt for clues, but said that 24 hours into its investigation, it was now confident that the 42-year-old Jabbar was not aided by anyone else in the attack, which killed an 18-year-old aspiring nurse, a father of two and a former Princeton University football star.

Officials have reviewed surveillance video showing people standing near an improvised explosive device that Jabbar placed in a cooler along the city's Bourbon Street, where the attack occurred, but authorities “do not believe at this point these people are involved ... in any way,” Raia said.

Investigators were also trying to understand more about Jabbar's path to radicalization, which they say culminated with him picking up a rented truck in Houston on Dec. 30 and driving it to New Orleans the following night.

The FBI recovered a black Islamic State flag from his rented pickup and reviewed five videos posted to Facebook, including one in which he said he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned that news headlines would not focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers,” Raia said. He also left a last will and testament, the FBI said.

Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.

Abdur-Rahim Jabbar, Jabbar's younger brother, told The Associated Press on Thursday that it “doesn’t feel real” that his brother could have done this.

“I never would have thought it’d be him,” he said. “It’s completely unlike him.”

He said that his brother had been isolated in the last few years, but that he had also been in touch with him and he didn’t see any signs of radicalization.

“It’s completely contradictory to who he was and how his family and his friends know him,” he said.

In New Orleans on Thursday, a still-reeling city inched back toward normal operations. Authorities finished processing the scene early in the morning, removing the last of the bodies, and Bourbon Street was set to reopen at some point later in the day, according to an official familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to the AP.

The Sugar Bowl college football game between Notre Dame and Georgia, initially set for Wednesday night and postponed by a day in the interest of national security, was still on for Thursday. The city planned to host the Super Bowl next month.

“This is one of the safest places on earth," Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said. "It doesn’t mean that nothing can't happen.”

Tucker reported from Washington, and Mustian reported from Black Mountain, North Carolina. Associated Press reporters Stephen Smith, Chevel Johnson and Brett Martel in New Orleans; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; Alanna Durkin Richer, Tara Copp and Zeke Miller in Washington; Darlene Superville in New Castle, Delaware; Colleen Long in West Palm Beach, Florida; and Michael R. Sisak in New York contributed to this report.