Tim Walz might come off as an all-around decent guy, but that really depends on who you’re talking to. Sure, the former vice-presidential candidate has kept a relatively clean record (especially by political standards), but that hasn’t stopped a few high-profile names from coming for his neck.
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Kamala Harris, obviously, isn’t one of them. “He’s the kind of person who makes everybody feel like they belong, and then inspires them to dream big,” she said of her former running mate during a rally event. Barack Obama also sang his praises, telling the crowd at the 2024 DNC, “Let me tell you something. I love this guy. Tim is the kind of person who should be in politics. Born in a small town, served his country, taught kids, coached football, took care of his neighbors. He knows who he is and he knows what’s important.” Even celebrities have taken to Walz, with Cynthia Nixon throwing her full support behind him, tweeting, “I’m Walzing on air.”
Of course, not everyone is swooning. Despite being scandal-free and mostly uncontroversial, Walz has managed to draw the ire of some rather loud critics, from right-wing media personalities to certain tech billionaires. Here are just some of the biggest names who’ve made it clear that they’re not on team Tim.
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Donald Trump
You may not believe it, but Donald Trump hasn’t always been critical of Tim Walz. Back in 2020, during the height of the George Floyd protests, Trump actually praised the Minnesota governor for his response. “I know Governor Walz is on the phone, and we spoke, and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days,” he said in a call, per an audio clip obtained by CBS News. “He’s an excellent guy. You’ve got a big National Guard out there that’s ready to come in and fight like hell. I tell you, the best — what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately.”
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But as we all know, Trump eventually changed his tune in the 2024 elections, practically the moment Walz joined Kamala Harris as her vice-presidential pick. “Well, he’s a loser,” he said at a White House event. “You know, usually a vice president doesn’t play a part. They say. I think Tim played a part. I think he was so bad that he hurt her. They didn’t have a great group, but I would probably put him at the bottom of the group.” And despite praising him just four years prior, Trump said that Walz was not a good governor, and shouldn’t be so close to being the leader of the country. “He shouldn’t have any access to possibly being president. The guy has been a terrible governor. They have had nothing but problems in their state. He has no capability,” he declared (via Politico). “They call him coach. He is a semi-coach if he coached some football for a little while. This guy is a lightweight.” So from “excellent guy” to “semi-coach” and “loser,” Walz has clearly fallen out of Trump’s good graces — and all it took was a VP nomination.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk is no politician (unless you count his DOGE stint), but he managed to get involved in a beef with Tim Walz. It all kicked off when Walz criticized Musk for backing Donald Trump and throwing millions at his campaign. “That guy is literally the richest man in the world, spending millions of dollars to help Donald Trump buy an election,” he said at a rally. “Donald Trump has already promised that he would put Elon in charge of government regulations that oversee the businesses that Elon runs.”
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Proving that he’s incredibly sensitive, Musk took to X, formerly Twitter — because where else? — to make fun of Walz. “You’re gonna lose, @Tim_Walz. Saving the American people from the torture of hearing you speak for 4 years was worth it,” the Tesla founder tweeted. In response, Walz joked about Tesla’s declining stock prices, saying he added Tesla to his stock app “to give me a little boost during the day.” He added, “And if you own one, we’re not blaming you. You can take dental floss and pull the Tesla thing off.”
That, apparently, is what ultimately ticked Musk off. He then had what you would call a complete crash out on Fox News. “I mean, you have Tim Walz, who’s a huge jerk, running around on stage with the Tesla stock price, where the stock price had gone in half, and he was overjoyed,” he said in an interview. “What an evil thing to do — what a creep, what a jerk. Like, who derives joy from that? And it was pointed out to him that the Minnesota state pension fund is a major investor in Tesla, but he didn’t care because he was so overjoyed by the Tesla stock [tanking]. Does that sound like a good person to you? I don’t think so.”
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Caitlyn Jenner
It’s not a secret that Caitlyn Jenner has gone full on MAGA, but no one expected her to mock a politician who is supportive of gender-affirming policies, given her gender identity. While she’s not as vocal about her dislike of Walz as his other critics, what she said still came as a shock to many.
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It all started when Walz made an appearance on Gavin Newsom’s podcast, where he discussed why people in the MAGA world don’t take him seriously. “I think I scare them a little bit, [which is] why they spend so much time on me,” he said (via The Telegraph). “No, I’m serious, because they know I can fix a truck. They know I’m not bulls***ting on this … Not that I spend too much time thinking about this. It just baffled me how much time they spent trying to attack me that I was not masculine enough in their vision.” He even joked that he could probably take his haters down in a fight. “I think I could kick most of their a**,” he quipped.
In response to these statements, Jenner couldn’t help but share the clip of Walz and Newsom on X, noting that she is more confident about her manhood than Walz. “I am more ‘masculine’ than this [clown emoji] Gov Walz,” she wrote. Make of that what you will.
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Megyn Kelly
Megyn Kelly is known for having strong opinions about, well, everyone, but her disdain for Tim Walz feels like it’s on another level. In fact, she’s one of the critics who perpetuated the use of a derogatory nickname for the politician. “Tampon Tim is the name. That’s it,” she wrote in a tweet in response to someone calling Walz Kamala Harris’ “dead weight.” As it turns out, the insult refers to Walz’s policy of providing free menstrual products in schools, including for transgender students, something that Kelly is clearly opposed to.
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On “The Megyn Kelly Show,” the broadcaster explained further why she disapproves of the governor. “I’ve been thinking about Walz since yesterday. He’s the most radical they could find on the trans issue,” she said, and even went on to note that Walz reminds her of California governor Gavin Newsom, in that they are supportive of gender-related policies. “There’s just almost no daylight between those two, if any at all,” she declared. “He scares me because he actually could become the vice president and potentially the president.”
What’s more, Kelly even admitted to having made an effort to watch Walz during one of his rallies, but she claimed that seeing him speak gives her “a feeling of fear rise up in my throat.” She added, “Because I know what he’s permitting in Minnesota when it comes to children. I care about children. And he is pedal to the metal, full steam ahead on all of it. So when I watched him dazzle last night — I’m not going to vote for him, I’ve been honest about that — but I recoiled … I see why she chose him.”
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Alyssa Farah Griffin
From the get-go, Alyssa Farah Griffin has already made it known that she’s not a big fan of Tim Walz. Even before Kamala Harris officially tapped him as her running mate, “The View” co-host was already voicing her disapproval. She called the pick “an extraordinary missed opportunity,” arguing that Walz isn’t seen as a “moderating force,” which, in her view, is exactly what the ticket needed. Her worry? That Walz’s positions on gun control and the war in Gaza could alienate swing voters.
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Griffin even grilled Walz head-on during his debate against JD Vance, with the host bringing up how Walz misspoke about being in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. “You’ve been asked before, but I want to ask this way, about a number of misstatements you’ve made about your previous military record and travels you’ve been in. I want to be unequivocal: Nobody lies as much as Donald Trump, nothing that you’ve misled on is anything on the same level, but in an era where there’s so much mistruth in our politics, so many lies, can’t there be no gray area?” Griffin asked at the time. “And how would you convey to voters who may be concerned there’s a trust issue?” In turn, Walz said how he felt that he was at a “disadvantage” then because he just wanted to respond quickly and in a concise manner.
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It probably doesn’t help that Griffin had a different VP frontrunner in mind: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. She’s sung his praises more than once, especially when he came under fire from progressives. “He has a bright future ahead because the VAST majority of this country supports Israel, stands w/our Jewish friends, & would love to see a Jewish VP ∨ POTUS someday,” she said.
