NYT Columnist Michelle Goldberg Hopes Tim Walz Baits Trump ‘Remotely’ During VP Debate

Appearing on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” on Friday, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg had some advice for Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz ahead of the upcoming debate against JD Vance.

Walz, she said, should try to needle Donald Trump “remotely” by reminding viewers that Vance has frequently spoken ill of him.

The comment came during a discussion with host Chris Hayes about the extremist right wing politics Vance has been espoused since becoming Trump’s running mate. Of note, a big story published Friday by the Washington Post that revealed JD Vance continued to criticize Trump in extremely harsh terms as recently as 2020.

“I think what JD Vance, some of what JD Vance is doing is not intentional, right? Like, a lot of the stuff that people don’t like about him were things he was saying in right wing outlets when he’s trying to win a very right wing primary for Ohio Senate. But since he’s become the nominee, he hasn’t changed,” Hayes said. “And I think of it basically a kamikaze mission, which is, people are not going to like me, and I don’t care, I’ll be like low on favorability, but I’m going to deliver this kind of poison into the discourse every day.”

“I don’t know if it’s effective or not, but how do you read it?” Hayes asked Goldberg.

“I think that is certainly going to be his approach in the debate, right? Because people don’t like him, so he can be mean, he can be vicious, and… right now, Tim Walz is one of the most popular politicians in the country, right? Even after all sorts of smears about his military service, attacks on his family and the like. And so what JD Vance has to do is just drag Tim waltz down into the mud with him, and I think that he will probably be pretty vicious and pretty skillful in trying to do that,” Golberg said.

“What I hope Tim Walz does,” she continued, “I mean, you mentioned this Washington Post story. I think this is such a bombshell. And I really think that the political media and the political the political world is under reacting to this, because we all knew that. JD Vance, you know, said all these things about Donald Trump, compared him to Hitler, compared him to heroin, and his story for why he’s now on the ticket is that Donald Trump’s presidency changed his mind. “Donald Trump’s presidency proved him wrong.”

“So here he has, here he is saying that Donald Trump failed in the thing that Donald Trump supporters kind of point to as the central reason why he should be returned to office. “I mean, this is just, I think this undoes the entire conversion narrative that JD Vance has tried to has tried to spin,” Goldberg added.

“And it’s so incumbent on Tim Walsh… not just to make that clear to people, but just as Kamala Harris kind of needed Donald Trump when she was on stage with him, I think that Tim Walz can do this remotely. Because I don’t think Donald Trump knew about these quotes, and he’s not going to be happy to find out JD Vance’s verdict on him,” she said.

Watch the whole segment below: