Tim Walz’s wife warns LGBTQ+ community about Trump and Vance

MINNEAPOLIS — Gwen Walz, the wife of Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz, blasted former President Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance at a Human Rights Campaign dinner Saturday, giving her own take on her husband’s iconic line.

“Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, mind your own business!” Walz said at the event hosted by the LGBTQ+ civil rights organization in Minneapolis. She asked the crowd to repeat the words, which they did in unison. “We’re going to use the word ‘please’ because remember, we’re teachers.”

The former educator, who spoke to a crowd 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 ban conversion therapy.

In 1999, the governor became the first faculty adviser to the gay-straight alliance group at his high school in Mankato, Minn. The student who formed the group, Jacob Reitan, was sitting in the audience Saturday.

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“We knew what these students were up against, our classrooms and we had to be safe havens,” she said. “I would start every semester by saying, ‘This classroom is a safe space for all students, including those who are gay.’ And every semester I had to go to the principal’s office and get 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 production of Bye, Bye, Birdie, in an effort to advance two polar opposite social groups. She drew another laugh when she joked, “You’ve probably all been in that situation” 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, touring battlegrounds in solo and joint appearances, even taking a combative role in attacking comments made by Trump and Vance, an Ohio senator, often criticizing their positions on reproductive rights.

At the event, Walz linked Trump and Vance to Project 2025, a 900-page far-right policy manual from the conservative group The Heritage Foundation. Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself from the road map — which includes a number of anti-LGBTQ+ programs — despite several of his allies being involved in its creation.

“They want to pretend you don’t exist,” Walz said. “No, we’ve fought too long and too hard alongside each other, and we still have too much to claim. We’re not going back.”

Earlier this month, the governor spoke at another Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington, D.C., where he criticized Vance for saying school shootings were a “fact of life” after a mass shooting at a Georgia high school left four dead and nine injured.

In reference to ongoing Republican efforts to ban books in schools containing information about LGBTQ+ issues, the governor fired back, telling the crowd of 3,500 that the safety of children was paramount.

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“That’s what these people are spending their time on, as if reading about two male penguins who love each other is going to turn your kids gay,” he said. “That’s a fact, some people are gay, but you know what’s not a fact? That our kids should be slaughtered in schools. That’s not a fact.”

If elected, Walz said her husband and Harris would continue to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community.

“This election is fundamental, it is something that generations before us marched for, fought for and shed their blood for, and it is our freedom,” she said.

— Sam Woodward is USA TODAY’s Minnesota elections reporter, focusing on the candidacy of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. She can be reached at [email protected], on X @woodyreports and on Threads @samjowoody.