WSJ What’s News - Tim Walz Introduces Himself to the Nation

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

A.M. Edition for Aug. 22. Minnesota’s Tim Walz accepts the Democratic nomination for Vice President. Our Luke Vargas reports from the Democratic convention and asks WSJ reporter Annie Linskey about how both parties are aiming to use Walz’s political record on the campaign trail. Plus, a rail stoppage in Canada threatens to halt hundreds of millions of dollars in daily cross-border trade and snarl supply chains. And, Edgar Bronfman Jr. raises his bid for Paramount’s parent company. Kate Bullivant hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Ecolab Science Certified, we take cleaning off your plate so you can focus on what's most important to your restaurant, your guests, and having them switch from giving your restaurant a go to making it a go-to spot. Ecolab Science Certified. Count on a scientific clean. Learn more at ScienceCertified.com. Tim Walz accepts the Democratic nomination for vice president in Chicago. He's able to seamlessly blend being a very tough attack dog on the Republicans with then also appealing to these timeless American values. Plus Edgar Bronfman Jr. improves his offer for Paramount's parent and Walmart Plus

woo subscribers with Burger King discounts. It's Thursday, August 22nd. I'm Kate Bulevant for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas, who's in Chicago reporting from the Democratic Convention. Here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. We begin in Chicago, where Minnesota's Tim Walls accepted the

Democratic nomination for vice president last night and introduced himself to the country on the third day of the party's national convention. In a folksy speech laden with football metaphors the progressive governor called on voters to move past the divisiveness of Donald Trump. Leaders don't spend all day insulting people and blaming others. Leaders do the work. So I don't know about you, I'm ready to turn the page on these guys. So go ahead, say it with me, we're not going back. Our Luke Vargas is at the DNC in Chicago along with our team of Wall Street Journal reporters and editors and he's been looking into how both parties are aiming to make use

of Walls' record on the campaign trail. Going into last night, polls showed roughly four in ten American adults didn't know enough about Tim Walls to form an opinion about the Minnesota governor and former House member that Kamala Harris picked as her running mate. Well, he used his time on stage to outline his story. I'm a veteran. I'm a hunter. I wound up teaching social studies and coaching football. It was those players and my students who inspired me to run for

Congress. Of those highlights, the event put Walls' time as a high school teacher and coach center stage, with some of his former players helping to introduce him to an arena filled with Coach Walls' signs. And on policy, he rattled off some accomplishments as governor that were meant to showcase his liberal appeal, things like a law guaranteeing free meals in Minnesota public schools. So while other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours. Mixing policy and his personal story, he described the infertility struggles he faced with his wife before finally accessing treatments. Because in Minnesota, we respect our neighbors

and the personal choices they make. And even if we wouldn't make those same choices for ourselves, we've got a golden rule. Mind your own damn business. And that includes IVF and fertility treatments. Before this speech, I met with Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood, and she told me that Walz's way of speaking about reproductive issues, doing things like labeling Republican positions with the now viral moniker, weird, and describing family planning decisions

as a matter of freedom. Well, she said they're a breath of fresh air for an abortion rights movement that's thus far failed to enshrine national abortion provisions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. At no point in pregnancy do Americans believe that politicians are more qualified than doctors

or women to make these decisions. So it is weird, right, to create these laws without any real understanding of pregnancy. That's weird. So I think it's a word that kind of captures the insanity and the outrage. He really showed, I think, why Democrats are so excited to have him on the ticket. That's Journal senior Political Correspondent Molly Ball. He's able to seamlessly blend being a very tough attack dog on the Republicans with then also appealing to these timeless American values, particularly the idea of freedom. They see it as a way to connect abortion rights to the rest of their agenda.

Being free to read the books that you want to read, being free to walk down the street in safety. So by invoking his past, growing up in a small town, you heard Governor Walz really connect that idea of freedom to the political agenda that he and Kamala Harris are trying to advance. And while Democrats hope Walz's folksy rhetoric will give them a boost this year, Patrick Aspart, who leads the Progressive Center for American Progress and served as the political

director of Barack Obama's 08 campaign, told me he thinks it could have an even longer lasting impact. I have to be honest, as somebody who could be seen as, you know, a Northeast liberal elite. There's some way that Tim Walz, like, picks the lock for so many of us and forces us away from our acronyms, away from our Washington, D.C. talk. Well, Walz's creative messaging and his go-big approach to governing have certainly endeared him to those gathered here in Chicago. But Journal White House reporter Annie Linsky says his uber liberal record has also opened up potential lines of attack for the GOP

and the campaign to come. And you were reporting that Republicans are now portraying this 2023 Minnesota legislative session, the one where Walls passed more than two dozen bills as being very liberal and basically saying Walls and Harris would replicate that nationwide if they're elected. Remind us just what got done in that session and wouldn't Republicans have painted any Harris running mate as having too radical a record?

Sure. But I think in this case, this massive suite of legislation that was passed gives them quite a few talking points to support that idea. I mean, we're talking about major expansion of the child tax credit, abortion protections, driver's license for undocumented immigrants. These are policy items that Republicans disagree with, and they're happy to cut ads pointing out their concerns about these policies.

All right. And so what has the response been from Democrats on this? Are they deflecting attention, embracing it? Well, right. I mean, there are really two parts to the response. One part from Democrats is many of these individual policies actually do poll very well. Taken together, they can look like a liberal laundry list, really, but each individual policy, Democrats will say, polls well, among independents in particular.

But the other piece is Democrats believe that Tim Walz reads like a Republican. He comes across like a Republican. If you look at him, he's this kind of big cheery guy. He wears flannel. He goes hunting. He's a sort of Midwestern jolly type of figure who he doesn't look like what many people think of as a quote-unquote San Francisco liberal.

And look, in a really short campaign, that might be all there is. You just have that first impression and then you vote. And before we send things back to Kate, on yesterday's PM show, we talked about how quiet Democrats at the DNC have been on the issue of immigration. But on night three of the event, speakers began tackling the issue head on. Senator Chris Murphy, plus House members Tom Swasey and Veronica Escobar, whose Texas district borders Mexico, criticized Republicans for voting against a federal immigration bill

at the urging of former President Trump. Here was Escobar. Republicans blocked legislation that would have funded border security and created a more humane immigration system. They are not serious people. The new counter-attacks were echoed by Harris in a video that aired last night. Assigned Democrats are now looking to flip the script on a key Republican line of attack. That was our Luke Vargas in Chicago. He's part of a big team of Wall Street Journal staff covering the DNC this week. We'll have more from the convention in tonight's episode. Coming up, a labor dispute in Canada threatens millions of dollars in daily trade, and Walmart

rewards loyal customers with free burgers. Those stories and more after the break. With Ecolab Science Certified, we take cleaning off your plate so you can focus on what's most important to your restaurant, your guests, and having them switch from giving your restaurant a go to making it a go-to spot. Ecolab Science Certified. Count on a scientific clean. Learn more at sciencecertified.com. We're exclusively reporting that Edgar Bronfman Jr. has sweetened his offer for national amusements and a minority stake in Paramount Global. He's now bidding $6 billion, up from the $4.3 billion he first offered on Monday night.

Paramount, which has already agreed to a merger with Skydance Media, extended the time window in which other potential bidders can make offers until September 5. Bronfman can use that time to firm up financing for his bid, while Skydance has the opportunity to revise its own offer. Paramount shares rose moderately in off-hours trading. Businesses and policymakers are warning of a significant hit to the Canadian economy after its two main railroads locked out more than 9,000 workers overnight amid a labour dispute. Talks broke down between Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Kansas City and

Teamsters Canada after they failed to reach labour deals. According to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, a simultaneous labour stoppage will affect the flow of about $730 million in goods every day. Both freight carriers have substantial business in the US and connect to American railroads, moving everything from grain to chemicals, cars and food. They had already begun curbing operations this week in anticipation of a stoppage. In their latest quarterly reports yesterday, both Target and TJX, the owner of TJ Maxx, raised their profit goals for the year. By contrast, Macy's, which has been closing department stores, reported another quarter of shrinking sales and lowered its

sales goals slightly for the year. We asked journal reporter Sarah Nassauer, who covers large retailers for the journal, what these results tell us about U.S. consumers. We learned that low prices attract shoppers. Target said it lowered prices in the quarter compared to last year and that its sales went up for the first time. It's comp sales in four quarters. Basically, people are still spending, but they're spending on some things in some places, not all the things they used to spend on, you know, early in the pandemic or in a period where they had stimulus money to spend. It shows that, you know, people are

buying stuff, but they aren't necessarily willing to make big purchases or unnecessary purchases. They need it to feel like a value. And while value could mean different things to different people, Walmart is betting that discounted meals at Burger King are going to make its membership program more attractive. Starting this week, members of Walmart Plus will get 25% off all digital orders at the fast food chain, and as of next month, they can even qualify for the occasional free whopper, according to our reporting. It's the latest in a string of new benefits it's adding to its membership programme as it seeks to rival Amazon Prime.

If you're in the market for a new home, you may have noticed some changes in the process of buying or even looking at a house. That's because the biggest changes in decades to the way real estate agents get paid are coming into effect around the country. While traditionally home sellers covered the fees for agents on both sides of a transaction, buyers will now have to agree on their agent's commission in advance. And the idea here is that buyers will have an opportunity to directly discuss with their agents what services the agents will provide and have that negotiation upfront before even

touring homes together. That's Journal reporter Nicole Friedman. Our Your Money Briefing podcast asked her how these new rules could shake up the real estate market. A big question is whether the changes in this system for how agents get paid actually lowers commissions, whether buyers and sellers negotiate more aggressively

with their agents now, or whether they seek out new business models that have flat fees more aggressively with their agents now, or whether they seek out new business models that have flat fees or different types of paying agents that might help lower the cost. And then if real estate commissions come down, that is historically something that's And lowering the cost of buying and selling maybe could make sellers slightly more willing to sell. Maybe it could increase the amount

of inventory on the market. For more on what to know about the new system, check out the Your Money Briefing podcast. And we'll get a fresh read on the state of the housing market at 10 AM Eastern today, when the National Association of Realtors reports existing home sales for July. Economists polled by the journal are expecting a 1.5% increase from the previous month.

And that's it for What's News for Thursday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach and Pierre Bienemé with supervising producer Christina Rorca. And I'm Kate Boulevard for the Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening. With Ecolab Science Certified, we take cleaning off your plate so you can focus on what's most important to your restaurant, your guests, and having them switch from giving your restaurant a go to making it a go-to spot. Ecolab Science Certified. Count on a scientific clean. Learn more at ScienceCertified.com.