Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz spoke to union firefighters and emergency medical personnel on Wednesday in Boston, insisting that Vice President Kamala Harris – not former President Donald Trump – will fight for their rights to collectively bargain, while protecting their pensions and maintaining funding for federal fire fighting resources. 

The event at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center was hosted by the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF), one of the nation’s largest labor unions that represents roughly 350,000 firefighters and emergency medical workers. 

“I can promise you this,” Walz said as he began his address. “When Vice President Harris and I win this election, we’ll have your back just like you’ve had ours this entire time.” Walz went on to describe the current Harris-Biden administration as “the most pro-labor administration in history.” 

Walz insisted that a future President Harris would bolster unions by signing into law the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which he said would make it easier for workers to collectively bargain. The act also claims to maintain funding for the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant program and protect any attacks on defined benefit pension plans.

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During the address, Walz slammed Trump over his “right to work stance,” insisting Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, together want to make it harder for workers to collectively bargain.

“Everybody in this room knows ‘right to work’ means right to work for less, right to work more dangerously, right to work for no pensions,” Walz insisted.

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“The only thing [Trump and Vance] know about working people is how to take advantage of them, how to not pay them,” the Minnesota governor said. “Every single chance they’ve gotten, they’ve waged a war on workers and their ability to collectively bargain.”

Walz blamed Trump for blocking overtime benefits for workers, opposing efforts to raise the minimum wage, and slashing funding for federal fire service programs. He also sought to link the former president to the conservative nonprofit Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which, according to Walz, aims to “screw the middle class.”

“Donald Trump [is] trying to hide from that Project 2025 plan,” Walz insisted. “They’re going to use it.”

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The Democratic National Committee projects images on Trump Tower in Chicago, on the eve of the Democrats’ national convention, on August 18, 2024 (DNC)

Walz concluded his address by imploring everyone to tune in to the upcoming debate between Harris and Trump on Sept. 10. He conceded that many people will probably be more interested in Monday Night Football, but insisted what is said that night will impact people’s retirement, their kids’ educations and the future of the nation’s infrastructure. 

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“When Republicans used to talk about freedom, they meant it. They meant it. Not anymore, these guys over there, they want government to have the freedom to invade every corner of your life, from our union halls, to our kids, schools, even our doctor’s office,” Walz insisted Wednesday. “The vice president and I, we got a little bit different vision of this.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz celebrate their nomination during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago, Ill. ( Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Democratic vice presidential nominee’s Wednesday trip to the IAFF’s 57th annual convention marked the second time he has visited Beantown in as many weeks.

WYOMING, MN – A Republican lawmaker in Minnesota recently told Fox News Digital that Gov. Walz is “nowhere close” to being a moderate and outlined examples of why he believes that his agenda has been so “heinous” that it’s difficult to even explain it to voters.

“I mean there must be a new word for ‘center’ because he’s nowhere close,” Minnesota Republican State Senator Mark Koran told Fox News Digital. “The most radical policies that we have, as a conservative Republican in Minnesota, the most difficult process we have is trying to describe the bills that were passed in the last few years. The agenda is so heinous, removing parental rights, the transgender ideology which puts our children in harm’s way. He signed every one of those bills and to me, most don’t believe it because it is so radical when we try to educate them.”

Koran told Fox News Digital that Republicans were able to work with Walz’s predecessor, Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, even if they disagreed on issues but Walz operates in a “very different environment” due to proxy voting and the “great power” Democrats have in Minnesota where the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) controls the statehouse.

“They have a trifecta which gives you great power, but they don’t have a mandate,” Koran said. “They only have the majority in the House, in the Senate in Minnesota by less than 1820 votes…they don’t have a mandate for a radical political agenda and so, to me, the most functional element, based on Governor Walz’s words of preserving democracy is he supports policies and procedures that rip out the very foundation of our system of governance.”

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“He supported and signed every single bill that came through the legislature this year where they changed the simple rules and added proxy voting. Minnesota legislators no longer have to show up. They just get to count votes and what that does is it robs full representation for all voters in Minnesota and actually granted themselves ultimate power and the legislative agenda to operate for which the voters haven’t granted them.”

Koran told Fox News Digital that Walz’s track record as governor on a variety of key issues raise serious questions about his ability to effectively serve as vice president. Koran specifically took issue with the way Walz reacted to the rioting in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd in 2020.

“Him being so close and being a member of the National Guard, they should have been in as soon as the civil unrest, which they knew was going to happen, they should have been on call and should have been ready and raring to go,” Koran said. “There should have been no hesitancy.”

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U.S. Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Governor Tim Walz takes the stage on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., August 21, 2024.  (REUTERS/Mike Segar)

“They decided to let a precinct go, to let this civil unrest go on for many days, and I think if you look back in your research, when they finally did call out the guard, the National Guard leadership basically had to ask, ‘what’s the actual mission?’” Koran continued.

They were given no direction and that’s very difficult for people to understand. I grew up in St. Paul and the fires reached within a half a block or five houses from where I raised my kids,” he added. “St. Paul fared a little better only because their police acted differently than they were allowed to act in Minneapolis but he’s the leader of the state, he should have taken decisive action and he didn’t.”

Koran also took issue with Walz’s leadership on COVID, where he has faced vocal criticism from Republicans for his stringent crackdowns including promoting a tip line for neighbors to “snitch” on each other for COVID lockdown infractions.

“If you watched Minnesota they made up this chart and dials and political theater around what the issue was,” Koran said about the early days of COVID. “For the first two weeks we got together, we were concerned we were trying to figure out what is this really? Beyond the two weeks, none of the data. They wouldn’t share the data with us. As a legislator, I represent 85,000 people. They wouldn’t share the data.”

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz greets Vice President Kamala Harris as she arrives on stage during a campaign rally at Thomas and Mack Center, University of Nevada in Las Vegas, on Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Las Vegas. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

“The data, as we know today, didn’t match any of the actual outcomes to justify the actions and keeping people locked up in their homes in Minnesota. We were probably one of the states, not the most extreme, but certainly one of the states who locked and crushed our small to middle-sized businesses, closed their churches and basically robbed us of the civil rights that we have within Minnesota. He failed horribly at it.”

When asked if there’s one thing voters nationwide should know about Walz if they are being introduced to him now for the first time, Koran said that the governor is “extraordinarily well polished at saying many words and saying nothing at all at the same time.”

“He’s already proven he’s agreed with the most radical progressive agenda that exists around the world,” Koran said. 

“When you look at the political agenda and the policies they passed, he is not what’s good for Minnesota. He’s not good for the country. He’s already agreed to throw out the Constitution. Our basic system of governance and even though the vice president doesn’t have a significant defined role, he’s already agreed to be complicit with the most radical agenda that is anti-American, anti-hardworking legal U.S. citizen, and that’s what we can’t have in the White House.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign for comment but did not receive a response.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced a “pause” in his nation’s relations with the United States and Canadian embassies after the ambassadors from those countries criticized his plan to dramatically overhaul the justice system.

“They have to learn to respect the sovereignty of Mexico,” López Obrador told journalists Tuesday morning at his daily news conference.

His comments came after U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar and his Canadian counterpart expressed their concern about sweeping changes proposed by López Obrador to Mexico’s courts.

Under the plan, which the president hopes to push through Congress during his final month in office, federal judges, including members of the Supreme Court, would lose their jobs, and their replacements would be elected by popular vote.

López Obrador contends that the courts, which have ruled against several of his legislative efforts in recent years, are corrupt.

His critics say there’s no evidence of that, and that putting judges up for election would politicize the judiciary and give even more power to López Obrador’s ruling Morena party. Last week, thousands of judges and other court employees walked off the job in protest. Over the weekend, marchers took to the streets in more than a dozen cities to oppose the changes.

Concern about the implications of López Obrador’s comments sent the peso tumbling. Several U.S. banks have warned in recent weeks that the proposed judicial overhaul poses serious financial risks for Mexico and could damage bilateral trade.

The U.S. and Canadian embassies did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Salazar came out publicly against the president’s plan last week, saying the overhaul would “threaten the historic trade relationship we have built, which relies on investors’ confidence in Mexico’s legal framework.”

“Direct elections would also make it easier for cartels and other bad actors to take advantage of politically motivated and inexperienced judges,” said Salazar, who before becoming ambassador served as a senator, Interior secretary and as Colorado’s attorney general.

“Based on my lifelong experience supporting the rule of law, I believe popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy,” he said.

That outraged López Obrador, who called Salazar’s comments “disrespectful.” He said Mexico had sent a diplomatic letter to the U.S. complaining that the ambassador’s comments “represent an unacceptable interference, a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.”

When López Obrador was asked on Tuesday whether he was in dialogue with Salazar, the president said that his relationship with the ambassador had been “on pause.”

“We are not going to tell him to leave the country,” the president said of Salazar. “But we do have to read him the Constitution — it is like reading him the riot act.”

He said his government was abstaining from communication with the U.S. and Canadian embassies. But the broader U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship continued as normal, he said.

López Obrador, a left-leaning populist with high approval ratings, has long criticized the United States for intervening in Mexico’s domestic affairs.

His administration’s cooperation with U.S. law enforcement officials has deteriorated since he accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating a case against a former Mexican defense minister who was arrested by American authorities in 2020. López Obrador successfully pressured the U.S. to drop all charges against the general and return him to Mexico.

López Obrador first proposed the judicial reform in February, after several of his legislative initiatives, including controversial changes to the country’s elections institute, were hamstrung by Supreme Court rulings.

He has complained that judges on the nation’s highest court are part of a “power mafia” and says they and other members of the judiciary should be elected just like the president or senators.

Along with changing how judges are chosen, the proposal would also reduce their terms, tie their salaries to those of the executive branch and create a judicial disciplinary tribunal whose members are elected by popular vote for terms that coincide with the six-year presidential term.

Most sitting judges, including those on the Supreme Court, would have to conclude their term when newly elected judges were sworn in.

Few countries elect Supreme Court judges by popular vote.

An analysis of the proposed reform carried out by the Inter-American Dialogue, the Stanford Law School Rule of Law Impact Lab and the Mexican Bar Assn. found that the proposals, if approved, “would undermine the foundation of the rule of law in Mexico.”

“These proposals constitute a direct threat to judicial independence,” it said. “They violate international legal standards on the independence, impartiality, and competence of the judiciary.”

López Obrador’s proposal has also drawn criticism from the U.S. Senate, with several key members of the Foreign Relations Committee issuing a statement Tuesday warning that the proposed judicial reforms “would undermine the independence and transparency of the country’s judiciary, jeopardizing critical economic and security interests shared by our two nations.”

In Mexico, many questioned López Obrador’s decision to inflame tensions with the U.S. weeks before his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, is sworn in to office Oct. 1. A member of López Obrador’s Morena party and his longtime political protege, Sheinbaum has said she supports the judicial overhaul.

On Tuesday, she said she also supported López Obrador’s decision to suspend relations with the U.S. Embassy “in the face of the insult levied by the ambassador.”

“There are issues that correspond exclusively to Mexicans and are for Mexicans to decide,” she said.

Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.