Politics
Tim Walz slammed as 'political chameleon' after ditching former pro-Second Amendment stand
Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will join her on the 2024 Democratic ticket for the White House, despite the pair previously having wildly differing views on the Second Amendment and gun control.
“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. It’s great to have him on the team. Now let’s get to work,” Harris posted to X on Tuesday morning.
Walz is in the midst of his second term as Minnesota governor, and previously served as a U.S. congressman in the state from 2007-2019, where he represented a largely rural population. Back when he served as a congressman in a district that typically voted red, Walz was seen as a champion of gun rights and hunting.
The National Rifle Association awarded Walz an A rating for his commitment to protecting gun ownership and rejecting gun control laws pushed by left-wing members of the Democratic Party.
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Gov. Tim Walz speaks at an event in Northfield, Minnesota, on Nov. 1, 2023. (Christopher Mark Juhn/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Tim Walz is a gun owner. He grew up hunting and spent 24 years in the Army National Guard. Now in Congress, Tim stood up time and time again for the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun owners and sportsmen. It’s why the NRA gave Tim an ‘A’ rating,” a 2010 political ad declared.
Walz’s celebration of the Second Amendment included earning him a spot on Guns & Ammo magazine’s 2016 list of 20 top politicians for gun owners.
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“A Democrat, Rep. Walz proves that gun rights are not always partisan issues. Walz Co-sponsored ATF reform legislation back in 2008 and was a lead sponsor in the SHARE Act,” Walz’s feature on the list reads. “While most congressional Democrats have jumped on the gun control train with both feet, Tim Walz and a few others have stuck to their guns.”
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the media after touring a Planned Parenthood facility in St. Paul, Minnesota, with Gov. Tim Walz and Planned Parenthood North Central States chief medical officer Sarah Traxler, March 14, 2024. (Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
Walz has since changed his tune to champion gun control measures, and lost his high marks among the Second Amendment community. The NRA slammed Walz as a “political chameleon” in a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Tuesday after Harris officially announced him as her running mate.
“Tim Walz is a political chameleon – changing his positions to further his own personal agenda. In Congress, Walz purported to be a friend of gun owners to receive their support in his rural Minnesota district. Once he had his eyes set on other offices, he sold out law-abiding Minnesotans and promoted a radical gun control agenda that emboldened criminals and left everyday citizens defenseless. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz cannot be trusted to defend freedom and our Constitutional rights,” Randy Kozuch, chairman of the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF), said in a statement.
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Walz’s previous gun stances stand in stark contrast to Harris’ celebration in recent years that the Biden administration would take on the NRA and win, citing Biden’s work as a senator when he voted to ban semi-automatic firearms in 1994 as part of a major crime bill.
“@JoeBiden has taken on the @NRA and won. He can do it again,” Harris tweeted last year, accompanied by a campaign ad celebrating Biden’s determination to “ban assault weapons.”
Biden, while serving as a Delaware senator, voted to ban semi-automatic firearms in 1994 as part of a major crime bill, while the Democrat-majority House at the time passed the ban as a standalone bill. The bill ultimately was incorporated into the sweeping anti-crime package and required exceptions in order to pass, including a sunset provision.
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Sen. Kamala Harris speaks at an event in Las Vegas on April 27, 2019. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
The bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in September of that year. It enacted a 10-year ban on the manufacture, transfer or possession of “semiautomatic assault weapons” and “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.”
The law expired in 2004, when George W. Bush was president and Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress.
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Fast-forward to 2009, when Barack Obama was president, Walz was one of 65 Democrats in the House who signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder opposing any bans similar to the one from 1994, the Star Tribune previously reported. Holder notably was chosen by Harris this year to head up the vetting process of the pool of potential veeps before Walz was ultimately chosen.
Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a press conference regarding gun legislation at City Hall on Aug. 1, 2024 in Bloomington, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
In 2017 and 2018, the then-congressman wildly changed his tune on gun control, joining fellow Democrats in their calls to tighten laws on gun ownership. Walz announced in 2017, following the tragic Las Vegas shooting, that he was donating the roughly $18,000 he received from the NRA to charity.
Days after the tragic school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, Walz joined fellow Democrats in calling for gun control measures. Last year, the governor also signed into law universal background checks and a red flag order, which was slammed by Second Amendment groups.
Walz wrote in an op-ed in 2018 that his views on guns are “evolving in some ways,” but that he’s “always been a reformer.”
“To finally come together to end gun violence, we’ll need a new approach. We’ll need to build a coalition we haven’t seen before: rural, urban, suburban and exurban folks; gun owners and gun-violence survivors; hunters and advocates and police officers and the young people who are stepping up right now. We’ll need a coalition of folks of good faith who haven’t seen eye to eye but respect the different ways of life in every corner of our state,” he wrote in an op-ed published by the Star Tribune in 2018.
“That’s how we get things done in Minnesota: We come together. As a hunter, sportsman and veteran with a lifelong respect for guns, as a resident of greater Minnesota, a teacher, and a dad who just wants his kids to come home safe, I can and will bring together that coalition to end gun violence, preserve our ways of life and ensure that everyone gets home to their families safe.”
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Politics
Video: Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows
new video loaded: Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows
transcript
transcript
Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows
Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota abandoned his re-election bid to focus on handling a scandal over fraud in social service programs that grew under his administration.
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“I’ve decided to step out of this race, and I’ll let others worry about the election while I focus on the work that’s in front of me for the next year.” “All right, so this is Quality Learing Center — meant to say Quality ‘Learning’ Center.” “Right now we have around 56 kids enrolled. If the children are not here, we mark absence.”
By Shawn Paik
January 6, 2026
Politics
Pelosi heir-apparent calls Trump’s Venezuela move a ‘lawless coup,’ urges impeachment, slams Netanyahu
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A San Francisco Democrat demanded the impeachment of President Donald Trump, accusing him of carrying out a “coup” against Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, seen as the likely congressional successor to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, also took a swipe at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Wiener has frequently drawn national attention for his progressive positions, including his legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom designating California as a “refuge” for transgender children and remarks at a San Francisco Pride Month event referring to California children as “our kids.”
In a lengthy public statement following the Trump administration’s arrest and extradition of Maduro to New York, Wiener said the move shows the president only cares about “enriching his public donors” and “cares nothing for the human or economic cost of conquering another country.”
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California State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, speaks at a rally. (John Sciulli/Getty Images)
“This lawless coup is an invitation for China to invade Taiwan, for Russia to escalate its conquest in Ukraine, and for Netanyahu to expand the destruction of Gaza and annex the West Bank,” said Wiener, who originally hails from South Jersey.
He suggested that the Maduro operation was meant to distract from purportedly slumping poll numbers, the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents, and to essentially seize another country’s oil reserves.
“Trump is a total failure,” Wiener said. “By engaging in this reckless act, Trump is also making the entire world less safe … Trump is making clear yet again that, under this regime, there are no rules, there are no laws, there are no norms – there is only whatever Trump thinks is best for himself and his cronies at a given moment in time.”
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In response, the White House said the administration’s actions against Maduro were “lawfully executed” and included a federal arrest warrant.”
“While Democrats take twisted stands in support of indicted drug smugglers, President Trump will always stand with victims and families who can finally receive closure thanks to this historic action,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.
Supporters of the operation have pushed back on claims of “regime change” – an accusation Wiener also made – pointing to actions by Maduro-aligned courts that barred top opposition leader María Corina Machado from running, even as publicly reported results indicated her proxy, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the vote.
“Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela isn’t about drugs, and it isn’t about helping the people of Venezuela or restoring Venezuelan democracy,” Wiener added. “Yes, Maduro is awful, but that’s not what the invasion is about. It’s all about oil and Trump’s collapsing support at home.”
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Around the country, a handful of other Democrats referenced impeachment or impeachable offenses, but did not go as far as Wiener in demanding such proceedings.
Rep. April McClain-Delaney, D-Md., who represents otherwise conservative “Mountain Maryland” in the state’s panhandle, said Monday that Democrats should “imminently consider impeachment proceedings,” according to TIME.
McClain-Delaney said Trump acted without constitutionally-prescribed congressional authorization and wrongly voiced “intention to ‘run’ the country.”
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One frequent Trump foil, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., cited in a statement that she has called for Trump’s impeachment in the past; blaming Republicans for letting the president “escape accountability.”
“Today, many Democrats have understandably questioned whether impeachment is possible again under the current political reality. I am reconsidering that view,” Waters said.
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“What we are witnessing is an unprecedented escalation of an unlawful invasion, the detention of foreign leaders, and a president openly asserting power far beyond what the Constitution allows,” she said, while appearing to agree with Trump that Maduro was involved in drug trafficking and “collaborat[ion] with… terrorists.”
Wiener’s upcoming primary is considered the deciding election in the D+36 district, while a handful of other lesser-known candidates have reportedly either filed FEC paperwork or declared their candidacy, including San Francisco Councilwoman Connie Chan.
Politics
California Congressman Doug LaMalfa dies, further narrowing GOP margin in Congress
California Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) has died, GOP leadership and President Trump confirmed Tuesday morning.
“Jacquie and I are devastated about the sudden loss of our friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa. Doug was a loving father and husband, and staunch advocate for his constituents and rural America,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip, in a post on X. “Our prayers are with Doug’s wife, Jill, and their children.”
LaMalfa, 65, was a fourth-generation rice farmer from Oroville and staunch Trump supporter who had represented his Northern California district for the past 12 years. His seat was one of several that was in jeopardy under the state’s redrawn districts approved by voters with Proposition 50.
Emergency personnel responded to a 911 call from LaMalfa’s residence at 6:50 p.m. Monday, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office. The congressman was taken to the Enloe Medical Center in Chico, where he died while undergoing emergency surgery, authorities said.
An autopsy to determine the cause of death is planned, according to the sheriff’s office.
LaMalfa’s district — which stretches from the northern outskirts of Sacramento, through Redding at the northern end of the Central Valley and Alturas in the state’s northeast corner — is largely rural, and constituents have long said they felt underrepresented in liberal California.
LaMalfa put much of his focus on boosting federal water supplies to farmers, and seeking to reduce environmental restrictions on logging and extraction of other natural resources.
One LaMalfa’s final acts in the U.S. House was to successfully push for the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act, a long-standing financial aid program for schools surrounded by untaxed federal forest land, whose budgets could not depend upon property taxes, as most public schools do. Despite broad bipartisan support, Congress let it lapse in 2023.
In an interview with The Times as he was walking onto the House floor in mid-December, LaMalfa said he was frustrated with Congress’s inability to pass even a popular bill like that reauthorization.
The Secure Rural Schools Act, he said, was a victim of a Congress in which “it’s still an eternal fight over anything fiscal.” It is “annoying,” LaMalfa said, “how hard it is to get basic things done around here.”
In a statement posted on X, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said he considered LaMalfa “a friend and partner” and that the congressman was “deeply committed to his community and constituents, working to make life better for those he represented.”
“Doug’s life was one of great service and he will be deeply missed,” Schiff wrote.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement called LaMalfa a “devoted public servant who deeply loved his country, his state, and the communities he represented.”
“While we often approached issues from different perspectives, he fought every day for the people of California with conviction and care,” Newsom said.
Flags at the California State Capitol in Sacramento will be flown at half-staff in honor of the congressman, according to the governor.
Before his death, LaMalfa was facing a difficult reelection bid to hold his seat. After voters approved Proposition 50 in November — aimed at giving California Democrats more seats in Congress — LaMalfa was drawn into a new district that heavily favored his likely opponent, State Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents the state’s northwest coast.
LaMalfa’s death puts the Republican majority in Congress in further jeopardy, with a margin of just two votes to secure passage of any bill along party lines after the resignation of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday evening.
Adding to the party’s troubles, Rep. Jim Baird, a Republican from Indiana, was hospitalized on Tuesday for a car crash described by the White House as serious. While Baird is said to be stable, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson from Louisiana, will not be able to rely on his attendance. And he has one additional caucus member – Thomas Massie of Kentucky – who has made a habit of voting against the president, bringing their margin for error down effectively to zero.
President Trump, addressing a gathering of GOP House members at the Kennedy Center, addressed the news at the start of his remarks, expressing “tremendous sorrow at the loss of a great member” and stating his speech would be made in LaMalfa’s honor.
“He was the leader of the Western caucus – a fierce champion on California water issues. He was great on water. ‘Release the water!’ he’d scream out. And a true defender of American children.”
“You know, he voted with me 100% of the time,” Trump added.
A native of Oroville, LaMalfa attended Butte College and then earned an ag-business degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He served in the California Assembly from 2002 to 2008 and the California State Senate from 2010 to 2012. Staunchly conservative, he was an early supporter of Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in California, and he also pushed for passage of the Protection of Marriage Act, Proposition 22, which banned same-sex marriage in California.
While representing California’s 1st District, LaMalfa focused largely on issues affecting rural California and other western states. In 2025, Congressman he was elected as Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, which focuses on legislation affected rural areas.
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