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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says the decision by Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign to skip appearing on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast likely didn’t impact the election too much.

Walz’s comments came during a Tuesday night town hall meeting as he took questions from fellow Democrats on proposed cuts to social programs, as well as the 2024 election.

Walz was asked specifically about the decision to not appear on the Joe Rogan Experience, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network.

“I don’t think we would have won the election if we’d gone on Joe Rogan,” he said. “But I don’t think we would’ve got beat any worse.”

Reflecting on his and Harris’ loss, Walz said he believed that the campaign didn’t promise enough change to convince voters to support of the Democratic ticket.

The relationship between the Harris-Walz campaign and the Joe Rogan Experience has been the subject of debate and coverage both in the lead-up to the 2024 election and in the months after.

Here is what you need to know.

Rogan says Harris’ team lied

Last month, multiple outlets published an excerpt of the book “FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes.

In the book, the Harris campaign said it tried to get the former vice president to make an appearance on the show but alleged that Rogan’s team had implemented obstacles that made the appearance impossible.

In an episode only days after the release of the excerpt, Rogan rebuked the claims made in the book, saying that the Harris campaign was trying to excuse their mistake.

“They never said she was gonna do it. So this whole idea that we (expletive) her over for Trump is incorrect, just not true,” Rogan said. “I think it’s someone trying to cover their (expletive) for the fact that she never did it.”

Around the same time that the Harris campaign and Rogan’s team were discussing an appearance, now-President Donald Trump was a guest on the podcast, eventually earning Rogan’s endorsement.

“Trump was really easy to book, super easy, we offered one day, he said yes, that was it,” Rogan said in the same February episode.

Not enough change

In a sort of post-mortem, Walz told the Journal Sentinel that the Harris-Walz campaign failed to represent enough change to turn out the number of voters needed to defeat Trump.

Walz’s analysis was backed up in the same excerpts of the book published last month. According to The Hill, instead of attempting to show a clear break between herself and former President Joe Biden, Harris’ campaign, as well as Biden’s aides, decided to show “no daylight” between them.

“Almost everywhere she went, Harris walked among former Biden aides who sought to defend his presidency,” the excerpt published by The Hill said. “To the extent that she [Harris] wanted to forge her own path, Biden had no interest in giving her room to do so.”

Harris also had trouble conveying how she would be different from Biden. In an appearance on ABC’s “The View” in the leadup to the election, she struggled to explain what she would do differently.

That television moment underscored a fatal flaw of Harris’ campaign that doomed her election bid – an inability to separate herself from an unpopular president whose approval ratings have hovered around 40% for most of his four years in the White House.

Contributing: Joey Garrison, USA TODAY

Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.

At SXSW 2025, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota participated in a live taping of Today, Explained, where he offered candid insights into the current state of American politics, including his advice for Democrats on how to confront Republicans in Congress effectively.

Reflecting on the 2024 election, Walz offered a postmortem on his party’s performance, acknowledging that Democrats had been too cautious, failed to take enough risks, and didn’t engage enough with undecided voters. He emphasized that the lack of a compelling message and an unwillingness to fully challenge Republicans contributed to their inability to reclaim key legislative seats.

With the GOP now controlling Congress, Walz stressed the urgency for Democrats to confront their opponents with a clear and unwavering stance. When asked by Rameswaram about James Carville’s recent New York Times op-ed, “It’s Time for a Daring Political Maneuver, Democrats,” where Carville suggests that Democrats should simply “roll over and play dead,” Walz responded with a sharp contrast in philosophy. “I know that what James is saying is when somebody is digging a hole, let him keep digging. Don’t get in. I’m kind of the adage, especially with these guys, let’s help them dig and get this hole done faster so people start flipping, and we can start fixing this thing quicker,” Walz said.

“Democrats have to realize that it’s not just about compromise for the sake of compromise,” Walz stated. He emphasized that while cooperation is necessary, it should not come at the cost of core values and policy goals.

Walz also acknowledged his failed campaign against President Donald Trump and JD Vance, admitting, “I’m probably the last guy (to give advice to Congress), I didn’t get it done, and we needed to win.” He expressed regret about what he could have done better, saying, “I’m being reflective of what I could have done better, what I should have done better.”

Walz also emphasized the importance of not letting Republicans off the hook when it comes to passing a budget in Congress, urging Democrats to avoid giving them the votes that could legitimize harmful policies. He argued that while the shutdown could have significant consequences, such as impacting states and their resources, Democrats should not shoulder the responsibility for a budget they disagree with.

“If the Republicans can’t pass a budget with the presidency, the House, and the Senate, you let them figure that part out,” Walz stated.

He made it clear that Democrats should stand firm and let Republicans take responsibility for the policies they want to push forward. “If you want to cut Social Security and Medicare, then go ahead and do that, but you’re going to go home and own it,” Walz stated.

Rather than passively waiting for compromise, Walz advocated for a more active role in shaping policy outcomes. He urged lawmakers to be bold and push for their values in the face of partisan gridlock. “If you’re not willing to stand up for what you believe in, then what’s the point of being in this business?” he asserted.

During the discussion, Walz also shared his perspective on the challenges of leading in an environment where the political divide often seems insurmountable. The Governor stated that the change in America won’t come from a singular, charismatic leader.

“It’s going to be a whole bunch of people who don’t want to see kids go hungry, who don’t want to see healthcare ripped apart, who don’t want to throw Ukraine under the bus on the side of Russia. Those folks are going to stand up and make a difference,” he said.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice-President Kamala Harris speaks onstage as she concedes the election, at Howard University on November 6, 2024, in Washington, D.C. After a contentious campaign focused on key battleground states, the Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. president Donald Trump, was projected to secure the majority of electoral votes, giving him a second term as U.S. president. Republicans also secured control of the Senate for the first time in four years. Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

For a few brief weeks in the summer, it appeared like the Democratic Party was listening to voters. In July, President Joe Biden announced he would no longer seek reelection, and Vice-President Kamala Harris stepped in; soon, she announced that Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota would be her running mate. Walz had a reputation for pushing through a relatively progressive agenda in a purple state with a large rural population, and Harris herself adopted a message of freedom. She didn’t shy away from discussing abortion on the campaign trail, and in August, she released a number of economic policies that were partly aimed at addressing voters’ top concern, inflation, with proposals like a ban on grocery-store price gouging.

Even so, Harris was never my great hope as a leftist. Though I believed at the time that she was the most obvious candidate to replace Biden on the ticket, I knew she wouldn’t run like Senator Bernie Sanders. Perhaps she wouldn’t have won no matter what she did or said — a reflection of Biden’s toxicity. At the same time, the magnitude of her loss has brought her strategy into focus, and as Wednesday dawned, it was evident that she and her aides had misread the electorate. She squandered her early momentum by not distancing herself from an unpopular president while courting a moderate vote that never materialized. In doing so, she failed to mobilize voters, including many white women. The fault ultimately lies with Harris, Biden, and the party.

Early on, Harris claimed her candidacy marked a generational shift away from Biden and Trump, but it was never entirely clear what she meant by that. Perhaps she thought the facts spoke for themselves. She could speak coherently and she wasn’t in her 80s. Although she never ran on her gender or race, her identity as a woman of color also sharpened the contrast between herself and the president. But it’s always a mistake to conflate a politician’s identity with transformational change, and as Harris ran, she never truly broke with Biden. Not on Gaza, or on much of anything else. During an appearance on The View, she said that she couldn’t think of much that she would have done differently than Biden had — other than putting a Republican in her cabinet. Like the president, she stressed her willingness to work across the aisle. She embraced Liz Cheney, a right-wing chicken hawk, and brandished endorsements from Never Trump Republicans.

As the race wore on, it became clear that Harris was no populist at all. Instead, she was beholden to the very establishment that had elevated her. The Never Trumpers who backed her might be fixtures on cable news, but they were never going to deliver enough voters to Harris. Their audience consists of liberals who want to believe that our norms still work and the center still holds. It doesn’t. It hasn’t for years. To some extent that falls on Biden, who pledged a return to normal politics and failed to deliver, but Harris also did not recognize the danger he’d put her in. She tacked consistently to the center right, hoping that a handful of technocratic economic policies and a pro-Roe message would be sufficient. Meanwhile, a majority of voters knew that our norms had failed, and felt keenly that the economy didn’t work for them. That includes many women, who don’t vote solely on abortion. They are often in charge of the household pocketbook, and although inflation is going down and inequality has narrowed, they’re still affected by the high cost of living. Rents are up and mortgages are expensive, as are child care and health care. Despite this, the New York Times reported that Harris spent more time with billionaire Mark Cuban in October than she did with Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers.

Donald Trump had bet on a sense of aggrieved masculinity as the return path to power, and while there’s much we don’t know about who turned out to vote and why, his strategy did not alienate white women in the numbers Harris needed to win. Misogyny and racism should receive due attention in postmortems to come, but they can’t explain Tuesday on their own. The story is more complicated, and dire. Though she spoke of freedom, of forward motion, of change, voters did not trust her to deliver. Some will blame the left for this, but Harris tried centrism as did Biden and Clinton before her, and that didn’t work, either. Leftists do not control the Democratic Party and never have; only consider the party’s intransigence on Gaza. If the Democratic brand is poison now, blame its grifter consultants, who never fail out of politics no matter how many pivotal races they lose. Blame Harris, too, whose message was simply too anemic to overcome decades of Democratic failure.

Trump will now return to power, perhaps with a Republican Congress. Women will inevitably suffer, even those who voted for him. When they begin to hurt, they will need help, and someone will have to offer it to them. Maybe that person will be a Democrat. Maybe they’ll be an independent. Maybe we know their name already and maybe we don’t. Whoever they are, they have to do what Harris didn’t, and break with recent history in order to try something new. “Sometimes, the fight takes a while. That doesn’t mean we won’t win,” Harris said during her concession speech on Wednesday, and that could be true but only if her party restructures itself. I’m not entirely sure what that ought to look like, but I do believe it’s possible to glean some insight from the wreckage of Tuesday evening. Some will say that Trump’s opponents must sacrifice the rights of transgender people and immigrants and women to win, which fundamentally misunderstands the problem. Voters believe, wrongly, that Trump works for them. Democrats — or whoever else — must convince them otherwise, preferably with a populist economic message that addresses their concerns without throwing our most vulnerable workers to the wolves. It’s possible. More than that, it’s necessary. Women deserved more from Harris and her party, and so did everyone else.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has some thoughts about how last year’s election played out for his party: Democrats did not take enough risks, didn’t engage enough with undecided voters, were too cautious with the press and didn’t produce a message that resonated with voters. It’s been four months since Democrats failed to claim the House or Senate and their presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, lost every swing state to Donald Trump. Walz’s postmortem comes as Democrats have appeared divided on how to effectively respond to Trump’s presidency and the GOP’s control of Congress.

“We shouldn’t have been playing this thing so safe,” Walz told Politico in an interview published Saturday, arguing that the Democrats’ defeat was the result of a snap presidential campaign cobbled together in the wake of President Joe Biden’s summer decision to drop out of the race.

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“I think we probably should have just rolled the dice and done the town halls, where [voters] may say, ‘You’re full of s—, I don’t believe in you,’” he added. “I think there could have been more of that.”

The candid comments from Walz are highly unusual for a member of a losing presidential ticket. Harris has not spoken in detail about why she fell short last year, and Democratic strategists are still debating the causes — from whether Biden should have decided much earlier not to run for reelection, to how much attention was paid to rallying the base, and how much distance Harris should have created from her boss. Some had advocated for a robust Democratic primary process.

Walz’s comments will probably add fuel to the still-roiling debate.

On the campaign trail, The Washington Post observed last year, Walz rarely interacted directly with undecided voters within view of the press. His first solo trips involved drop-ins at campaign offices, where he offered to jump on calls by phone-bankers; visits with fellow Democratic governors; feeding a baby cow; and plenty of retail stops for dessert. His engagement with his traveling press corps was also limited.

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At a recording of the “Today, Explained” Vox Media podcast Saturday at the SXSW festival in Austin, Walz acknowledged his role in how 2024 played out.

“Look, I own it. I failed,” he said. “My job was to help win Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.”

Qualities he thought he would be lauded for as a candidate, like being “a card-carrying union member” and not trading stocks while in Congress, “didn’t resonate with people,” Walz said. Voters, he added, instead “chose about the most exact opposite of a middle-class, Midwestern guy” to do the job — a “failed” real estate mogul “and a hedge fund manager.”

“I don’t think we were present enough,” Walz said. “And what Donald Trump has mastered is — he floods the zone to the point where you don’t get to make your point.”

Among his campaign regrets, Walz added, was focusing on correcting baseless claims made by Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating people’s pets.

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“Every time … we were talking about Springfield, Ohio, and immigration, we weren’t talking about other things that matter to people,” Walz said.

Walz has yet to fully define his political ambitions. He passed on a run for Senate to replace Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota), who’s retiring, and indicated Saturday that he’s leaning toward running for a third term as governor. He’s said he’s “not saying no” to a presidential run, but he told the SXSW audience that the bar for a 2028 Democratic presidential candidate should at least be someone “with hair.”

Ahead of Trump’s first joint address to Congress, Walz also prescribed Democrats a strategy for coming elections, telling MSNBC that in the midst of a Republican trifecta in Washington, Democrats in states where they “have the power to do something” ought to “pass some damn laws to improve people’s lives” without worrying about the next election. And members of his party, he repeatedly underscored, should start speaking out about policies that he believes are widely popular.

“We need to be in every space, everywhere,” Walz said, adding that “I disagree with this idea that, look, ‘Republicans are digging a hole. Democrats should just back off and let them dig.’ That’s what we’ve done, and we’ve ceded space to them.”