Iowa GOP chair calls it ‘blatantly antisemitic’ for Kamala Harris to pick Tim Walz as running mate during Cedar Rapids event

CEDAR RAPIDS — Iowa Republicans are hammering Vice President Kamala Harris and her selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate for the White House, lambasting them as “radicals” whose policies threaten the nation should voters fail to elect Donald Trump to a second term in November.

Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann, speaking Tuesday evening in Cedar Rapids, also said Harris’ selection of Walz, instead of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, was ”blatantly antisemitic“ and that “Democratic activists” pushed back on having a Jewish American vice presidential nominee.

“There's a reason why Kamala Harris didn't make the most obvious choice” for running mate, Kaufmann said. “The brightest choice you could have made was to name the governor of Pennsylvania.

“Make no bones about it — that’s why he was not named,” he said. “And the Republican in me is happy about that, because Tim Walz is easier. But, my lord, think about that. … the story behind all of that is as blatantly antisemitic as anything you could ever see or think about.”

GOP framing

After Harris formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination on Monday and later unveiled Walz as her pick for vice president, GOP politicians moved Tuesday to frame the Harris-Walz ticket as dangerously liberal. Republicans are attacking the Democrats’ handling of the economy and a record influx of migrants crossing the southern border.

In selecting Walz, the ticket is more progressive than it would have been had Harris selected Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a popular and more moderate leader of a swing state crucial to the 2024 election.

Republicans, including Trump’s vice presidential pick, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, of Ohio, have united to suggest the progressive wing of the Democratic Party wouldn’t support a Jewish running mate, capitalizing on the party’s divisions over the Israel-Hamas war to appeal to Jewish voters.

President Joe Biden has faced pressure to pull back support for Israel and negotiate a cease-fire as Israel has waged war against Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,189 mostly Israeli civilians. Many progressive voters have demanded an end to the fighting in Gaza that has resulted in about 40,000 Palestinians being killed.

But Shapiro, too, has been critical of college protests urging a cease-fire in Gaza, telling CNN in April, “We have to query whether or not we would tolerate this if this were people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia.”

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Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish.

‘The smart choice’

Still, Kaufmann told The Gazette after the event at the Cedar Rapids Country Club, he “absolutely” stood by his antisemitic remarks.

He pointed to Democrats who’ve called out the antisemitism, including CNN commentator Van Jones, who said Tuesday on CNN that “you can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot, but there are some anti-Jewish bigots out there.”

“The smart choice, by anybody's standard — anybody's political standard — she would pick the young, energetic governor who actually outperformed the president in your biggest swing state,” Kaufmann told The Gazette.

“They've got explaining to do. But, of course, they've got to be asked the question. And the answer’s got to be more than, ‘Well, I know this Jewish person or that Jewish person.’ Ask the question of, ‘Then do you refute and do you condemn all the other Democratic leaders that told you not to pick him?’ ”

Kaufmann and Joni Ernst, Iowa’s junior Republican U.S. senator, painted Walz as being farther to the political left than Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. GovTrack, a nonpartisan organization that tracks bills in Congress, in 2019 ranked Harris as the “most liberal compared to all senators.” It later retracted single-year report cards, but in 2021 determined she was the leftmost Democratic senator.

Branstad, Grassley weigh in

The Tuesday event also featured Republicans U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley and former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, the U.S. ambassador to China during the Trump administration.

They both urged the 100 or so attendees to get out the vote in November for Trump.

“I know her to be … the most liberal of the United States Senate, ” Grassley said of Harris before the event. “So I think by picking Gov. Walz that she's picked somebody that she's going to be very comfortable with and a person that has the same progressive agenda that she has.”

Grassley pointed to a bill Walz signed into law last year that Grassley said gives driver's licenses to people who “illegally entered the country.” The law allows all residents to apply for a driver's license, regardless of immigration status.

Grassley said his message to Trump would be: “When you can get $10,000 a second being on Fox News, you shouldn’t spend 15 minutes talking about what’s wrong with Gov. Kemp of Georgia. You should be talking about the issues,” to which the audience clapped.

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Branstad, after speaking favorably of ethanol and biodiesel and the failures of electric vehicles in extreme weather like the record-cold Iowa experienced in January, said a presidential candidate from California was “the scariest thing I can think of.”

“We cannot afford that kind of radical spending spree for the nation,” Branstad told reporters. “The nation is already in trouble with the huge national debt.”

Under Minnesota’s current two-year budget period, the state is set to spend $70.5 billion and will end with a surplus of $3.7 billion in June 2025, according to the Minnesota Department of Management and Budget. By the 2026-27 budget period, the state projects it will spend $66.3 billion over two years — down from the current budget that includes some one-time spending, MinnPost reported.

Hinson: Minnesota ‘madness’

U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Marion Republican whose district covers northeast Iowa, including Linn County, criticized Walz for enacting a law that she said allows kids to be taken away from parents if they do not consent to “gender reassigning surgery” or hormone therapy.

Minnesota is a “sanctuary state” for transgender and nonbinary people, meaning it protects access to gender-affirming care for residents and does not enforce penalties related to gender-affirming care from other states.

The bill Walz signed grants Minnesota temporary emergency jurisdiction over custody disputes in cases when a child is unable to access gender-affirming care, such as if a parent seeks to relocate a transgender child to a state that would block their medication.

“That was wild to me as a parent to young boys,” Hinson said. “I think it's completely reckless and irresponsible, and we do not allow that kind of madness under the Harris-Walz agenda to make its way into the White House.”

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Dem praise

Iowa Democrats, meanwhile, have praised Harris’ selection of a Midwestern governor they see as authentic and bringing rural appeal, helping enact a progressive agenda for Minnesota that includes protecting abortion rights and increased public education spending.

Walz is a former high school teacher, football coach and National Guard veteran who Democrats believe can connect the party with rural voters in key Midwestern battleground states like Wisconsin and Michigan.

Polling shows Harris is gaining on Trump as they prepare to face off in the November general election.

Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com