‘America’s sweetheart’ Tim Walz makes late-night debut on ‘Kimmel’

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz revealed on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monday night that he kept Vice President Kamala Harris listed as “my dry cleaner” on his cellphone as part of a friendly interview that served as his late-night debut.

Kimmel signaled his favor for Walz, introducing the governor as “America’s sweetheart.” The host ended the interview with, “We like you a lot,” and “You seem to me like the kind of guy who cleans the lint out of the dryer after every use.”

“Every use,” Walz responded.

The nonconfrontational interview was clearly designed as a means to introduce a more relaxed version of Walz than much of the country has seen. Until two months ago, Walz wasn’t nationally known and probably still isn’t to most. So he told Kimmel gentle, familiar tidbits about his tenure as a teacher and time as a politician.

He wove in some policy, remarking somberly on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, citing the need for stricter gun laws in the United States and mentioning Minnesota’s decision to give free meals to all schoolkids. He said Republicans think he’s radical. “Yeah, we feed our kids breakfast and lunch at school. It’s a radical idea,” Walz deadpanned.

Kimmel asked if it was strange to go from teaching social studies to being in the middle of it. Walz responded with wonder, “It’s strange that Jimmy Kimmel thinks about me.”

The governor talked about how students picked him to play Santa Claus, and how when you’re running a school lunchroom, “you’re either an optimist or you’re dead.”

Walz said he’s optimistic about the election, saying he plans to wake up on Nov. 6 “to Madam President.” The crowd applauded before Kimmel ribbed, “I want to be clear you won’t be waking up together.”

“I have a problem with not being specific with my language,” the governor said, leaning in with a smile.

As he opened the show in front of a live studio audience, Kimmel gave the governor a warm welcome. He said the biggest stars come to Hollywood, “yet rarely have I felt this filthy little town buzzing as loudly as it is tonight for an unassuming man from Minnesota named Tim.”

As if that isn’t enough, Kimmel continued, everyone in the studio audience would be going home with a pork chop on a stick, a reference to the State Fair favorite.

Kimmel showed photos and asked Walz to declare something weird or not weird. In the latter category, the governor put matching Christmas pajamas, wearing a shirt in the pool and making someone take their shoes off in the house. He declared “tofurkey” to be weird.

Kimmel joked that the governor had arrived early to rake leaves off the porch. “Think Donald Trump ever handled a rake? Not even in a sand trap,” Kimmel said.

The questioning was more confrontational in Walz’s brief “60 Minutes” interview, shown earlier Monday. Both Walz and Harris sat down for interviews with CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker.

Whitaker questioned Walz early on in the segment about his past statements, particularly related to his travels to China in the late 1980s.

“In your debate with JD Vance, you said, ‘I’m a knucklehead at times.’ And I think you were referring to the time that you said that you were in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square unrest when you were not,” Whitaker said. “Is that kind of misrepresentation? Isn’t that more than just being a knucklehead?”

Walz responded: “I think folks know who I am, and I think they know the difference between someone expressing emotion, telling a story, getting a date wrong, rather than a pathological liar like Donald Trump.”

Whitaker pressed further, asking if Walz could be trusted to tell the truth.

“Yeah, well I can. I think I can. I will own up to being a knucklehead at times, but the folks closest to me know that I keep my word,” Walz said.

Whitaker also asked about Walz’s record governing Minnesota, noting it’s been a point of criticism from his Republican opponents.

“Former President Trump says that you, your administration here in Minnesota, has been dangerously liberal. Radical left, he calls it,” Whitaker said. “So what do you say to that criticism that rather than leading the way, you and Minnesota are actually out of step with the rest of the country?”

Walz answered: “President Trump may be referring to that our children get breakfast and lunch in school so that they can learn. He may be talking about, we have a paid family [and] medical leave policy that was promoted by the business community.”

Both the Minnesota Business Partnership and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce raised concerns about the paid family and medical leave bill.