Michele Tafoya- Peggy Flanagan Deserves a “Pink Slip” in the Minnesota Senate Race 

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Guy Benson: Well, joining us now is longtime NFL sideline reporter Michelle Tafoya, who has hosted the Michelle Tafoya Podcast for years now. I’ve been proud to be a guest on it a few times. She is now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in the great state of Minnesota. Michelle, welcome back to the show.

Michele Tafoya: It is good to talk to you. I understand the Penn State Nittany Lions are paying a visit to Northwestern.

Guy Benson: That is correct, Michelle. And as I’ll talk about a bit later in the hour, I am here to be part of that action and to welcome the brand-new Ryan Field into action tonight. New stadium, bright lights, Fox primetime. I’m so excited. I’m also a little nervous.

Michele Tafoya: No, don’t be nervous.

Guy Benson: It’s just football.

Michelle, I’m a Northwestern fan. I’m always nervous.

Michele Tafoya: I know. It’s ingrained.

Guy Benson: It’s ingrained.

Now, speaking of nervous, I feel like your opponent in this race might need to be. What is it now? Half a dozen polls out in the last couple of weeks showing, amid a lot of tough crosscurrents for Republicans all over the country, you in a dead heat with your opponent in a state that is often very tough for Republicans statewide. Tell us about what’s happening on the ground and what you’re seeing.

Michele Tafoya: Well, you and I have talked about this before, how the great state of Minnesota has been going a million miles per hour in the wrong direction for a number of years, specifically under the so-called leadership of Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan.

Tim Walz couldn’t sustain his gubernatorial campaign for a third straight term because of all the fraud, the neglect of our schools, and so on and so forth, so he got out of his race. But Peggy Flanagan, his lieutenant governor, believes that she deserves a promotion, and she is running for United States Senate as a Democrat.

We are giving people an option here for some common sense, for an outsider to come in and look at Minnesota and head to the Senate and bring the Minnesota common sense that we know is still alive and well here, and represent Minnesota in the best way in the U.S. Senate.

Peggy Flanagan has been part of the billions of dollars of fraud. Either she was completely incompetent or she looked the other way. Neither of those options makes her worthy of becoming a United States senator.

So she thinks she deserves a promotion. Guy, I think she deserves the pink slip.

Guy Benson: So I want to come back to the fraud here in a moment. But if you look at the dynamics of this race, on one hand, you are tied, right? In some of these races, it’s exactly neck and neck or a point or two, statistically tied. There are still quite a few undecided voters.

And I think the skepticism that some Republicans might have nationally, Michelle, is, well, you know, it kind of feels like a challenging year for Republicans overall. Minnesota has often felt like Lucy in the football for Republicans, where it’s kind of close but not quite.

Could a lot of those undecided voters ultimately just be Democrats who might be a little frustrated with the state of things in Minnesota and the direction of the state, but ultimately they will, quote unquote, come home to their party? That’s kind of the skeptic’s view of it.

What do you make of that, and how do you persuade the fairly substantial number of undecided voters, based on the polls at this stage, to come over and support you?

Michele Tafoya: Come on over. The water is fine.

We lead among independents, which is a massive group here in Minnesota. We’ve got about a third Republicans, a third Democrats, and a third independents. And our increase among independent voters just went up again.

We also are dropping an ad soon where Democrats say to the camera they cannot vote for Peggy Flanagan. They’re lifelong Democrats, they’re independents, and they cannot go for Peggy Flanagan.

We are trying to, again, just make this message very, very clear. You couldn’t trust Peggy Flanagan with your tax dollars, with your kids’ education, with the criminal justice system here in Minnesota. How can you trust her to go to the U.S. Senate and represent all of the values that have made Minnesota the phenomenal state that it is?

I don’t think you can. And so we’ll continue to make that case. We’ll continue to bring people over and promise them that alternative.

They need to know that we need fresh blood, a fresh mind, a thoughtful independent thinker who is beholden to no one.

Peggy Flanagan will be beholden to the DSA, to the very far-left flank of her party. And I’m going in there with an independent mind. I’m a pro-choice Republican. I already stand up to my party on certain issues, and I’m willing to do it again when necessary.

Guy Benson: Yeah, the thing is, I’ve known you a while now, Michelle. You’re kind of a thoughtful, sensible center-right person. You and I disagree sometimes on certain issues, and I might be further right on certain things. Generally, we’re fairly ideologically copacetic.

But you’re solidly to the right of center, but not some right-winger, as opposed to your opponent, Flanagan, who is way, way out there. Right? I mean, she outflanks, as far as I can tell, she outflanks Tim Walz on his left.

Michele Tafoya: Yes. No, she absolutely does. She wants Medicare for All. She wants transgender surgery access for kids with no age limit–no age limits.

She has said, “When your child tells you who they are, believe them.”

If I had done that, then I would have raised Darth Vader and Cinderella. I did not. I raised two healthy people with good heads on their shoulders.

And this is the part of raising kids that I don’t think she understands: They don’t get to determine everything about their future. Otherwise, they’d just eat candy all day long.

So this is her approach to Minnesotans and to the social issues that make her extremely left.

I would also say the fiscal issues as well. She’s one of those for top-down government, taking less and less–taking more and more money and power away from the individual and giving it to the bureaucrats, whether it’s the bureaucrat in government or the bureaucrats in corporate medicine. She believes in a top-down approach.

I want to put money back in Minnesotans’ pockets. I want to give them more freedom to run their businesses. We have had businesses leaving Minnesota in droves. It’s got to stop. We’ve got to stop digging this hole.

Guy Benson: I saw a headline recently about Bernie Sanders opening up the war chest on her behalf, right? I mean, the socialists are playing hard for her.

Michele Tafoya: Yep. That is true. That is the wing of the party that she represents.

This is not a moderate Democrat. This is a far-left Democrat, and that’s the kind of support she’s going to bring. And she will rubber-stamp whatever that flank of the party wants her to rubber-stamp.

I again will say it a million times: We’re offering the contrast–common sense versus crazy. We’re going to go in and bring thoughtful leadership to every issue. And if I feel like I cannot agree with my party, I will say so. If I feel like I do agree with my party, I will say so. But I’m not going to be a rubber stamp.

You can count on her. Hell, she’s been a rubber stamp to Tim Walz for eight years.

Guy Benson: Yeah, and that’s true on fraud, which is one of the big themes of your campaign. I’ve seen some of the ads on that. You’ve been leaning into it.

I’d love for you to delve into her culpability, complicity in that huge scandal that has really been, I think, so embarrassing for the state of Minnesota–that the Walz-Flanagan administration presided over all of it.

You’ve also done protecting women and girls’ sports and the integrity of women’s and girls’ sports as a major passion project of yours. And I know the critics will say, “Oh, well, that’s like this boutique fringe right-wing issue that might poll well, but it doesn’t really affect anyone. The people of Minnesota don’t care. Why are you obsessing over that?”

Feel free to take those one at a time: fraud and then the girls’ sports question.

Michele Tafoya: Well, when you consider that the governor, Tim Walz, has admitted at least–at least–hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud has gone on, or you listen to the DOJ, who say it is upward of $9 billion, and we keep discovering more and more, this seems to be the never-ending story.

Now, the governor again knows this. This happened on his watch. And he likes to say, “I’ll take responsibility for that.” And then Peggy Flanagan says, “Oh, see, he’s taking responsibility for that. I had nothing to do with it.”

She was the lieutenant governor. She was in every meeting with him. They were attached at the hip, and when he was off running for vice president, she was in charge of the store.

And we cannot trust her with any more of our money because it was all given away to fraud. So that’s that.

On the women’s sports issue, this is very simple. This is fairness for girls, fairness for women.

And if people think it’s a fringe issue, they’re not talking to the same parents I’m talking to–to moms and dads.

We had a softball champion, a Minnesota State High School League crowned team champion of softball. Softball is a women’s sport. The championship team had a biological male as their pitcher, and eight other pitchers. This one–and, you know, the right fielder, DH–it was a pitcher. It would have been the most important player, the one that controls the game, and they were crowned champions.

So they took advantage of that situation, and a lot of girls paid the price.

So we’re talking about fairness, and that’s just one example. This has a trickle-down effect to privacy, safety, fairness. It’s not just about this issue.

Guy Benson: And kind of sanity, right?

Michele Tafoya: That’s right. It’s this divorced-from-reality sort of point of view that they want us to accept when we can see everything with our own eyes.

Guy Benson: There’s a sound bite that I played the other day. I’m sure you’ve seen it. It’s not in your race, but it’s, I think, related to your race. It comes from your state attorney general, who also is knee-deep in all this corruption and fraud, Keith Ellison. He’s trying to win again, and he was referencing, in front of what I guess he thought was a friendly crowd, his struggles right now in the polling.

That race is very close. Your race is very close. He’s worried about that, so he’s trying to appeal to his base, and he said this in Cut 30:

Keith Ellison: Now, is the base of people who believe in freedom and justice, compassion and mercy, the people–will the people who believe that in the equality of human beings and the dignity of all human beings, will we show up and vote? Or will the bigots and the racists show up and vote? You know what I’m saying?

Guy Benson: Well, Michelle, not exactly subtle there at all, right? All the wonderful people who believe in dignity and equality, blah, blah, blah. Are they going to turn out and vote? That’s our team.

Or then he kind of points the finger at a whole lot of Minnesotans–roughly half, based on these polls–who are the bigots and the racists going to show up and vote?

It sounds like that’s his view of half the electorate and a lot of people who are going to be supporting you. I wonder how that lands on your ears.

Michele Tafoya: I am sitting here shaking my head, which you cannot see. It makes me sick.

And it’s also just rich to say that his party is the only party of dignity and respect. Really? Do they respect the people who have been raped and murdered by the criminals who have been let out only to do it again here in Minnesota under this weak criminal justice system that this administration has fostered, really?

And to call everyone else a racist and a bigot. This is the exact formula that is used to try to shut people up, intimidate them, and it is frankly disgusting.

And I would equate it to the “basket of deplorables” moment. To define Minnesotans into those two groups.

Guy Benson: Or garbage, right? Biden called half the country garbage.

Michele Tafoya: Yes, correct. That, to me, is the perfect example of who Keith Ellison is, the way he views the world, and it’s a disgrace.

And it would mean to me–it would suggest to me–that our attorney general then would not apply the law fairly if he saw half of the people as racist and bigots. And how would he treat them under the law in Minnesota if he truly believes that about half of our population?

Guy Benson: Do you think it’s also an indicator that he’s genuinely nervous and maybe Flanagan should be too?

Michele Tafoya: They both should be. People want change.

I’ve traveled all over this state, Guy, and people just keep coming up and saying, “You’ve got to win. We’ve got to win. We’ve gotta win. We cannot do this anymore.”

They are fed up. They are angry that accountability has not been served by these people who were in office.

And that includes Keith Ellison, by the way, who is part and parcel to this fraud. He’s been on tape in very incriminating positions, and people want those who looked the other way, or did nothing, or who enabled this, to be held accountable.

We have a guy named Ron Schuetz who’s running against Keith Ellison, and I think he has a great opportunity to win the seat.

Remember, Keith Ellison only won by 8,500 votes when he won in 2022, and we had not enough Republicans show up in Minnesota. I think it’s going to be a very different story this year.

Minnesotans know that if change is to come–and they are desperate for it and they want to maintain this state and the greatness of it that they love–they have got to show up in droves.

Guy Benson: Two more issues if we have time, Michelle.

Number one, AI data centers. This has become a flash point in a lot of campaigns, with politicians coming out and pointing fingers and, I think, grandstanding in some ways.

As you think about that overall issue and then also the concerns that people do have about data centers, is this something that you hear about on the campaign trail a lot? Is this something you’re focused on? What’s your position?

Michele Tafoya: You know, it’s–you hear it enough to know that people are concerned. And I understand that because this is all fairly new technology, and we’re understanding what it does well and what it doesn’t do well.

As far as data centers go, I think it comes down to two words: local control.

You’re a big country. No two communities are alike. You know, in Loudoun County, they’ve embraced this technology and they’ve sort of become the data center capital of America.

Other cities may say, “No, thanks. Move along, please.”

Other counties and communities can use leverage and say, “We’ll build one here if…” and fill in the blank and use that leverage.

So it’s got to come down to local control. I do not believe in a top-down mandate on this. I think that each and every community, city, and county should be in charge of deciding their own fortunes on this.

And as far as AI goes, look, again, I think innovation in Minnesota and the country writ large is our strongest suit.

Here in Minnesota, we have 3M. We have medical devices here that are just incredibly innovative. We’ve got the Mayo Clinic. We don’t want to shut down that innovation.

Again, at the same time, two things can be true. We’re looking at AI and saying, “How is that going to impact the economy, my kids’ education, jobs, et cetera?”

And it’s right to have that reticence and look at it very closely.

That’s why we need thoughtful, independent, serious, sober leaders going to Washington to say, “Let’s listen, let’s learn, let’s understand, and let’s build a coalition and let’s find out the wise way forward. Second-level thinking, third-level thinking. Not just this knee-jerk reaction to something because it happens to be new.”

Guy Benson: Michelle Tafoya, we will end on AI and data centers. Obviously, it’s percolating out there as an issue–a wide-ranging conversation, big race up in Minnesota, a lot tighter than a lot of the Democrats, I think, expected it to be based on all the recent polling.

Michelle spent years patrolling the sidelines as an NFL reporter, and she is now the U.S. Senate nominee for the Republicans in her state of Minnesota.

Michelle, really appreciate your time.

Michele Tafoya: Appreciate you, Guy. Have fun this weekend. Take care.