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EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., fired back at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Thursday after Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate sideswiped him at a Boston fundraiser.
Walz, after saying he doesn’t "name-call people," made a crack about Tuberville, according to The Boston Globe.
"One of my roles in this now is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville, to show that football coaches are not the dumbest people," Walz was quoted as saying.
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, speaks during a campaign rally with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, at the Liacouras Center at Temple University Aug. 6, 2024, in Philadelphia. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Tuberville, who was the head coach at Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati and was the 2004 Coach of the Year, was critical of Walz in a post on X but told Fox News Digital he didn’t really understand where the swipe at him came from.
Walz became the defensive coordinator for Mankato West High School in Minnesota in the late 1990s, and the team won the Class 4A state title in 1999.
"I think he’s trying to make himself look good. Kind of comparing himself to a coach, which he was only an assistant coach in high school. And if he had been any good, he would’ve been a head coach, to be honest with you," Tuberville said.
"I don’t know what he’s trying to do. He’s kind of conned his way up the totem pole, I guess. He’s second in line to being the president of the United States if they were to happen to win, which I don’t think that’s going to happen, but … if you just look at everything he’s done, it doesn’t coincide with being a coach."
Tuberville said Walz took the shot against him because he has "nothing else to talk about" and warned that Walz and Harris need to start talking about their future for American citizens.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., speaks to members of the media outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in New York May 13, 2024. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"We’re all — 330 million people — are just kind of around waiting for he and Kamala Harris to go on television and do an interview and talk about things that affect all of us, which are food prices, gas, the foreign wars, the border, the crime. They’re out here talking about things that don’t mean a hill of beans for the American people.
"Sure, if you want to talk about the past, that’s fine. But the past is not going to do us any good. The future. What are you going to do for the future? You’re running for the future of the United States of America. Get out there and sell what you’ve got. And if you don’t have anything to sell, what do you do? You try to do something else. You try to ignore it. You try to put other things in front of it. You try to give some semblance of bouncing a rubber ball around a room.
"Hey, we need something that’s going to stick. And so, the American people need to know what they stand for. And neither one of them yet, in a month’s time, have got in front of the cameras and say, ‘This is what we believe in. This is the direction we’re going now.’ They’ll hit or miss on it, but we need some structure because we’re 85, 86, 87 days away from the biggest elections ever. And we got two people out there running around making jokes behind the scenes when they should be talking about serious business for the American people."
Tuberville led Auburn to a 13-0 record in 2004, finishing with a Sugar Bowl win.
He was also the AFCA Coach of the Year, the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award winner and the Walter Camp Coach of the Year for that 2004 season. Additionally, he won the SEC Coach of the Year twice.
Head coach Nick Saban of the Alabama Crimson Tide, center, talks with Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the former head coach of the Auburn Tigers, before a game at Jordan-Hare Stadium Nov. 25, 2023, in Auburn, Ala (Michael Chang/Getty Images)
Tuberville added that coaching college football is one of the toughest things to do and that it’s helped him strengthen his communication skills as a senator.
"You had a lot of people that are very smart. You had some people that struggled," he added. "Being able to communicate (to) different personalities. You gotta remember now, when you’re a football coach in college, you deal with people from all backgrounds — rich, poor, all different races, urban, rural. And then your job is to bring them all together. And if you can do that, you have a good chance for success.
"That’s what I prided myself in — to be able to talk with a young White kid from a rural area that’s very shy, that wasn’t around a lot of people to an urban kid, whether he’s Black or White, and made them feel they were part of it when sometimes it was a very hard job.
"College athletics is very hard. Being a coach is very hard. Dealing with a hundred different personnel, 120 different personalities and people that they come, all those different backgrounds. It is a challenge.
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"And it goes back to Walz. He should understand that. He should understand it. It’s one of the hardest jobs that you can ever do. To get to a point to put them in a situation where they can win and then have a chance to win championships, it’s even harder."
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