In Context: What Gov. Tim Walz said about the border wall and investing in a 'ladder factory'

After Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota’s Democratic governor would be her presidential ticket running mate, Tim Walz’s name climbed in online search trends.

Here’s another term that started to gain traction: "ladder factory."

Trump supporters seized on a video clip from a July 30 interview Walz gave to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that they said showed Walz planned to welcome immigrants into the country illegally.

"He’s not going to do anything, you know," Walz said in the video. "He talks about this wall — I always say, let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30-foot-ladder factory. That’s not how you stop this."

Former President Donald Trump’s supporters reshared the 14-second clip.

"Tim Walz wants to invest in a ‘ladder factory’ to help illegals scale the border wall," Trump War Room, an official Trump campaign account, wrote at 9:21 a.m. ET in an Aug. 6 X post.

"Radical Tim Walz wants a ‘ladder factory’ to help illegals get easy access into America," conservative commentator Benny Johnson wrote at 10:26 a.m. ET on X.

"Tim Walz wants to help illegals get ladders so they can climb over a border wall and invade our country," Libs of TikTok posted at 1:25 p.m. ET. 

Walz’s "ladder factory" comment came about 7 minutes and 50 seconds into a nine-minute July 30 interview on "Anderson Cooper 360," during which he discussed reproductive rights, insulin costs, immigration and why he’s called Trump and his allies "weird." 

But the shorter social media video gave a misleading impression of Walz’s fuller comments. And the posts’ descriptions omitted that Walz advocated other ways for stemming immigration at the southern U.S. border. His ladder imagery didn’t signal that he wanted to help people over the wall — he said he did not believe a wall to be a strong solution to the problem.

(Internet Archive)

"He talks about this wall — I always say, let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30-foot-ladder factory," Walz said. "That’s not how you stop this," he said, referring to illegal immigration. "You stop this using electronics, you stop it using more border control agents, and you stop it by having a legal system that allows for that tradition of allowing folks to come here, just like my relatives did to come here, be able to work and establish the American dream." 

"Anderson Cooper 360" posted Walz’s full segment on Facebook the day the interview aired. In his comments, Walz mentioned a border security bill negotiated by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. Trump encouraged Republican senators to oppose the bipartisan bill; the bill failed after losing support. 

Here’s a longer transcript of the relevant portion of Walz’s July 30 remarks, with the "ladder factory" comments bolded: 

Cooper: "You know, it seems like the Trump team is, you know, coalescing around this, you know, obviously this idea of going after Harris on as the most liberal. You know, trying to saddle her with all the criticisms that they were using for the Biden administration. We have not seen — I mean she’s started to do that. She pushed back today on that in her address. She very quickly pivoted to the deal, which, the former president, you know, the bipartisan deal which he told his members — his Republicans in the Senate not to follow through on and killed that deal. That seems to be what her response is going to be.

"Is that enough? I mean, clearly she has a record of, you know, statements she made the last time she ran for president that is going to be used against her."

Walz: "Yeah, well, they’re going to say whatever they’re going to say. We just need to have good proposals. There's things that we can do. I think we need to acknowledge to folks that every nation in the United States needs to control its border. And I will add the northern border, which Minnesota is on. But you can do that using the right tools and the (James) Lankford-(Kyrsten) Sinema bill that he did kill would have done that. The border patrol agents endorsed it. These are folks who know what needs to be done, but he's not interested in solving the problem.

"What Democrats need to do is acknowledge — and he has ginned up fear — but our border can work better. It doesn't — There's no reason someone seeking asylum, which we will always be a guiding light for, shouldn't have to wait seven years to have that adjudicated. That's why this bill would have made it 90 days and people either got it or they were removed. And I think seeing a plan that's out there talking about it with folks, knowing that he’s not going to do anything, you know. He talks about this wall — I always say, let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30-foot-ladder factory. That’s not how you stop this. You stop this using electronics, you stop it using more border control agents, and you stop it by having a legal system that allows for that tradition of allowing folks to come here — just like my relatives did — to come here, be able to work and establish the American dream. He's not interested in that. He wants to demonize.

"Look, we produce most of the turkeys that you're going to eat on Thanksgiving. Those are immigrants working hard, establishing themselves here. What's he going to do? Is he going to take them all out? And how does the economy going to work?

"These people — my neighbors, whether they're Republican or Democrats — don't want to demonize their neighbors. They just want a safe border. She's got a plan. The Lankford-Sinema bill was a big key to it, and Donald Trump doesn't want it. He thrives on chaos. He thrives on this idea that’s only him."

RELATED: Who is Tim Walz? What to know about Kamala Harris’ new running mate