This former UFC fighter wants to replace Tim Walz.
The Michele Tafoya Podcast
Salem Podcast Network
2.4 • 590 Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Former MMA fighter Brad Kohler is running for Governor of Minnesota. He tells Michele why his fighter's mentality makes him the best candidate for the job. Is he the next Jesse Ventura?
Michele Tafoya is a four-time Emmy award-winning sportscaster turned political and cultural commentator.
Record-setting, four-time Sports Emmy Award winner Michele Tafoya worked her final NBC Sunday Night Football game at Super Bowl LVI on February 13, 2022, her fifth Super Bowl.
She retired from sportscasting the following day. In total, she covered 327 games — the most national primetime TV games (regular + postseason) for an NFL sideline reporter.
Learn More about “The Michele Tafoya Podcast” here: https://linktr.ee/micheletafoya
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Follow Michele on twitter: https://twitter.com/Michele_Tafoya
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We've got to open up new businesses and bring them back here to employ people. |
| 0:04.4 | And again, more people paying in the lower we can charge people for taxes. |
| 0:08.7 | It really is about getting Minnesota to be another destination for people to want to live again. |
| 0:14.7 | Right now, who wants to live here? |
| 0:16.3 | We have four states that people are going to for cheaper goods because it's cheaper. |
| 0:20.2 | It's bad business. |
| 0:21.6 | We need to, again, take this as an opportunity to be the lowest tax state in the country. |
| 0:25.6 | And again, we can do this. We need to grow. We need to build another airport. And with that comes other cities. |
| 0:31.6 | And with other cities come more growth, more home buying, more home building. We need to go and look into our farming and look into the future of vertical farming. We need to start looking into the future of the things that are going to take us into the next century. And we got to do things with our next generations. So our next generations need to be a part of this. Things that incite them that they know there's going to be a future for them, |
| 0:57.4 | then there's going to be jobs for them, and then they're going to need to know they're going to be able to afford and buy a house. |
| 1:07.0 | Welcome to a brand new episode of the Michelle Topoya podcast. There are a lot of interesting gubernatorial races around the country, and Minnesota is one of them. |
| 1:15.2 | And right now, the pool of candidates is pretty, it's pretty deep. |
| 1:19.8 | And we're making it an effort to speak to each and every candidate running. |
| 1:24.9 | Brad Kohler, you may recognize his name because he fought, he's an MMA, |
| 1:29.5 | former MMA fighter who fought in the UFC and other mixed martial arts fighting arenas, if you |
| 1:36.3 | will. But now he's running for governor. He's going to tell you why and what his plan is. |
| 1:40.8 | How does a former mixed martial arts guy wind up in Minnesota running for governor and what |
| 1:47.4 | is his vision he's going to explain before we get there please hit that subscribe button we'd love you |
| 1:52.5 | to have every episode right there ready for you on whenever you want it cost you nothing just hit |
| 1:58.0 | subscribe we'd love to see you and follow us on all our social media platforms as well. |
| 2:02.3 | Brad Kohler, former MMA fighter, is running for governor and he is next. |
| 2:11.3 | Brad, welcome. You are kind of one of these new faces to the race. This is your first time running for governor, correct? |
... |
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