Until recently, I had accepted—my mistake—Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s claim that he has made some 30-ish trips to China since 1989. But Walz, as he will be the first or last to tell you, sometimes “misspeaks.”
The Harris running mate has also “misspoken” about more important biographical details with respect to which you’d think it would be very hard to misspeak (a mystery cleared up once you realize that one of the things that Walz misspeaks or rather lies about is whether he has misspoken or simply lied about this or that). For example, according to a CNN print report, “Walz says he ‘misspoke’ [lied] after unearthed newspaper reports undercut claim he was in Hong Kong during Tiananmen Square protests” (October 1, 2024).
The recent vice-presidential debate happened, says CNN, after “the unearthing of reports that contradict previous claims he made about his travel to China, including a claim that the Democratic vice presidential nominee was in Hong Kong preparing for a teaching position in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that ended in hundreds of protesters killed by the Chinese government.”
In Hong Kong when?
In a 2019 radio interview, Walz said (starting at 2:16 in the audio clip): “I was in Hong Kong on June 4, 1989, when, of course, Tiananmen Square happened. And I was in China after that.”
Newsweek reports how Walz has made similar claims on other occasions. Repeatedly. Contemporaneous reports indicate, though, that Walz left for Asia in August 1989, well after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Oops. Slip of the tongue.
To hear Walz tell it whenever he gets caught in a “misspeaking” (lie), these instances of “misspeaking” (lying) ought to be utterly discounted and laid to one side given his fidelity to the community. He’s not been perfect, for sure. Not perfect. So yeah, he makes mistakes. Can even be a knucklehead on occasion. Spelling mistakes, ludicrous assertions about his whereabouts during Tiananmen Square massacres, etc. But the community knows who he is. He has the back of the community and the community has his back as well. They vouch for each other in this way. Anybody will tell you. After all, what about all those reelections to Congress? No dishonest person ever gets sent to Congress. The community wouldn’t permit it.
From the horse’s mouth
The above paraphrase may be a misspeaking of what Walz has spoken, and therefore illegal in the state of California. Let us defer therefore to CNN’s report. During the debate, the governor, according to CNN, said something like the following:
“My community knows who I am. They saw where I was at. Look, I will be the first to tell you, I have poured my heart into my community. I’ve tried to do the best I can, but I’ve not been perfect, and I’m a knucklehead at times, but it’s always been about that. Those same people elected me to Congress for 12 years….
“All I said on this was, I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just—that’s what I’ve said. I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in, in governance.”
This kind of evasiveness and verbal goulash—not word salad, as so many people misspeakingly maintain—makes Tim Walz the perfect running mate for Kamala Harris.
Also see:
StopTheChinazis.org: “Tim Walz, the Communist Anticommunist”
