Minnesota Governor Tim Walz faced some heat during the recent vice presidential debate over claims he had made about being in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. For years, Walz had stated he was present in the region during the massacre, but reports have since confirmed that he didn’t arrive in China until August, months after the events unfolded.
When pressed about this during the debate, Walz admitted that he had misspoken and referred to himself as a “knucklehead,” acknowledging that he sometimes gets “caught up in the rhetoric.”
He didn’t deny the discrepancy, attributing it to an honest mistake rather than any intent to mislead. Walz has previously spoken about the impact his time in China had on his views, even though his timeline has now been confirmed as inaccurate.
This issue has added to the scrutiny of his record, but Walz emphasized that he’s learned from his experiences, even if he hasn’t always been perfect in how he conveys them.
