One of the worst, for Walz, moments of the Vice Presidential Debate hosted by CBS News on the night of Tuesday, October 1, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was pressed on what might be his biggest scandal, the one that has dominated headlines recently. That would be his alleged ties with officials in the Chinese Communist Party, ties that are being investigated by the House Oversight Committee. Specifically, he was asked about his trip to China, and if he lied about visiting during the protests and crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Walz was, quite hilariously, roasted on the internet over his failure to respond well.
Beginning, when asked how he could have been in China for the Tiananmen Square protests when records show he didn’t travel to Asia until August of that year, months later, he rambled about his childhood, saying, “Well, and to the folks out there who didn’t get at the top of this, look, I grew up in small rural Nebraska, a town of 400, a town that you rode your bike with your buddies till the street lights come on, and I’m proud of that service.” He added, “I joined the National Guard at 17, worked on family farms, and then I used the GI Bill to become a teacher, passionate about it, a young teacher. My first year out, I got the opportunity in the summer of ’89 to travel to China.”
He then, bizarrely, went off track and described himself as a “knucklehead” without addressing the China trip issue, saying, “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.” Then, when pressed on the matter a bit later, he finally admitted that he had not been there for the protest and crackdown as he claimed, saying, “No, just 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. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.”
As might be expected, Gov. Walz’s utter lack of a good answer, or even an answer at all rather than just rambling, led to a great deal of fire directed his way online. For example, one person who posted a video of the clip said, “This [is] absolutely embarrassing. This guy clearly has a history of seriously cringeworthy lies. Stop saying you were in war zones 😂”
Similarly, X personality Collin Rugg posted, “JUST IN: Tim Walz turns into a stumbling mess, calls himself a ‘knucklehead’ after he was confronted about the lie that he was in Hong Kong in 1989 during Tiananmen. After going on a 2-minute rant about how good of a guy he is, Walz finally answered the question. Walz has claimed on multiple occasions that he was in Hong Kong during the tragedy in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. ‘It was not true. Mr. Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, indeed taught at a high school in China as part of a program sending American teachers abroad, but he did not actually travel to the country until August 1989,’ the New York Times reported.”
Replying, commenters said things like “Walz is a perfect example of a politician caught in lies. Calling himself a ‘knucklehead’ is just admitting he can’t own up to the truth. It’s pathetic! If you can’t even remember your own history, how can you lead anyone?” and “It wasn’t that he couldn’t remember, he wanted the borrowed glory. Just like Biden invents a new neighborhood he grew up in depending on the audience.”
Similarly, another said that the real issue isn’t whether or not Walz was there, but that he’s quite obviously a habitual liar. That commenter said, “He certainly knows, and has always known, that he wasn’t at the Tiananmen Square Massacre. It would have been quite memorable. But that’s not the issue. The issue is he is a habitual, psychopathic liar. That’s the issue. And it was exposed so brutally tonight there’s no recovery.”
On much the same note, yet another commenter on Rugg’s post said, “Walz’s response was a complete meltdown. rambled for 2 minutes, called himself a “knucklehead,” and then *finally* admitted the truth. This is what happens when you get cornered with facts.” Similarly, another said, referencing Walz’s family members supporting Trump, “Walz is a loser. His own family doesn’t want his stink.”
Watch the debate incident here:
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