FABULIST FUMBLES: An Imprecise Biography Catches Up With Tim Walz.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday that “I need to be clearer” after a series of misstatements and exaggerations about his experiences and biography have created a distraction for Democrats weeks before the election.
The vice-presidential nominee suffered his worst moment in Tuesday’s debate with Republican VP nominee Ohio Sen. JD Vance when he tried to explain years of repeated false statements about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests in China. Walz also has gotten into trouble for past claims including about his National Guard retirement rank and a 2018 comment about “weapons of war that I carried in war” when he was never deployed in a combat zone.
Such exaggerations are known in Minnesota as “fish tales”—embellishments often with a basis in fact—and they generally haven’t hurt Walz within the friendlier confines of state-level politics. But on the national stage they can be damaging. Those involving Walz reveal the growing pains he has experienced since his selection as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.
“The national spotlight was sure to expose Walz’s weakness of exaggerating or being less than honest,” said Blois Olson, a nonpartisan political analyst who publishes a newsletter on Minnesota politics and has known Walz since 2006.
Olson said Walz and his team have prevented media interviews that are likely to yield follow-up questions or challenges. “The rule of thumb for Minnesota media and observers is just because he says it convincingly it doesn’t mean it’s true,” he said. “It’s his Achilles’ heel, and at some point he can’t keep running the same way.”
On Wednesday, Walz sought to play down any inaccuracies by presenting himself as an everyday guy, despite more than a decade in Congress and being elected statewide twice. “I speak like everybody else speaks,” he said during brief comments to reporters in Pennsylvania. “I need to be clearer, I will tell you that.”
A person familiar with Walz’s speaking history said the governor’s gaffes aren’t necessarily nefarious or embellishing in nature and are more a result of his casual speaking style.
No, I’d say they’re a bit nefarious, given how Walz acted in 2020, his radical chic appointees, and his “what me worry” attitude with the CCP: Tim, Don’t Try to Pass Off a Lie by Saying You “Misspoke.” Tim Walz’s love affair with China and its communist government.