Walz tries to clean up the lies in an interview with Fox News

Gov. Tim Walz, in his first Sunday appearance on the show and only the fourth national media interview aired since he was chosen to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, addressed the growing number of false claims that have emerged since he joined Democratic Party in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

Fox’s Shannon Bream asked the governor why he thinks the American people should trust him despite his lies – about his time in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre, his military service, the fact that he and his wife used in vitro fertilization when he really used intrauterine insemination — when he could be in the line of succession to commander-in-chief if Harris wins in November.

The factual inaccuracies Walz noted came to a head during Tuesday’s vice presidential debate with Republican candidate J.D. Vance. Walz called himself a “retard” for making these mistakes, and then made another gaffe during the broadcast.

When talking about gun control, he said he was “friends with school shooters” instead of saying he was friends with school shooting victims – something he later tried to explain in an interview with the media: “I sat as a member of Congress with the parents of Sandy Hook and it was profound movement. David Hogg is a good friend of mine,” Walz said.

Walz said Sunday that he thinks the country “heard” his cleanup efforts during the debate and that he’s not afraid to “admit” when he makes a mistake, suggesting that such lies are better than “discrediting” people the way the former president does Donald Trump, or denies the 2020 election results like Vance.

– Well, I think they heard me. The other night they heard me speaking passionately about gun violence and miscommunication,” Walz said, then adding that he didn’t think people “care” whether he pursues IUI or IVF when Trump could pose a threat to both methods infertility treatment if she returns to the US. White House.

“Listen, I speak with passion. I had an entire career decades before I entered public office… I have never disparaged anyone else in this way. But I know Donald Trump doesn’t do that. They discredit everyone, personal attacks. “I’ll admit it, when I’m wrong, I’ll admit it,” Walz said in an interview on Fox on Sunday.

“Let’s be clear, I asked one very simple question on the debate stage one night, and Senator Vance refused to admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. “I think they probably care a lot more about this than my wife and I used IUI to give birth to our baby and that Donald Trump will limit it,” he continued.

Walz’s response to his sloppiness with facts was refined within days of the debate. When he spoke to reporters the day after the broadcast, he tried to clarify when exactly he was in China in 1989; this topic surfaced last week with reports that he appeared to falsely claim to have been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square Massacre in June this year.

“Yes, look, I got the dates wrong,” he admitted on Sunday. He didn’t want to be so direct during the debate: “I just said that I came there this summer and I expressed myself badly, so I just said it… So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest,” he said.

On Saturday, speaking at a fundraiser in Cleveland, Walz also directly addressed recent reports that he had inaccurately told certain stories, portraying that characteristic in a way that criticized the Trump-Vance Project 2025 ticket.

“When I’m working with high school kids, I talk really fast and then I say put my foot in my mouth — I have to go back and correct it again,” Walz said.

“So I once said: They don’t have a plan. That’s not true. I expressed myself incorrectly on this point. They certainly have a plan. It’s called Project 2025,” he continued.

Walz’s interview with “Fox News Sunday” comes as the Harris-Walz campaign said the governor would be tightening his relatively quiet media strategy across the country at lightning speed after the debate. He also recorded an interview for CBS’s “60 Minutes” election special about Harris. On Monday, he will appear on the late-night “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show.