Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) responded to questions about claims he has previously made that he had been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre, noting that he had his “dates wrong.”
“I had my dates wrong,” Walz explained to reporters on Wednesday. “I was in Hong Kong in China in 1989, that move from Hong Kong into China, it was profound for me. That was the summer of democracy, I said it’s where I understood how sacred democracy was.”
Walz’s answer comes after he was asked during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday about the false claims he had made about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre, saying he is a “knucklehead at times.”
As Breitbart News’s Frances Martel reported, during the debate, Walz was asked about comments he had reportedly made in 2014 during a Congressional hearing, about being in Hong Kong when the massacres occurred. This came after the Washington Free Beacon released a report finding that Walz had been in Nebraska during the massacres:
Walz was responding to a question during Tuesday’s vice presidential debate against Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), moderated by CBS News. The moderators challenged both candidates on their respective records, asking Walz to reply to a report that surfaced on Tuesday that Walz had falsely claimed in 2014 to have been present in Hong Kong during the communist mass killings. Walz reportedly made the comments during a congressional hearing in 2014, claiming he was in Hong Kong in May 1989. In reality, the Washington Free Beacon found evidence that Walz was in Nebraska at the time and did not travel to China until August.
The Washington Free Beacon’s report noted that Walz had been “in Nebraska” as the Tiananmen Square massacre continued during “May and June of 1989.” Walz reportedly didn’t “depart for China until August,” according to the outlet, which cited “news reports” of Walz “touring a National Guard storeroom” during the time frame of the massacres:
Contemporaneous news reports show Walz touring a National Guard storeroom in Alliance, Nebraska, in May 1989. They indicate that Walz did not leave the United States until August of that year, at least two months after the student protests ended with the Tiananmen Square massacre.
CNN reported that Walz had also claimed during a radio interview in June 2019, that he had been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989.