CNN
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz previously said Tuesday that he visited Hong Kong during China’s Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989, but claimed he was “in Hong Kong and China” during the pro-democracy protests. “That was a mistake,” he said. .
His comments during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate echo previous claims about his travels to China, including claims that the Democratic vice presidential candidate was in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests to prepare for a teaching job. This comes after contradictory reports were uncovered. -Democracy protests ended with hundreds of protesters being killed by the Chinese government.
“My community knows who I am. They see where I am,” Walz said during the debate. “Look, first of all, I’m passionate about my community. I’ve tried to be the best I can be, but I’m not perfect. Sometimes the joints Sometimes it gets dull, but it’s always been that way. The same people elected me to Congress for 12 years.”
When pressed specifically by the CBS News host about the discrepancy between his past comments and media reports about his trip, Walz first said he had “misspoken” about this.
“All I said in this case was that I went there that summer and misspoken about this, so I’m going to do this,” he said, adding: And from there I learned a lot about what is needed in governance,” he said.
When Walz was a teacher before entering politics, he regularly organized and accompanied trips to China.
He previously said he visited Hong Kong in “May 1989,” weeks before the Tiananmen massacre in Beijing. At a hearing of the Congressional Executive Committee on China commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2014, Walz, then a Minnesota congressman, appeared to recall details of his travels to the area at the time.
“When I was young, I was just going to teach high school in Foshan City, Guangdong Province, and I was in Hong Kong in May of 1989,” he said. “And as events unfolded, a few of us went inside. And I still remember the train station in Hong Kong.”
“The opportunity to attend a high school in China during that critical time seemed like a really important one to me, and it was a very interesting summer to say the least, because that summer and after that, we “If you remember when we moved and we had news blackouts and stuff like that, we certainly can’t make the news black if people want to know,” he continued.
Furthermore, Walz claimed in a June 2019 radio interview that he was in Hong Kong on June 4, 1989, the day of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
“On June 4, 1989, I was in Hong Kong, and then, of course, Tiananmen happened. And then I was in China. It was very strange, because, of course, the Voice of… All outside communication was blocked in America and elsewhere, so of course there were no telephones, no email, nothing. So we kind of lost touch when I was living there, and the Berlin Wall came down. “It took me a month to find out,” he said.
At a hearing of the Congressional Executive Committee on China commemorating the 2009 Tiananmen Square massacre, Walz claimed that he was in Hong Kong at the time, preparing to teach in China.
“Twenty years ago today, I was in Hong Kong, preparing to go to Foshan to teach at Foshan First Middle School,” he said. “Seeing what happened at the end of the day on June 4th is something many of us will never forget, and we vow never to forget. And to bear witness to history and to accurately It is absolutely important for any country to move forward.”
Walz’s claim that he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests has been reiterated in media reports. However, a contemporary newspaper report, first resurfaced by the conservative Washington Free Beacon, said Walz was in Nebraska at the time. A May 16, 1989 issue of the Alliance Times-Herald includes a photo of Walz touring a Nebraska National Guard warehouse. In the photo’s caption, the newspaper said Walz would “take over” the job of staffing a warehouse from a retired security guard and “move to Alliance,” Nebraska. Another newspaper article about Walz’s travel plans to China, published by a Nebraska-based news organization in April 1989, reported that Walz was planning a trip to China in early August of that year.
When asked by CNN whether Walz was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests, the Harris campaign could not provide any evidence to support Walz’s claims.
A source close to Walz told CNN: “Governor Walz’s point when discussing this is that some participants in the World Teach Program discussed dropping out after the Tiananmen incident.” However, Governor Walz continued the program because he believed it was important.” I want Chinese people to learn about American democracy and American history. ”
The discrepancy was first reported by Minnesota Public Radio News and APM Reports.
Walz also appears to have exaggerated the number of trips he took to China. In a 2016 interview, he said he had visited China “about 30 times.” At another meeting of the Congressional Executive Committee on China in 2016, Walz claimed to have visited Hong Kong “dozens and dozens of times.”
When asked to explain how many times Walz has visited China, a Harris campaign spokesperson told CNN that Walz has been to China “probably closer to 15 times.”
China has long held an important place in Waltz’s life, ever since he first visited the country in 1989. Waltz and his wife, Gwen Waltz, married on June 4, 1994, the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, and spent their honeymoon with a group of students. Educational trips to China were something Walz took regularly when he was a teacher before becoming a congressman. Ahead of her wedding, Gwen Waltz told the Nebraska-based Star-Herald newspaper that she planned to get married on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre because “I wanted a date to remember forever.”
Since joining the Harris campaign, Walz has not elaborated on China or his travel history there.
Republicans have brought Walz’s ties to China under increased scrutiny in recent days. Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Donald Trump’s campaign, said on Monday that he expected Mr. Vance to attack Mr. Walz because of his history of visiting China.
“Tiananmen Tim! Funny thing is, they’re changing this now – we were going to call him out on this in tomorrow night’s debate! Is there anything else you want to say, Tim? ?,” Miller said in a social media post in response to an explanation provided by the Harris campaign about Walz’s visit to China.
Congressional Republicans have also joined the Trump camp in questioning Walz’s ties to China. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Monday asked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for documents related to Mr. Walz as part of a “whistleblower” allegation to the committee that Mr. Walz has ties to the Chinese Communist Party. was summoned. The subpoena is the latest step by House Republicans to focus on Walz’s ties to China through an investigation that began in August, shortly after Walz joined the Democratic Party.
The contradictions surrounding Walz’s travels to China and Hong Kong mark the latest example of the governor’s past statements proving inaccurate since he became the Democratic vice presidential nominee. . In August, a Harris campaign spokesperson said Walz had made a “gaffe” in a 2018 video in which she said she handled assault weapons “in war.”
Later that month, Gwen Waltz revealed that the couple had undergone infertility treatments other than IVF to conceive, after her husband suggested that she had undergone IVF.
Correction: This article and headline have been updated to accurately reflect Tim Walz’s past claims that he traveled to Asia in 1989. He claimed to have been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests.
This article and headline have been updated with Walz’s remarks during Tuesday night’s debate.
