CNN dropped a bombshell report about vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz just hours before his highly anticipated debate against Sen. JD Vance on Tuesday.
Walz is under renewed scrutiny for repeatedly and inaccurately claiming that he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989, according to the outlet. CNN’s K-File investigative team, led by Andy Kaczynski, uncovered audio recordings and prior statements in which Walz referenced being in China during the protests—a claim that has now been shown to be false.
In a 2019 radio interview, Walz stated, “I was in Hong Kong on June 4, 1989, when, of course, Tiananmen Square happened.” But in fact, according to the CNN investigation, Walz didn’t depart for China until August of that year, nearly three months later.
The discrepancies were initially uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon and Minnesota Public Radio News, with additional corroboration provided by local news reports from 1989 and 1990.
The false claims, which have been around for several years, have emerged just before the highly anticipated vice presidential debate, where Walz is scheduled to face J.D. Vance (R-OH) in New York on Tuesday night. Critics are labeling the revelations as a significant blow to Walz’s credibility.
When questioned about the falsehood, a spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign told CNN: “The point Gov. Walz is making when he discusses this is that some folks in the World Teach program discussed dropping out after Tiananmen Square, but he continued on with the program because he believed it was important for the Chinese people to learn about American democracy and American history.”
During a 2014 congressional hearing marking the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Walz, who was a U.S. congressman at the time, stated that he had been in Hong Kong in May 1989, just prior to the Chinese government’s military crackdown on student protesters.
Walz described witnessing the events unfolding from Hong Kong: “I still remember the train station in Hong Kong. There was a large number of, especially European, I think, very angry that we would still go after what had happened, but it was my belief at that time that the diplomacy was going to happen on many levels.”
“The opportunity to be in a Chinese high school at that critical time seemed to me to be really important. And it was a very interesting summer, to say the least. Because if you recall, as we moved in that summer and further on and the news blackouts and things that went on, you certainly can’t black out news from people if they want to get it,” he added.
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“The campaign was unable to produce documentation to back up Walz’s statement that he was there during the uprising,” MPR wrote.
Local reports from Nebraska at the time proved that Walz was there and not in China at the time.
A local outlet, The Chadron Record, revealed Walz “will teach American history and English as a second language at a post-secondary school in one of the four largest cities in China.” The report added: “He will leave in early August and spend at least a year in the nation.”
During the debate, Walz was asked about his false claims, to which he said in a long, rambling response that he “misspoke”—the same excuse he has given in the past when he was exposed for lying about elements of his military career, including attaining the rank of sergeant major, the highest enlisted rank, and being in combat, neither of which are true.
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