Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz didn't give a clear answer Tuesday night when asked about falsely claiming he was in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, saying he was just “dumb-headed sometimes.” He said it was simply a “miscommunication.”
Walz was answering questions during Tuesday's vice presidential debate against Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), moderated by CBS News. The hosts challenged both candidates on their respective records and responded to reports that surfaced on Tuesday that Walz had falsely claimed to have been in Hong Kong during the 2014 communist genocide. asked to do so. Walz reportedly made this remark during a 2014 Congressional hearing, claiming he was in Hong Kong in May 1989. In fact, the Washington Free Beacon found evidence that Walz was in Nebraska at the time and did not travel to China until August.
Later Tuesday, CNN Found There are other instances in which Mr. Walz has claimed to have been in Hong Kong on June 4, 1989, the day of the massacre. In 2009, Walz claimed at a Congressional hearing that he had been in Hong Kong that day.
Asked directly to comment on the discrepancy on Tuesday night, Walz would not explicitly say whether he was in Hong Kong during the massacre, but instead explained that his travels began with an upbringing in rural Nebraska. He presented a detailed autobiography that led to his death. During the “summer of 1989,'' he frequently traveled to China.
“Thirty-five years ago, in the summer of 1989, I had the opportunity to travel to China. I was able to do it,” he explained. “When I came back, I started a program to take young people to China. We took a basketball team, we took a baseball team, we took dancers, and we went back and forth to China.”
Mr. Walz went on to appear to indirectly confirm that he was not in the country during the Tiananmen incident. My heart is with the community, and I've tried to be the best I can be, but I'm not perfect.
clock: His words! Tim Walz describes himself as a 'knucklehead' to excuse Tiananmen Square lies
CBS News Vice Presidential Debate
Ms. Waltz went on to admit that she had “spoken many times…a lot.”
“I'm going to get caught up in the rhetoric, but I've learned a lot about China, actually being there, the impact it's had, the changes it's made in my life,” said Donald. He added that former President Trump would also have benefited from a trip to China. Waltz and China.
Moderator Margaret Brennan repeated the question following his extended initial response, asking him to directly address a report that falsely claimed that Walz was in Hong Kong on June 4, 1989.
“No, all I said about this was that I went there in the summer and I misspoke about this,” Walz insisted. “That's what I said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy movement…and I learned a lot of what it takes to govern from there.”
CNN reported Tuesday that contrary to Walz's claims, he said in a 2019 interview: And then I was in China. ”
The Tiananmen Square Massacre was an incident in which the Chinese Communist Party indiscriminately murdered peaceful protesters, many of them young students, in response to anti-communist protests in Beijing in 1989. The Communist Party sent in the military to quell the Tiananmen protests, in some cases literally. Protesters drove tanks into Beijing's Tiananmen Square and destroyed a procession that had gathered around the statue.goddess of democracy” image is reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty, which maintains important symbolism among anti-communist movements in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
“A tank drove into a crowd of people at high speed, literally crushing them into hamburgers,” said Population Research Institute Director Stephen Mosher, one of the first Western academics allowed into China. Breitbart News Tonight 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the murder. “Then they had to bulldoze the road to remove the bodies of people killed by tanks. The butchers were terrible.”
There is no exact death toll for state killings, but estimates from 2017 based on documents discovered at the time suggest killings were carried out by the Chinese Communist Party. killed At least 10,000 people.
Mr. Waltz chose to marry his wife, Gwen, on June 4, 1994, the anniversary of the massacre, and they honeymooned in China.
“He always wanted to have a memorable date,” Gwen Waltz said in an interview shortly after the wedding.
