Walz has a problem with the truth. Will it hurt Harris in November?
Tim Walz has a disturbing pattern of telling untruths about his life and his past. He has turned stories that should have been human into controversial ones.
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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz officially accepted his vice presidential nomination on stage in Chicago and spoke to key voters across the country.
I’m not sure what Tim Walz thinks.
The governor of Minnesota and Democratic vice presidential candidate is – rightly – in the media spotlight because Vice President Kamala Harris has named him her running mate.
And that’s not the only thing that puts him in a positive light.
More and more examples show that Walz is either exaggerating or lying about his past.
While we’re nowhere near George Santos (the former Republican congressman who was exposed for fabricating large parts of his past and fundraising numbers), it’s still a concerning issue.
These are unnecessary, unforced errors, and they should make voters question what they may Trust when Walz speaks.
Is Walz really confused about IVF? No
One lie Walz has told repeatedly this year – and which seems particularly egregious – is that he and his wife were only able to have their two children through in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Walz has commented on this several times – and used the story for election campaign purposes.
“Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children,” he said on MSNBC in July.
Earlier this month, Walz also said of his Republican counterpart and Senator JD Vance of Ohio: “If it were up to him, I would not have a family because of IVF.”
That’s a strange statement from Walz for several reasons, primarily because it’s false. (And as for Vance, that’s a lie too. Vance publicly supports the process, as does former President Donald Trump.)
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Last week, thanks to Walz’s wife, Gwen Walz, in an interview with Glamour, it became clear that the IVF claim is false. The couple instead opted for a much less expensive and less invasive treatment called intrauterine insemination, or IUI. Unlike IVF, IUI does not raise similar ethical concerns because embryos are not created outside the womb.
Walz seemed inspired to speak out about his family’s journey to having children earlier this year, when IVF became a political flashpoint after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos should be recognized as children.
I suspect it was politically expedient for Walz to claim that he and his wife had to use IVF, especially after he became Harris’s running mate. Democrats have made abortion and reproductive rights a central issue in this presidential election, so Walz’s “experience” in this area may have been a selling point for Harris.
Campaign spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg tried to portray Walz’s comments as a completely understandable mistake.
“Governor Walz speaks like normal people speak,” she said. “He used common-sense acronyms for fertility treatments.”
For all the families who have had to go through the emotional rollercoaster of IVF, this is probably not a sufficient explanation.
And I don’t think Walz made a simple mistake. It seems to have been a calculated decision designed to help him politically, as it was a story he told to make it “understandable” to audiences at rallies.
A larger pattern of misleading or false statements
Shortly after Harris announced Walz as her choice, a debate erupted over his military service. Walz served in the National Guard for 24 years, which is commendable.
What is less easy to understand is why Walz felt it necessary to inflate his rank after his retirement.
Dear Vice President Harris, We need more than just sentiment to know what your presidential campaign is about
He frequently referred to himself as a “retired Command Sergeant Major,” and that claim even made it onto the Harris-Walz presidential campaign website until it was “adjusted” after the uproar.
The truth is that although Walz had attained the rank of Command Sergeant Major, he did not retire with that rank because he did not meet the necessary requirements.
This week, The Washington Free Beacon reported on several other instances in which Walz has embellished or altered his resume. For example, when Walz ran for Congress in 2006, he highlighted an award he received from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce. However, according to the Chamber’s president, Walz never received such an award from the state’s Chamber of Commerce, and he was asked to retract that claim.
It’s a disturbing pattern. And it has turned stories that should be human, like fertility problems and Walz’s military service, into controversies.
Walz owes the country a better explanation for these mistakes.
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques.
