Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz stumbled while answering a question about his inaccurate claims about himself on Tuesday night, boasting about his “service” riding his bike as a kid and admitting “I’m a knucklehead” in a rambling answer.
His answer followed a question from moderator Margaret Brennan, who noted that while Walz has previously said he was “in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989,” new reporting from CNN revealed that he “didn’t travel to Asia until August of that year.”
“Can you explain that discrepancy?” she asked.
He began: “Yeah, well, and to the folks out there that didn’t get it at the top of this. Look, I grew up in small, rural Nebraska, town of 400. Town that you rode your bike with your buddies ’till the streetlights come on and I’m proud of that service. I joined the National Guard at 17. Worked on family farms. And then I used the GI Bill to become a teacher. Passionate about it –a young teacher.”
The governor continued:
My first year out I got the opportunity in the summer of ’89 to travel to China, 35 years ago be