Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Wednesday sought to dig himself out of the hole he dug in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.
During the debate against Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, he said he was “friends with school shooters.”
On Wednesday, in a video posted to X, he said that what he said was not what he meant.
“These folks know me. I’m super passionate about this. The question came up about school shooting; We’re talking about everything except school shootings,” Walz said.
“I sat as a member of Congress with the Sandy Hook parents, and it was a profound movement. David Hogg is a good friend of mine,” he said.
Hogg was a survivor of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, who became an anti-gun extremist. Sandy Hook was the site of a 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
REPORTER: Can you clarify why you said you’ve befriended school shooters?
WALZ: “I’m super passionate about this!”
(No clarification was offered) pic.twitter.com/P0f0Dz4w6G
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 2, 2024
“I was talking about meeting people where there are school shooters, and I need to be more specific on that, but I am passionate about this,” he said.
Did Tim Walz lose the debate?
Vance said Wednesday the gaffe was not Walz’s low point of the evening.
“I actually didn’t notice that Tim Walz had said that on the debate stage,” Vance said, according to Newsweek.
He said he later told former President Donald Trump the comment “was probably only the third or fourth dumbest comment that Tim Walz made that night.”
Vance said Walz had a difficult assignment in the debate.
“Look, I’ve got to be honest, I feel a little bad for Governor Walz. And the reason I feel bad for him is because he has to defend the indefensible, and that is the record of Kamala Harris,” he said.
While he was commenting on the debate on Truth Social, Trump noted that the comment was more damaging than a random slip of the tongue.
“Walz made a very big mistake on Gun Shooters. Does anyone think he knows what he said? Will he have a News Conference after the Debate to apologize to the parents and others who were so horribly hurt?” Trump wrote.
Walz on Wednesday also sought to reply to revelations that claims he has made since 2014 that he was in Asia when the Tiananmen Square protests were put down on June 4, 1989, were inaccurate.
Tim Walz was CAUGHT lying about being in Tiananmen Square when it happened. He lied about this. He lied about his military record. He lied about awards that he’s gotten from a chamber of commerce over and over again. This guy has a pattern of lying. pic.twitter.com/hyELjVVMcD
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) October 2, 2024
“Look, I have my dates wrong. I was in Hong Kong and China in 1989,” Walz said, according to the New York Post. Walz participated in a teaching program, with news accounts from the time saying he was not in China until at least two months after the pro-democracy protests were suppressed.
“You’ve seen me. These teachers see me. I speak like everybody else speaks,” he said. “I need to be clearer. I will tell you that.”
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