Walz is forced to correct his information about whether he was in China during the Tiananmen Square protests

Minnesota’s Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, was forced to answer questions during Tuesday’s debate about his controversial trip to China and false statements about it.

Walz said he was in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989. However, Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets are now reporting that Walz did not actually travel to China until August of that year.

CBS News moderator Margaret Brennan asked Walz to explain the discrepancy.

COMER Calls on DHS to produce documentation regarding WALZ’s alleged connections to the Chinese Communist Party

“Listen, I grew up in a small rural town in Nebraska, a town where you rode your bike with your friends until the streetlights came on, and I’m proud of this service,” said a visibly shaken Walz. “I joined the National Guard at 17, worked on family farms, and then became a teacher thanks to the GI Bill.”

Walz said that as a “passionate young teacher” he had “the opportunity to go to China in the summer of 1989 – 35 years ago.”

“I came back home and then started a program to take young people there. We would take basketball teams, baseball teams, dancers and go back and forth to China,” Walz said, noting the trips were “to try to learn.”

“Listen, my community knows who I am. They saw where I was. I’ll be the first to say I put my heart into it and tried to do my best, but it wasn’t perfect,” Walz continued.

“And sometimes I’m dense,” Walz said.

Walz said his commitment “from the beginning” was to “make sure I was there for the people.”

“A lot of times I will talk a lot. I’ll deal with rhetoric. But being there, the impact it had and the difference it made in my life, I learned a lot about China,” Walz said. “I hear the criticism of that.”

Walz said he would “make the case that Donald Trump should have come with us on one of these trips.”

“I guarantee you that would not be the case, praising XI Jinping for Covid. And I guarantee you he wouldn’t start a trade war that he would ultimately lose,” Walz said. “So it’s about trying to understand the world. It’s about doing what you can for your community and then going out and letting your people understand what you’re about.”

He added: “My commitment, whether it was through teaching, which I was good at, or being a good soldier or a good member of Congress. I think these are the values ​​that people care about.”

But Brennan pushed back, reminding Walz of the question and again asking him to explain the discrepancy.

“I just said I came there this summer and I expressed myself badly,” Walz said. “So that’s what I said. I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests and from there I learned many things that need to be taken into account in governance.”

Walz’s ties to China have come under the microscope since he became vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

HOUSE OVERSIGHT OF WALZ INVESTIGATION ON ‘LONG-TERM CONNECTIONS’ WITH CHINA

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has launched an investigation into Walz’s alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Comer revealed that Walz has “engaged with and collaborated with” Chinese entities, making him “vulnerable” to the CCP’s “elite capture” strategy, which aims to co-opt influential figures from elite political, cultural and academic circles into ” “to influence the United States of America to the advantage of the communist regime and to the detriment of the Americans.”

Comer pointed to reports that Walz, while working as a teacher in the 1990s, organized a trip to China for Alliance High School students. The costs were reportedly “covered by the Chinese government.”

TIM WALZ SAID HE HAS BEEN TO CHINA DOZENS OF TIMES, NOW HIS CAMPAIGN SAYS IT’S ‘CLOSER TO 15’

Comer is investigating a private company Walz founded in 1994 called “Educational Travel Adventures, Inc.”, which until 2003 coordinated annual student trips to China and was headed by Walz.

The company reportedly “dissolved four days after he took office in Congress in 2007.”

Comer said Walz had traveled to China about “30 times.”

Comer has now issued a subpoena to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, forcing him to produce DHS records regarding Walz’s alleged ties to the CCP.

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Meanwhile, Walz said during a 2016 congressional hearing that he had “been to China dozens of times.”

“I’ve been there about 30 times,” Walz told an agriculture publication in 2016.

However, a Harris-Walz campaign spokesman recently said Minnesota Public Radio that the number was “closer to 15 times”.