POLITICO puts it more gently, but as I predicted this morning, one of the lasting impacts of the debate will be a renewed focus on the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I mean Tim Walz. 

Walz's lies are catching up to him, and apparently he "misspoke" a fair amount to the Harris campaign team, who claim to have had no idea that Timmy is a fabulist. 

Is that what the problem is? https://t.co/2OOS4Zoa0i pic.twitter.com/uVkpK0L5BC

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) October 3, 2024

I tend to be skeptical that debates can make a lasting impact on a race, although Trump certainly scored a (literal) knock out blow in June. So my first reaction to the VP debate was that it wouldn't have a lasting impact. 

On further reflection, I changed my mind--I thought the China questions would come back to haunt Walz. And, it seems, they already have. 

Tim Walz has a problem misspeaking.

Since being tapped as Kamala Harris’ running mate, the folksy, plain-speaking Minnesota governor has had to explain a growing number of inaccurate statements — and at times embellishments — about his past. They range from comments about his military service to his visit to Hong Kong more than three decades ago to clarifying that his family didn’t specifically use in vitro fertilization.

It’s unclear whether Walz’s verbal errors will undercut his credibility with voters. But the need to continually clean up those claims could politically hurt Walz and Harris, who are locked in a tight race with Donald Trump and JD Vance. And in some cases, key members of Harris’ circle weren’t aware of some of the inaccurate statements until they became public despite the vetting process, according to four people familiar with the conversations who were granted anonymity to discuss the matter.

“Any time you are forced to go off message is never welcome,” said Mike Mikus, a Democratic strategist in Pennsylvania. “But in the end, voters are looking for somebody who is more concerned about what these candidates are going to do to improve their lives than, ‘Did he get every single fact correct?’”

The most recent example came Tuesday, when a CBS debate moderator pressed Walz over his claim that he had been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, when Hong Kong was still under British rule (Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997). Walz over the years had said publicly he had been in Hong Kong during the crackdown in Beijing, including 10 years ago in Congress.

But on Tuesday during the debate, he awkwardly responded that “all I said on this was, is, I got there that summer,” and “I’m a knucklehead at times” before conceding he “misspoke.”

This issue hits Walz where it hurts, not because the specific dates of China trip matter, but rather because it is obvious that Tim Walz lies in order to aggrandize himself. 

Of course, Joe Biden does too, and Trump famously uses hyperbole. But Biden is so utterly shameless that he simply plows through, and Trump's hyperbole is "directionally correct," meaning that it makes a point and isn't intended to be taken literally. It's more like saying, "I could eat a horse I am so hungry;" if you take that literally, it's on you. 

The guy who wants to censor social media "tends to misspeak".https://t.co/jRFlYQKVaF

— Nobody Emeritus BT (@back_ttys) October 3, 2024

Walz, though, lies about important events in his life and about important facts. He is untrustworthy and obviously so. He looks terrible when he is caught. 

The democracy protests were from April to June of 1989, shutting down after the Tiananmen Massacre. Walz did not go there till August. So even his clarification last night was a lie. pic.twitter.com/yVKmMeOoFG

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 2, 2024

He just looks awful--like a liar who was caught.

Which is why POLITICO is writing about Walz's lies. It's obviously a pattern, and a pattern that contradicts the image that he has cultivated--and the image that got him on the Harris/Walz ticket in the first place. The entire argument for putting Tim Walz on the ticket--the plainspoken Midwesterner--has been blown up. 

Candidates running for higher office have long embellished their records or personal histories. President Joe Biden had long been known to overstate even minor details of his personal life, like his academic achievements. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in 2010 had to explain why he misstated his military record when he claimed he served in Vietnam when he in fact served in the Marine Corps Reserves during the Vietnam War — but stateside. Former Rep. George Santos is well known for lying about a number of things, including that his mother was killed in the 9/11 attacks

Walz’s misstatements could contradict the image that the campaign has painted of him as an upstanding, everyday Midwest guy.

“He’s just honest,” Bob Frisby, 70, who lives in Rochester, Minnesota, recalled of Walz in an interview shortly after Harris tapped the governor as her running mate.

One of the earliest claims that came under scrutiny during the presidential campaign centered on Walz’s military record. Walz has repeatedly and inaccurately described himself as a “retired command sergeant major” including in radio ads from his very first congressional bid. But he never finished the final coursework to retire at such a rank. The Harris campaign quietly changed its website description, after questions from reporters, to say Walz once served at the command sergeant major rank.

Walz has been wrapped in bubble wrap since the initial controversies, and we all know that Kamala Harris is kept as far away from the press as humanly possible. Harris is hidden because she is stupid; Walz because he is a liar. 

The campaign tried to clean up the mess yesterday, and that didn't go well. It's not clear how it could, because Walz is only good at bluster. He can do offense well, but sucks at defense. 

Tiananmen Tim Walz tries, fails at clarifying his botched clarification on why he lied about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre (when he was really in Nebraska): "I do understand China" pic.twitter.com/EPmwqtCdeU

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 2, 2024

There is another, underlying problem. The Democrats keep hitting on Trump and Vance as "liars," which, while unfair, has been working. Now that Tim Walz is revealed to be a serial liar and J.D. Vance looked great on stage, that dog won't hunt.