Tim Walz calls himself a ‘knucklehead’ again as 60 Minutes hosts ask if he can ‘be trusted to tell the truth’

Minnesota Governor Vice Presidential hopeful Tim Walz again called himself a “knucklehead” when questioned by 60 Minutes about untruthful statements he has made in the past.

Walz first used this popular putdown during last week’s debate, when he was asked about a claim he made about his presence in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Minnesota Public Radio News and APM Reports first reported that Walz did not travel to the regions until months later.

‘I think people know who I am. And I think they know the difference between someone who expresses emotion, tells a story, makes a bad appointment… versus a pathological liar like Donald Trump,” Walz told 60 Minutes’ Bill Whitaker.

Whitaker had asked if this kind of “misrepresentation” was more than just being a “knucklehead.”

He then hopefully asked the Democratic vice president if Walz “could be trusted with the truth.”

‘Yes. Well, I can do it, I think I can,” the Minnesota governor responded. “I’ll admit I’m a dork at times, but the people closest to me know I keep my word.”

Walz’s response in Tiananmen Square during last week’s debate was one of the most eyebrow-raising moments during his 90-plus minutes of back-and-forth with Republican vice presidential hopeful Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio.

Even before making the “knucklehead” dig, Walz offered a confusing explanation for the discrepancy.

“Well, and for the people who didn’t make it to the top here,” Walz began. ‘I grew up in small, rural Nebraska, a town of 400 people. The city where you rode your bike with your friends until the street lights came 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, with a passion for it, a young teacher,” he continued. “My first year out there, in the summer of 1989, I had the opportunity to travel to China 35 years ago to do that.”

Walz then explained how he started a program to bring young people to China.

“We would take basketball teams, we would take baseball teams, we would take dancers, and we would go back and forth to China,” he said. ‘The problem with that was that we had to try and learn.’

After the autobiographical sketch, Walz parted ways, saying his “community knows who I am.”

Governor Tim Walz (right) first used the term “knucklehead” to describe how he “made a mistake” about his whereabouts during last week’s Tiananmen Square massacre during the debate against Senator JD Vance (left)

“They saw where I was,” he continued. “They, look, I’ll be the first to tell you that I poured my heart into my community. I’ve tried to do my best, but I haven’t been perfect. And sometimes I’m an idiot, but that’s what it’s always been about.”

Walz knocked the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, for his praise of Chinese President Xi Jinping over his handling of COVID and trade policy, although moderator Margaret Brennan pointed out at the end of his response that the vice president hopeful never answered her question answered.

“Governor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy?” she asked.

He then gave a shorter explanation.

“No, all I said about it was, I got there that summer and I was wrong about it, so I’ll just do it, that’s what I said,” Walz said. “So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, went in and from that I learned a lot about what is needed in terms of governance.”