Minnesota governor Tim Walz appeared on Fox News Sunday for an adversarial interview after his unsteady vice presidential debate performance this past week.
Walz went back and forth with Fox News host Shannon Bream on a range of subjects, including his governing record on illegal immigration and well-documented history of misstatements about his life.
Under Walz, Minnesota allows illegal immigrants to receive government benefits such as free tuition at state universities and free health care if they enroll in a program meant for low-income residents.
Bream, citing a Wall Street Journal story on Walz’s immigration record, pressed him on those programs and his justification for giving taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal immigrants.
“Are those not magnets to draw people here, many times on dangerous journeys for themselves, and why should your taxpayers in Minnesota or across the states pay for those programs?” Bream asked.
🚨 Walz DEFENDS signing into law free driver’s licenses, free college, and free health care for illegal immigrants: “Minnesota ranks as a top five business state!”
This is what’s to come in a Harris-Walz administration — paid for by taxpayers, while citizens come last. pic.twitter.com/J6iMb0W2pj
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 6, 2024
“Well that’s not the vice president’s position,” Walz said, in a reference to Kamala Harris, who selected him in August to be her running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket.
“Minnesota ranks as a top five business state. We rank as a top three state for children-living and we’re the top state for health care access. I would also add this: we also have some of the safest roads,” Walz added.
Towards the end of the interview, Bream gave Walz a chance to respond to the misstatements he has made on details about his life, including his military service, the fertility treatment he and his wife used, and where he was during China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989.
“A lot of people would say they couldn’t get away with saying ‘I’m just too passionate. My grammar’s not right. I’m just a knucklehead.’ What do you say to the American people who think I don’t know that I can trust this guy with all those modifications to be the potential commander-in-chief of this country?” Bream inquired, after Fox displayed a graphic listing the topics Walz has lied about.
Tim Walz on his litany of lies, including Stolen Valor, his DUI arrest being the result of hearing damage, and being in Hong Kong for the Tiananmen Square massacre: “I don’t think people care.”
25 seconds later: “I will own up when I misspeak.” pic.twitter.com/Yx0yAKSxzs
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 6, 2024
“Well I think they heard me, they heard me the other night speaking passionately about gun violence and misspeaking. And I got to be honest with you Shannon, I don’t think people care whether I used IUI or IVF when we talk about this. What they understand is Donald Trump would resist those things,” Walz replied.
“I have never disparaged someone else in this but I know that’s not what Donald Trump does. They disparage everyone, personal attacks. I will own up when I misspeak. I will own up when I make a mistake.”
Walz’s interview on Fox follows his up-and-down vice presidential debate performance against Senator J. D. Vance (R., Ohio), former president Donald Trump’s running mate on the Republican ticket. Vance’s poise during the debate and deep policy knowledge drew widespread praise and polls appeared to show that the American people believed he won the debate.