In a striking moment at the Democratic National Convention in August, sixteen former members of Mankato West High School’s football team took the stage in a tribute to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
After all, Vice President Kamala Harris told the roaring crowd, he was their ‘coach’.
Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar went even further, declaring: ‘In Minnesota, we trust a coach who turned a team that was 0-27 into state champions.’
Americans watching might have been left with the distinct impression that Walz was the man behind the team’s underdog triumph.
But not so.
In fact, the head coach of the all-conquering side known as the ‘Scarlets’ was a man named Rick Sutton.
Walz, a social studies teacher by day, was simply one of several assistant coaches under Sutton, working primarily with the defensive players.
For his part, Sutton has expressed no ill will for Walz getting the credit on the national stage. But he also has left no doubt as to who was really in charge.
‘Tim was really great at selling his point of view and then accepting a different direction,’ Sutton said in August. ‘But at some point, somebody has to make that decision, and that’s going to be the head coach.’
Vice President Kamala Harris told the roaring crowd, Walz was their ‘coach’. Americans watching might have been left with the distinct impression that Walz was the man behind the team’s underdog triumph. But not so.
Walz (above, far right), a social studies teacher by day, was simply one of several assistant coaches under Sutton, working primarily with the defensive players.
In isolation, the exaggeration of Walz’s coaching resume – pushed by his political allies and notably never corrected by the man himself – is surely harmless.
However, when taken in the context of a litany of other exaggerations and untruths about Walz’s life that have emerged since Harris named his as her VP pick in August, it is little wonder that many are beginning to ask if the Minnesota Governor has a problem with the truth.
And, as he prepares to take on his Republican counterpart, J.D. Vance, in tonight’s televised vice presidential debate on CBS, there will no doubt be a lingering nervousness among the Harris-Walz campaign over what Vance might say about his opponent’s trustworthiness.
Military service
Walz’s penchant for self-aggrandizement is most pronounced when it comes to his military record.
It is true that Walz served 24 years in the Nebraska and Minnesota Army National Guard.
Yet, in a 2018 video – while speaking in favor of stricter gun-control laws – he made the following statement: ‘We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.’
The phrase ‘that I carried in war’ clearly suggests Walz had served in a combat zone.
That’s false.
Walz was only ever deployed to Italy – in 2003 to provide security at a US military base that was involved in supporting the on-going Afghanistan war effort.
He was never sent to an actual war zone.
After that 2018 video resurfaced this summer, the Harris-Walz campaign claimed in a statement that Walz ‘misspoke’.
But Walz has seemingly been unable to openly admit his mistake.
On August 29, as he sat alongside Harris for a joint first interview, CNN’s Dana Bash asked the following of Walz:
‘You said that you carried weapons in war, but you have never deployed actually in a war zone. A campaign official said that you misspoke. Did you?’
His answer was squirming and evasive: ‘My wife, the English teacher, told me my grammar is not always correct.’
Bash did not press him further.
Walz has also been pilloried by members of his own former unit for his decision to retire from the National Guard shortly before they were deployed to Iraq in 2005.
Walz had decided to run for Congress instead.
Walz was only ever deployed to Italy – in 2003 to provide security at a US military base that was involved in supporting the on-going Afghanistan war effort. (Above) Tim Walz (right) at an artillery training facility in Guernsey, Wyoming in 1992
Walz’s answer was squirming and evasive: ‘My wife, the English teacher, told me my grammar is not always correct.’ Bash did not press him further.
And, in campaign literature for his subsequent 2006 bid to represent Minnesota in the House of Representatives, his 2018 run for governor and on the Harris-Walz website this summer, Walz was characterized as a ‘retired command sergeant major.’
But that title is misleading.
Even though Walz did briefly serve as a command sergeant major, he did not keep that title after retirement.
Instead, he retired as a lower-ranking ‘master sergeant’, having never completed the coursework required to retain the more senior title.
Former Minnesota Army National Guard Colonel John Kolb, who told Associated Press in August that he knew Walz by reputation as ‘excellent’, said that he was nonetheless stunned by the way Walz had overstated his rank after retiring.
‘That is not the behavior I would expect out of a senior noncommissioned officer,’ Kolb said. ‘The rank of command sergeant major […] is sacred. It’s rare.’
As a result, the Harris-Walz campaign was forced to edit its website – correcting the false characterisation to say that he once served at the command sergeant major rank.
Drunk driving arrest
Walz’s lawyer admitted in court that he had been drinking when he was stopped for driving 96mph in a 55mph zone near Chadron, Nebraska.
A blood test showed his alcohol level was above the state’s legal limit.
In the end, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of reckless driving, lost his license for 90 days and paid a fine of $200.
Eleven years later, however, as the DUI arrest made headlines during Walz’s congressional campaign, his team wildly claimed that he had not been drinking at all.
‘The DUI charge was dropped for a reason: it wasn’t true,’ his team said.
Walz’s lawyer admitted in court that he had been drinking when he was stopped for driving 96mph in a 55mph zone near Chadron, Nebraska. (Above) Tim Walz’s mugshot for his 1995 drunk driving arrest
They claimed that Walz had only failed a sobriety test because of hearing loss he incurred while serving in the National Guard – and that he had been allowed to drive himself to jail.
Both details were false. Walz had been driven to the police station in the back of a cop car.
But it was not until 2018, when he was running for governor, that Walz admitted the truth.
Resume embellishment
And then there’s the embellishment of his professional achievements.
Again, when first running for congress in 2006, the Nebraska-born politician’s campaign claimed that he had once been named ‘Outstanding Young Nebraskan’ by the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce for his services to education, the military and small business.
But – again – that was untrue.
The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce sent Walz a withering letter saying they had not given him the award – adding in a particularly embarrassing note that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had endorsed his Republican opponent.
His campaign then clarified that the award had come from the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce, and updated his website accordingly.
Economic lies
After Walz was tapped to be the Harris’s running mate in early August, her campaign touted his economic record, claiming that he ‘led Minnesota back with strong leadership, competent management, and smart policies, cutting taxes for working families and reaching the lowest state unemployment rate in recorded history.’
While not a blatant falsehood – it is a statement that certainly seems exaggerated.
In 2023, Minnesota’s real gross domestic product – the broadest measure of economic health – grew by only 1.2 percent, meaning it ranked as the 45th fastest-growing state in the country, with only the economies of New York, Wisconsin, Delaware and Georgia growing at a more sluggish pace.
(Above) Tim Walz is sworn in as Governor of Minnesota in St. Paul, Minnesota on January 7, 2019
Job growth in Minnesota under Walz has also lagged behind the national average.
The number of statewide jobs (excluding farm workers) grew just 1.4 percent since Walz became governor through June of 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Nationally, non-farming jobs grew 5.7 percent in that period.
Fertility falsehoods
Walz’s telling of his personal life has also come up for criticism.
In March this year, after an Alabama court halted in vitro fertilization procedures in the state, Walz decided to divulge the difficulties he and his wife Gwen had encountered when trying to have children.
His team sent out a fundraising email titled, ‘Our IVF journey’, and sharing an article that referenced ‘his family’s IVF journey’.
In July he spoke on the issue again, saying during an MSNBC interview: ‘Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children.’
He has also used the topic to take aim at his Republican opponent J.D. Vance, saying in August: ‘If it was up to him, I wouldn’t have a family because of IVF.’
Walz’s team sent out a fundraising email titled, ‘Our IVF journey’, and sharing an article that referenced ‘his family’s IVF journey’.
But in truth, the Walz family did not rely on IVF to conceive.
As the DNC got underway in August, Gwen Walz issued a statement clarifying that she had undergone a different produce known as intrauterine insemination, or IUI.
IUI is a more common procedure that is not as controversial, invasive or expensive as IVF.
That, however, did not seem to deter Walz.
During his speech at the DNC days later, he said: ‘In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make… and that includes I.V.F. and fertility treatments. And this is personal for Gwen and I. If you’ve never experienced the hell that is infertility.’
Bad habits, it appears, are indeed difficult to break.