‘Remove Any Reference’: Tim Walz Under Fire After New Lie Surfaces

The vice presidential campaign of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is reeling after its latest scandal involving a pro-business group which claims that it previously asked him to stop claiming he received an award that was never bestowed on him.

In 2006, the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce was grappling with how to respond to Walz’s first congressional campaign where the Democrat claimed he received a 1993 award from the organization recognizing his work in the business community. Letters from that time have surfaced showing the Chamber demanding the Walz campaign “remove any reference” to the nonexistent award, the New York Post reported. Barry L. Kennedy, the group’s president at the time, urged Walz to refrain from suggesting he was endorsing the Democrat’s bid to win a Republican-leaning district.

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“We researched this matter and can confirm that you have not been the recipient of any award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,” reads the letter addressed to Walz on Nov. 1, 2006. “I am not going to draw a conclusion about your intentions by including this line in your biography. However, we respectfully request that you remove any reference to our organization as it could be considered an endorsement of your candidacy. It should be pointed out, however, that the US Chamber of Commerce has endorsed your opponent, Congressman Gil Gutknecht, for his support of small business issues.”

The controversy gained traction in the 2006 campaign where Walz narrowly unseated former Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-MN), but not without difficulty. In addition to his run-in with the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, the future governor also struggled with telling the truth about a drunk driving arrest in 1995. After a local Republican blog uncovered the arrest, Walz pushed back, saying the police allowed him to drive himself to jail. That wasn’t true, according to CNN. His then-campaign manager also suggested that the police officer who wrote the report concluded that Walz wasn’t actually drunk. “Walz’s campaign manager Kerry Greeley didn’t dispute that Walz was speeding when he was pulled over that night, but she said Walz was not drunk. She attributed the misunderstanding to Walz’s deafness, a condition resulting from his years of serving as an artillerist in the Army National Guard,” read an article in the Post Bulletin.

Nearly a month after Vice President Kamala Harris tapped Walz as her running mate, the steady drip of false statements made by Walz over the years has developed into a drumbeat threatening to derail their path to the White House. Initially, media outlets covered a letter by retired military officers who served with Walz and suggested he is guilty of “stolen valor” over touting a rescinded officer title in his congressional campaign. Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance (R-OH), who is also a veteran, has excoriated his opponent for misrepresenting his military career and avoiding a deployment to Afghanistan with his battalion.

Other controversies have furthered the narrative that Walz struggles with the truth. After he awkwardly told Harris that he enjoys eating “white guy tacos,” social media users unearthed an award that Walz actually did win – for cooking his “award-winning recipe for Turkey Taco Tot Hotdish.” He and his wife, Minnesota First Lady Glen Walz, have gone public with their efforts to conceive in the wake of an Alabama court ruling banning IVF across the state. However, both falsely claimed they relied on IVF.

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