Tim Walz says he “misspoke” his personal story.

US Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has admitted during a live television debate that he “misspoke” when he claimed he was in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Kamala Harris’ vice president was asked by a debate moderator why he has repeatedly said over the years that he was in Hong Kong when China’s communist rulers crushed pro-democracy protests when he was actually back in his home state of Nebraska.

Minnesota Gov. Walz said, “I wasn’t perfect and sometimes I’m a dick.”

It wasn’t the first time Walz has run afoul of fact-checkers this campaign cycle.

His opponent on the debate stage, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, also courted controversy this campaign with unfounded claims, particularly about the consumption of pets by Haitian immigrants.

In Tuesday night’s CBS debate in New York City, the moderator asked Walz to explain why he claimed he was in Hong Kong when Chinese forces crushed hundreds, possibly thousands, of anti-government protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 Beijing killed. shocked the world.

Walz praised his work as a teacher, congressman and governor before saying he sometimes gets “lost in the rhetoric.”

When the host pressed him about the timing discrepancy, Walz responded, “All I said about it was that I got there that summer and I got it wrong, so I’ll just – that’s what I said.”

He previously said he was in Hong Kong for a month before Tiananmen Square and then continued a year-long teaching stint in the mainland Chinese country after the massacre.

But news reports from the time show that Walz was in Nebraska until August, when he left for China.

Republicans have branded him “Tiananmen Tim.”

Walz also recently revised the frequency of his trips to China. In an interview in 2016, he said he had visited the country “about 30 times.”

But the Harris-Walz campaign told US media this week that the number of trips Walz made to China was “probably closer to 15.”

This isn’t the first time the Harris-Walz campaign has acknowledged the vice president made a “false statement.”

Democratic aides issued a clarification in August when it emerged that Walz had discussed “weapons of war that I carried in war” while a member of the National Guard in 2018. But Walz never served in combat.

This summer, he said that to start a family, he and his wife had begun thorough IVF – a fertility treatment that has been politically controversial this election campaign.

His wife later clarified that they had used another treatment, namely intrauterine insemination.