According to much of the political narrative spun by former Minnesota Governor and Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, he was denied entrance to a rally for then-President George W. Bush back in 2004. Walz had insisted such an unfair incident had inspired him to seek public office. But recent reports are causing serious doubt in his story.
Walz wrote in an August 2020 thread on X that he and some of his students were refused entry to the rally because they had worked for the Democratic Party previously.
Walz said this experience, which he called a field trip for his students, was what compelled him to run for office. In his words: “The last sitting President to visit my hometown of Mankato, Minnesota was George W. Bush in 2004. As a high school teacher and football coach, I brought two fellow teachers’ children to the speech as an educational experience. It was at this moment that I decided to run for office.”
Thread – The last sitting President to visit my hometown of Mankato, Minnesota was George W. Bush in 2004. As a high school teacher and football coach, I brought two fellow teachers' children to the speech as an educational experience. We were denied entry…
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) August 17, 2020
But new testimony and evidence reveals there’s a whole lot more to this story than Walz let on.
Chris Faulkner, at the time the state director for the Republican National Committee’s ground game in Minnesota, offers a wholly different version of events. Faulkner remembered denying Walz entry because Walz had been protesting Bush’s visit the day before.
“He knew we would ask him to leave,” Faulkner said. “He literally was standing outside our HQ the day before protesting. He brought those students as ‘cover.'”
Faulkner added that Walz later came back with a local television crew and held an “impromptu press conference” to gain points from the situation.
Compounding problems for Walz’s version is a response to Faulkner on X by a man identifying himself as Matt Klaber, saying he indeed was one of three students who weren’t given tickets. Klaber, an active member of a local College Democrats chapter and never a student of Walz’s, said he was responsible for organizing a TV crew to be there to cover the event.
Whereas Walz had claimed that they were refused entry because they had previously volunteered, it becomes clear through the Washington Examiner that it was actually a faded John Kerry sticker on Klaber’s wallet that grabbed the attention of staffers and ushered these individuals out.
A photo, supplied by Michael Brodkorb, a former Minnesota Republican Party staffer, shows Walz and three others picketing the rally, holding signs in support of Kerry. One protester is even sporting a “College Democrats” t-shirt.
Faulkner verified the protest occurred outside a ticket pickup location the day before the rally, offering an easy way for Walz to be identified and prevented from entering the event.
This is the latest in a series of controversies to surround Walz since joining the Kamala Harris campaign. Last month, he was outed for falsely exaggerating his military service, claiming he carried “weapons in war” when he never served in an active war zone.
