For Tim Walz, in vitro fertilization (IVF) is a deeply personal issue—or at least he made it seem that way. In several recent interviews, the Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate implied or outright suggested that his own two children were conceived using IVF.
One problem: It's not true. Walz's children were conceived using intrauterine insemination (IUI), not IVF. These are two very different things, and the policy conversations about them are fundamentally distinct; many religious conservatives want to prohibit IVF—which can result in the destruction of unused fertilized embryos outside the womb—but not IUI.
Yet Walz tried to link his own personal experience with potential efforts by Republicans to ban IVF. This is misleading, since he and his wife used IUI, not IVF.
It was an oft-repeated error. On Facebook, Walz wrote that his family had taken advantage of reproductive health care options like IVF, which is true enough. But then he told the Pod Save America podcast that his two kids were born "that way," in reference to IVF. Worse still, on MSNBC, he flatly stated: "Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children."
It makes sense that some people who have little familiarity with either procedure use IVF as shorthand for both. But Walz should have a more granular understanding of what they involve. Moreover, he has accused his opponents of wanting to ban IVF. Walz attacked his rival, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, saying: "If it were up to him, I wouldn't have a family, because of IVF, and the things that we need to do reproductively."
In June, Vance joined most other Senate Republicans to block a bill that would have made access to IVF a protected right nationwide. Republicans offered a counter bill that would have discouraged states from banning IVF; Democrats blocked that one. Reasonable minds can disagree on whether IVF is in danger of being prohibited under a Trump-Vance administration—but again, this is entirely separate from IUI.
Service Record
Walz is no stranger to making exaggerations. He also misrepresented his military service, indirectly implying that he saw combat while stationed overseas in the National Guard. In 2018, Walz spoke favorably of gun control initiatives, saying: "We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at."
One might have assumed, based on those remarks, that Walz carried weapons in an actual war zone, but no: He never served in combat. During the Afghanistan War, Walz was deployed to Italy and served in a support role. When referred to by others as an "Afghanistan veteran" and a veteran who served in "Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan," he offered no correction, according to The New York Times. He also claimed to have retired from active service as a command sergeant major; his actual rank upon retirement was one level lower.
Republicans have said these misstatements amount to "stolen valor." In the scheme of things, they are not the most egregious war-related exaggerations ever told by a major political figure. Hillary Clinton once said that her airplane came under sniper fire while landing in Bosnia, a claim that received four Pinocchios from The Washington Post. President Joe Biden has frequently stated that his son Beau Biden died in Iraq. (Beau died of a brain tumor, and his proximity to a burn pit while serving in Baghdad, Iraq, could be the proximate cause; he died in a U.S. hospital around six years after his deployment, however.)
But it's important to demand frank honesty from those seeking higher office, and the media should not let politicians off the hook for even slightly embellishing the truth. Kudos to The New York Times, for instance, for very closely scrutinizing Walz's military record and statements.
Unfortunately, proper media scrutiny of his IVF comments only materialized after countless articles had already been written that praised him for making IVF central to his identity as a political actor. At a bare minimum, those need to be corrected.
Reckless Conduct
The best major media exposé on Walz's incautious truth telling came from CNN's Andrew Kaczynski, who revealed that Walz repeatedly lied about his 1995 arrest for drunk driving when he ran for Congress a decade later.
Walz was stopped for driving 96 mph in a 55 mph zone and admitted to police that he had been drinking. His blood alcohol level was .128.
"But in 2006, his campaign repeatedly told the press that he had not been drinking that night, claiming that his failed field sobriety test was due to a misunderstanding related to hearing loss from his time in the National Guard," wrote Kaczynski. "The campaign also claimed that Walz was allowed to drive himself to jail that night. None of that was true."
These were direct lies, and there's no excuse for them.
This Week on Free Media
We are actually taking the next two weeks off, but I'll be back with Amber Duke in September. There's much more Free Media to come!
In the meantime, my Rising co-host Jessica Burbank and I received an on-the-ground report from Amber Duke concerning events at the Democratic National Convention. Watch here.
Worth Watching
I finally, at long last, had time to start watching The Boys on Amazon Prime. My friends have been telling me for years that I'd love this show, which is about a team of vigilantes working to take down the planet's biggest superheroes. That's because the superheroes are actually very bad people; Exhibit A is Homelander, an ostensible Superman-type figure who is secretly a violent, megalomaniacal psychopath.
I'm two episodes in, and, yes, I'm hooked. I highly recommend it.
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