Walz creates headaches for Harris with misleading IVF and military claims

A second series of misleading claims from Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) is again leading to difficult questions for the Kamala Harris campaign.

Walz has been dogged by questions about his exaggerated military record, in which he repeatedly claimed or implied that he was deployed to war zones when he was not. Now, his wife, Gwen Walz, has clarified that she did not use in vitro fertilization to conceive their two children, contrary to statements Walz has made on the campaign trail.

“This one’s personal for me about IVF and reproductive care,” Walz said this month at a rally in Arizona. “When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatment.”

Harris's campaign also posted a video of Walz on Aug. 9 in which he says, "If it was up to [Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH)], I wouldn’t have a family because of IVF, and the things that we need to do. ... My kids were born that way."

But Gwen Walz told CNN that the couple used a different fertility treatment, intrauterine insemination, to have their children.

“Like so many who have experienced these challenges, we kept it largely to ourselves at the time — not even sharing the details with our wonderful and close family,” she said. "The only person who knew in detail what we were going through was our next-door neighbor."

With Gwen Walz's statement now making the rounds, Republicans are questioning Tim Walz's credibility.

"Is there anything this guy doesn't lie about?" National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Mike Berg posted on X. Vance asked rhetorically, "Who lies about something like that?"

A spokeswoman for former President Donald Trump's campaign said Walz is not credible and looped in another matter — his refusal to conduct interviews with the press since becoming Harris's running mate.

"It has become increasingly clear that Tim Walz cannot be trusted," Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said. "The mainstream media needs to do their jobs and demand Tim Walz sits down for an interview to answer for his repeated false claims and lies."

The calls come hours before Walz delivers his keynote speech Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention. The Washington Examiner has reached out to the Harris campaign seeking comment.

Walz previously came under significant GOP fire for leaving his National Guard unit before it deployed to Iraq and speaking about weapons "that I carried in war" despite never deploying to a war zone. His campaign maintains that Walz did not know his unit was going to Iraq at the time he left and points to his 24-year tenure with the National Guard as evidence of his commitment.

He has defended his record by saying, "You should never denigrate another person's service record."

Vance, Trump's running mate, has faced his own heat for comments he made in 2021 about "childless cat ladies" and how the Democratic Party was controlled by "people without children," including Harris.

But some politicos warn that either party runs a risk by focusing too much on the vice presidential nominees.

"Take the shots where you can, but Tim Walz telling whoppers isn’t what’s going to sway voters," Republican strategist Doug Heye said. "The campaign should not lose focus on costs and the direction of the country — those things where the Biden-Harris administration are massively underwater."

Another GOP strategist, David Carney, agreed, saying Republicans should generally train their fire on Harris, "with a few blows to Timmy." But he did say the two are related and that Harris is not credible in part because "she picked phony Walz."

Both intrauterine insemination and IVF are common fertility methods, but IVF has been politically charged because some anti-abortion groups oppose it on the grounds that it leads to the destruction of fertilized human embryos. Couples often start with intrauterine insemination and proceed to IVF if necessary.

IVF became lumped together with partisan debates over abortion and reproductive healthcare this spring when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in a complicated malpractice case that embryos have legal personhood rights.

Most Republicans, including Vance, have said they support IVF in the wake of the Alabama ruling. But things got complicated in the Senate, with most in the GOP voting against the Democratic-sponsored Right to IVF Act while supporting a separate bill called the IVF Protection Act.

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A Harris campaign spokeswoman said Walz was using IVF as a generic term for fertility treatments.

“Governor Walz talks how normal people talk,’’ campaign spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg told the New York Times. “He was using commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments.”