Fact-checking Tim Walz before his 2024 DNC speech – plus the attacks on his record

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will give the most nationally watched speech of his political career when he takes the stage Aug. 21 at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Before Vice President Kamala Harris selected Walz as her running mate, PolitiFact had not fact-checked Walz on the Truth-O-Meter. But he got our attention in August. Here are several claims we checked — statements from Walz and statements from others about his record. 

Hear a claim by Walz we should fact-check? Email [email protected].

1.  Walz linked Vance to Project 2025, which Trump has distanced himself from.

Walz said U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, "literally wrote the foreword for the architect of the Project 2025 agenda." We rated this True. Vance wrote the foreword for Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ forthcoming book, "Dawn’s Early Light." The Heritage Foundation spearheaded Project 2025, a manual containing a wish list of policy proposals a Republican presidential administration could adopt given a Republican victory in November. Roberts has promoted the work and has often been described as a Project 2025 leader and architect. 

2. Walz misled about Trump and overtime pay

Walz said Trump "cut overtime benefits for millions of workers." Mostly False.

In 2016, the Obama administration set a rule that would have raised the salary threshold for overtime pay. A judge struck it down before it took effect. The Trump administration set a rule that raised the salary threshold, but it affected millions fewer than Obama’s rule would have.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, appear Aug. 6, 2024, at a campaign event in Philadelphia. (AP)

3. Walz said "violent crime was up under Donald Trump."

Half True. Violent crime  rose in Trump's final year, 2020. However, the pandemic and the protests after George Floyd's murder, which happened in Walz’s home state, drove the spike, making it hard to assign blame to Trump’s policies. 

4. Walz also said Trump will "gut Social Security." When Harris made a similar claim, we rated it Mostly False. Despite some past comments expressing openness to cutting benefits or raising the retirement age, Trump has said consistently in the current election cycle that he won't do that. 

5. Walz challenged Vance to "get off his couch" and show up for a debate. Walz’s use of the word "couch" referred to a baseless claim involving Vance that we rated Pants on Fire when Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker repeated it. 

1. An Aug. 5 X post said Walz "just changed the Minnesota flag so it could resemble the Somalian flag." 

False. The Somalia national flag has a light-blue background with a five-pointed white star in the center. The new Minnesota state flag, adopted May 11, features a white, eight-pointed star on a dark blue background on the left, and light blue coloring on the right.

Much of the misinformation is based on proposed Minnesota flag designs and not on the final design. Although both flags have stars and similar colors, Somalia’s flag did not inspire Minnesota’s, Andrew Prekker, a Minnesota man whose flag concept inspired the final design, told PolitiFact. And Walz wasn’t involved in the new flag’s design.

2. Trump said that after George Floyd died in Minnesota, Walz didn’t call in the National Guard, "so, I sent in the National Guard to save Minneapolis. False.

Floyd’s May 25, 2020, murder by police sparked protests, some peaceful, some violent.

Walz has faced criticism for not calling in the National Guard as soon as he was asked by Minneapolis’ mayor in a phone call on the evening of May 27, 2020. The mayor asked in writing the morning of May 28, 2020. Walz called in the Minnesota National Guard after 4 p.m. CST on May 28, 2020. This happened hours before Minneapolis police abandoned the department’s 3rd Precinct, which was overtaken and burned. At 10:30 p.m. CST May 28, Trump watched the scene on television and called Walz, offering to send in the military, WCCO-TV wrote. 

On June 1, 2020, Trump praised Walz’s handling of the riots. "What they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately," Trump told Walz and other governors in a phone call, according to The Associated Press. 

Protesters encounter the Minnesota National Guard on May 29, 2020, in Minneapolis. (AP)

3. Trump’s supporters said a video showed Walz advocating for a "ladder factory" to help immigrants scale the southern U.S. border wall illegally. 

"Tim Walz wants to invest in a ‘ladder factory’ to help illegals scale the border wall," Trump War Room, an official Trump campaign account, wrote at 9:21 a.m. ET in an Aug. 6 X post.

"Radical Tim Walz wants a ‘ladder factory’ to help illegals get easy access into America," conservative commentator Benny Johnson wrote at 10:26 a.m. ET on X.

Their selectively edited video clip and commentaries omitted that Walz advocated other ways for stemming immigration at the southern U.S. border. Walz said he did not believe a wall to be a strong solution to the problem.

Here’s what Walz said, in context:

"He talks about this wall — I always say, let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30-foot-ladder factory," Walz said. "That’s not how you stop this," he said, referring to illegal immigration. "You stop this using electronics, you stop it using more border control agents, and you stop it by having a legal system that allows for that tradition of allowing folks to come here, just like my relatives did to come here, be able to work and establish the American dream." 

4. Vance sought to negatively frame Walz’s 24-year military career.

Vance said, "When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, do you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him." 

Mostly False. Vance’s statement ignored that Walz’s unit was not officially ordered to go to Iraq until July 2005, two months after Walz officially retired.

After 24 years of military service, Walz said he retired from the Minnesota National Guard in May 2005 to run for Congress. He had submitted retirement paperwork five to seven months beforehand. He filed candidacy paperwork in February 2005.

There’s an element of truth in Vance’s statement because in March 2005, before Walz officially retired, his battalion was notified of possible deployment to Iraq within two years. Walz was aware at the time of his retirement that deployment could be possible and one of his fellow guard members described Walz’s retirement decision as "very heavy."

But the March 2005 notification gave a time frame of two years for a possible — not definite — deployment that would not occur immediately, which is how Vance’s statement framed it.

At PolitiFact, the burden of proof is on the speaker, Vance, who did not provide details to support his statement.

5. After the Harris campaign shared a 2018 video clip of Walz discussing gun control, Republicans pounced on Walz’s statement about weapons that he said he carried in war.

Vance said that Walz said he carried weapons in war, but "he has not spent a day in a combat zone." True.

Although Walz used weapons and trained colleagues to use them during his long military career, his 2018 statement implied that he carried weapons on a battlefield, which he did not. Walz misspoke, his campaign said.

6. A Minnesota bill about menstrual products led to misinformation

Fox News host Jesse Watters said, "Walz forced schools to stock tampons in boys’ bathrooms."

Mostly False. In 2023, Walz signed a law requiring schools provide access to menstrual products in bathrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12, according to a plan school districts will create. 

The law requires "all menstruating students" have access to the products. Legal experts said a school would comply if it provided period products only in girls’ bathrooms and unisex or all-gender bathrooms, for example. 

Although conditions could exist under which a school might be required to stock menstrual products in a restroom traditionally used exclusively by boys, we found no reports that schools  were regularly doing so. 

7. A pundit said Walz denied white people COVID-19 treatments

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk claimed Walz rationed access to monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID-19 based on skin color, and that white people died because they were denied access.

Mostly False. For about a month during the pandemic, Minnesota factored race into a scoring system to prioritize referrals for the treatments. But a case study after the state’s program ended showed that at least 79% of patients who received referrals were white, in line with the racial composition of the state’s population.

People who were clinically eligible for the treatments weren’t denied access, but received referrals after higher-risk patients received theirs. By early 2022, when monoclonal antibody supplies were lowest and Minnesota used a weighted lottery system, race had been removed as a scoring factor.

Gov. Tim Walz speaks May 5, 2020, during a press conference in Minneapolis that covered COVID-19 and other topics. (Minneapolis Star Tribune via AP)

8. Republicans spread misinformation about the Take Pride Act

Social media posts said Walz "signed a bill redefining ‘sexual orientation’ to include pedophiles"

False. A measure, called the "Take Pride Act," updated the definitions of "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" in the Minnesota Human Rights Act. It didn’t include pedophiles in these definitions, nor did it give pedophiles legal protections. The Legislature approved these changes as part of a larger public safety bill, which Walz signed into law in 2023.

9. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Florida more popular than Minnesota to live

DeSantis, a Republican, said Minnesotans were "five times more likely" to move to Florida than vice versa in 2021, and blamed Walz’s policies.

Half True. Almost four times as many Minnesotans moved to Florida than Floridians moved to Minnesota, according to 2021 Census data. That held in 2022, but the difference shrank by nearly half.

Experts said this is part of a longstanding migration pattern that isn’t limited to Minnesota or Walz’s tenure. 

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz jokes with kids May 25, 2023, as he shows off a bill he signed at the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., to establish a paid family and medical leave program in the state starting in 2026. (AP)

1. A Democratic surrogate defended Walz’s record on paid family leave and took a swing at Republicans

Pete Buttitieg, the Transportation Department secretary, said on CNN’s "State of the Union" that Walz delivered paid family leave in Minnesota but in Congress "Republicans are blocking it." 

Mostly True. Walz signed paid family leave into law in 2023 and it will take effect in 2026. Republicans did not support Biden’s legislation that had four weeks of paid leave and other efforts in Congress have stalled. 

RELATED: All of our fact-checks of Kamala Harris on the Truth-O-Meter