The lies by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are continuing to mount with some accusing the state’s First Lady Gwen Walz of mischaracterizing her infertility treatments at the height of criticism about an anti-IVF court ruling in Alabama.
Earlier this summer, a state court essentially outlawed IVF fertility treatments, ruling that conceived embryos are entitled to personhood and that the practice, which discards multiple embryos in search of a viable one, is unconstitutional. The decision sparked a bipartisan wave of criticism, forcing the Republican-controlled Alabama state legislature to pass a bill legalizing IVF and signaling that Republicans are supportive of the pro-family policy. President Trump also weighed in, saying he supported the legislature’s action. In the wake of this black eye for the GOP, Gwen Walz first claimed that she struggled with conception before undergoing IVF.
(VOTE: Are You Supporting TRUMP Or KAMALA In November?)
On Tuesday she clarified to CNN that she in fact did not use IVF. Instead, she and Gov. Walz relied on a different fertility treatment known as intrauterine insemination. The distinction is critical because the governor and running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris has called the issue of IVF a “personal” one for his family. “This one’s personal for me about IVF and reproductive care,” Walz told supporters at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, earlier this month. “When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatment.” He repeated that story a month earlier on MSNBC where he stated, “Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children.”
WATCH:
THREAD: In addition to his military career & drunk driving arrest, there’s another topic about which @Tim_Walz has been lying for political purposes —the conception of his own children. Since IVF treatments entered the news earlier this year, Walz has been repeatedly claiming he… pic.twitter.com/hHdfSsiGaI
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 20, 2024
In a statement, Gwen Walz calls her struggle with infertility “an incredibly personal and difficult experience. 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. The only person who knew in detail what we were going through was our next door neighbor.” Continuing on, she added, “She was a nurse and helped me with the shots I needed as part of the IUI process. I’d rush home from school and she would give me the shots to ensure we stayed on track.”
Intrauterine insemination, or IUI, is another common fertility treatment used by couples who are trying to conceive. Unlike IVF, which draws criticism from deeply religious conservatives, IUI involves artificial insemination directly into a woman’s uterus and is sometimes combined with ovulation induction, where medication stimulates the release of eggs. The procedure has not been widely targeted by conservatives seeking to roll back abortion since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v. Wade. Gwen Walz cited the Dobbs decision as a reason why she and her husband began sharing their story of infertility.
“After seeing the extreme attacks on reproductive health care across the country – particularly, the efforts in Alabama that jeopardized access to fertility treatments – Tim and I agreed that it was time to formally speak out about our experience,” she said in the statement to CNN. A spokeswoman for the Harris campaign attempted to clarify further, stating, “Governor Walz talks how normal people talk. He was using commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments.”
Since accepting the role of vice presidential nominee, Gov. Walz has struggled to swat away allegations that he embellished or fabricated parts of his background while chasing federal office. Recently, former Marine officers who served with him accused Walz of unethically relying on a rescinded military title during his successful 2005 campaign for Congress. He caught himself in another embarrassing lie last week while telling Harris that he prefers “white guy tacos” without spices of any kind. Online sleuths quickly uncovered that he previously won a competition for cooking an “award-winning recipe for Turkey Taco Tot Hotdish.”
(FREE RED HAT: “Impeached. Arrested. Convicted. Shot. Still Standing”)