Tim Walz under fire for using false IVF claim to clobber J.D. Vance

CHICAGO — Vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s big moment Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention was marred by party officials having to defend his inaccurate claim that he and his wife relied on in vitro fertilization to have children.

Mr. Walz, 60, said he and his wife, Gwen Walz, used IVF to conceive their two kids and publicized his experience to attack Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance on abortion and reproductive care issues.

But Mrs. Walz revealed this week the couple did not use IVF and instead relied on a different procedure, intrauterine insemination, or IUI, that does not create an embryo outside the body and is not part of the abortion debate.

Republicans are calling Mr. Walz, who was accepting the nomination Wednesday at the DNC, a liar.

“Today it came out that Tim Walz had lied about having a family via IVF,” Mr. Vance posted on X. “Who lies about something like that?”

Democratic officials chalked it up to nothing more than mixing up three letters. 

“It’s a little bizarre that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump want to attack the governor for experiencing something that, again, millions of Americans go through themselves,” said campaign spokesman Michael Taylor.  “I think it’s a little bizarre that those attacks are not simply limited to the way that they’re trying to characterize his experience with infertility treatments. They continue to attack reproductive rights writ large.”

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat appearing at the DNC, said the debate should be focused on “freedom for women to make the choices that they choose, freedom over their own bodies, freedom to pursue fertility treatments … regardless of the three letters of that fertility treatment.” 

It was Mr. Walz who used his own infertility experience, which he claimed involved IVF, to attack the Trump-Vance ticket as the party seeks to attract voters wary of the GOP’s anti-abortion stance creeping into fertility treatments. 

Mr. Walz repeatedly claimed his wife underwent IVF treatments as he sought to rip into Mr. Vance. 

Mr. Vance, a senator from Ohio who opposes abortion, voted alongside nearly all Republicans in June to block a Democratic bill that would have federally guaranteed the right to obtain IVF treatments.

Democrats brought the bill to the floor after an Alabama judge ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF should be considered children.

“If it was up to J.D. Vance, I wouldn’t have a family because of IVF,” Mr. Walz said earlier this month. 

Mr. Walz played up his IVF experience repeatedly over the past few months. 

When he appeared on stage for the first time as Ms. Harris’ running mate, he told the crowd in Philadelphia that IVF “gets personal for me.” 

He has never corrected the many news reports promoting his IVF story and in an Aug. 9 interview the Harris campaign posted on social media, Mr. Walz said his children “were born through” IVF.

In a July 25 interview on MSNBC, Mr. Walz touted “IVF Day” and repeated his false claim. 

“Thank God for IVF. My wife and I have two beautiful children,” Mr. Walz said. “He thinks he needs to dictate that. And I’ve been saying the golden rule that makes small towns work … is mind your own damn business. I don’t need him to tell me about my family. I don’t need him to tell me about my wife’s health care and her reproductive rights. I don’t need him telling my children what books they can read. He can do whatever he wants, but I am not interested in it. And I think rural America, they are angry.”

Mr. Walz has been accused of making other misleading statements. 

On Wednesday, 50 congressional Republicans who are veterans signed a letter accusing Mr. Walz of lying about his military records and abandoning his post. 

Mr. Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years and has in public speeches claimed to have served in a war zone. But he retired before his unit deployed to Iraq in 2005 and never served in combat. His retirement ahead of deployment provoked the GOP’s accusations that he abandoned his post. 

Additionally, Mr. Walz is identified as a “retired command sergeant major” on the Harris campaign website. In fact, he was cut to master sergeant when he retired.