Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) can’t keep his story straight about his relationship with China. Considering that he may be vice president in three months, that the People’s Republic of China has nuclear weapons pointed at the United States, and that Beijing spies on this country on a scale never seen in our history, this matters.

During his debate against Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) on Tuesday night, which even Democrats conceded didn’t go well for Walz, the Democratic vice presidential contender was asked about his claims that he was in Hong Kong when the Chinese Communist Party crushed student protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Local media showed Walz was home in Nebraska at the time. When asked to explain this discrepancy, Walz offered a 450-word salad but never answered the question, while calling himself “a knucklehead at times.” Eventually, he conceded that he “misspoke” about where he was that memorable summer, which was so significant to him that he scheduled his wedding on the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre in 1994.