Walz forced to correct record on whether he was in China for the Tiananmen Square protests

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, was forced to answer questions about his controversial travel to China and misstatements about those trips during Tuesday night’s debate.

Walz has said he was in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989. But Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets are now reporting that Walz actually did not travel to China until August of that year.

CBS News moderator Margaret Brennan asked Walz to explain the discrepancy.

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"Look, I grew up in a small rural Nebraska town, a town that you rode your bike with your buddies till the streetlights come on, and I’m proud of that service," a visibly shaky Walz said. "I joined the National Guard at 17, worked on family farms and then I used the GI bill to become a teacher."

Walz said that, as a "passionate young teacher," he had "the opportunity in the summer of ’89 to travel to China — 35 years ago.

"I came back home and then started a program to take young people there. We would take basketball teams. We would take baseball teams. We would take dancers. And we would go back and forth to China," Walz said, noting the trips were "to try and learn."

"Look, my community knows who I am. They saw where I was at. I will be the first to tell you I have poured my heart into my community, and I’ve tried to do the best I can, but I’ve not been perfect," Walz continued.

"And I’m a knucklehead at times."

Walz said his commitment "from the beginning" has been to "make sure that I’m there for the people."

"Many times, I will talk a lot. I will get caught up in rhetoric. But being there, the impact it made,