OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Gwen Walz, the wife of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who is Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, was widely mocked on social media for making a “cringe” gesture when telling a campaign rally to “turn the page” from former President Donald Trump.
In Wisconsin, Tim Walz, accompanied by his wife, delivered a speech criticizing Trump and urged voters to end his candidacy in the upcoming election.
“So I’m going to be watching you because when I see Wisconsin and I want to watch you nationally on TV because it’s been pretty important place in Minnesota, help you practice with this,” Walz shouted to the crowd. “You just show me this. Turn the page. Right. Turn the page. And you know what else that looks like?”
The former president’s campaign was quick to mock the gesture, saying that “Gwen Walz is just as cringe as Tampon Tim,” a reference to the governor’s decision to allow tampons in boys’ high school bathrooms for biological males who identify as girls.
CONFIRMED: Gwen Walz is just as cringe as Tampon Tim pic.twitter.com/njBY7BJuYN
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 14, 2024
Critics had a field day with the gesture on social media.
“If you thought Tim Walz was weird, check out his wife Gwen who went along with Tim with his disgraceful IVF lie until they were caught,” commentator Paul A. Szypula wrote.
“I cannot believe that grown a** adults sit there and think this is good. She’s speaking to them like a kindergarten teacher,” another said.
“When Minnesota was burning, she kept her windows open, she said, to enjoy the smell. She’s nuts,” said another.
“Tim Walz’s wife is the living embodiment of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Holy crap she’s insane,” the Johnny Maga account noted.
Tim Walz has proven to be a big liability to Harris thanks to a series of lies he has told over the years about everything from a DUI arrest to his 24-year Army National Guard stint.
Last month, another video of the Democratic governor resurfaced where he appears to have dramatically embellished his military record to claim, falsely, that he had been deployed to a war zone.
In the C-SPAN video, then-U.S. Rep. Walz is telling a Gold Star family — that is, a family who has lost a loved one in war — during a hearing on PTSD that he had been deployed to Afghanistan in 2004 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He further claimed that troops he was responsible for had suffered from some mental health issues and were shown “the horse whisperer” and “told us to be nice” when they returned home.
“And both of you, with your keen understanding of how this works, especially from National Guard families, I can tell you this, having been one of those that came back, we were in support of OEF, but being — sitting in there with OEF, OIF veterans. When we came back, they showed us the horse whisperer and told us to be nice when we went home. And that was the extent of it,” Walz claimed.
“That was in 2004. Now, I’m proud to say that because of the people sitting in here and people who came before me, things have changed over the last four years. They have not changed enough. But Mr. Kennedy is following and moving something forward that the late senator from Minnesota, Sen. [Paul] Wellstone advocated so clearly: Mental health parity and this issue of de-stigmatizing mental health, of understanding,” Walz continued.
“And I, being in there and knowing as a first sergeant, knowing exactly what you’re saying and watching as people aren’t trained on this, that there’s a discrimination that goes against a soldier who has the courage, the fortitude, and, as you said, the insight to admit this. So there’s a couple of things I want to ask you,” he said.
Walz served in the Army and Army National Guard for 24 years but he never served in combat.
In fact, he decided to retire once his unit got orders to deploy to Iraq rather than deploy with them, a decision that has earned him wide condemnation from Sen. J.D. Vance, who did deploy to Iraq as a Marine public affairs officer, as well as senior enlisted personnel from Walz’s former unit.
