Walz Lies To Fox Host, Says He Never Claimed There’s ‘No Guarantee To Free Speech On Misinformation’

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) lied over the weekend about his past remarks where he claimed a couple of years ago that there was “no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.”

“You’ve said there’s no guarantee of free speech for misinformation or hate speech,” “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream opressed Walz, referring to his remarks in a 2022 MSNBC interview. “But first of all, the Supreme Court was very clear in a unanimous 2017 decision that hate speech is protected, that’s the kind of stuff that needs to be protected, stuff none of us like to hear.”

“But more importantly, who gets to decide on the issue of what misinformation is?” she asked.

WATCH:

Fox’s @ShannonBream brought up how @GovTimWalz said “there’s no guarantee to free speech for misinformation or hate speech,” asking “who gets to decide on the issue of what misinformation is?” Walz answers by bringing up “book bans.” #FNS pic.twitter.com/tZx8QKzGw4

— Brent Baker ???????? ???????? (@BrentHBaker) October 13, 2024

Walz responded that he was talking about “censorship coming in the form of book bannings in different places.”

“We’re seeing attempts in schools,” he claimed. “The issue on this was the hate speech and the protected hate speech — speech that’s aimed at creating violence, speech that’s aimed at threats to individuals. That’s what we’re talking about in this.”

“The decision on that, society decides on a lot of this, the idea of someone going on and threatening someone’s life or a child’s life online,” he claimed. “I don’t think any of your viewers think that that is something that should be acceptable.”

Bream quickly pushed back: “No. No. No. That’s not misinformation.”

“There’s a distinction you would say though, between something like a threat and misinformation?” she pressed.

“Certainly and that’s what we’re talking about,” Walz claimed. “And that’s why I’m so opposed to book banning. That’s why in Minnesota we ban the practice of book banning, but you make the decision of what you’re going to read, whether you find it objectionable or not. The difference is, is threats, that type of speech.”

But that is not what Walz was talking about in 2022.

Walz specifically was talking about the issue of voter intimidation, and making false claims about voting when he said that there was “no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.”

Nowhere in the interview did he discuss book bans or threatening children online.