Kamala Harris’s Team Reportedly Asked Tim Walz If He Was an ‘Agent of China’ Because of His Far East Adventures

(Photo Credit: AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

CNN ran a story on Monday saying it was not just Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) who faced questions from Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign team over potential ties to a foreign country — so did Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D).

Walz was pressed by the Harris vetting team if he had ever been an “agent of China,” CNN reported. The story was based on “four sources familiar with the matter.”

The Minnesota governor was such a big fan of going to China that it became hard for him to keep track of how many times he visited. Walz said in 2016 that he had gone to China “dozens” of times, but in 2024 his team said it was “closer to 15 times.” 

He testified he went to China for the first time in 1989, around the time of the Tiananmen Square uprising. Walz later went on his honeymoon in China and established a company that took students on trips to the country.

Those trips were enough to get the Harris team to ask if he was a Chinese spy, CNN reported. Harris ultimately chose Walz to be her Democratic running mate in her doomed bid against President Donald Trump in the ’24 election.

The CNN report comes after Shapiro said he was offended by the Harris team asking him if he was a “double agent” for Israel.

Shapiro disclosed the question in an excerpt from his new memoir, Where We Keep the Light, that was published by The New York Times on Sunday

The governor was seen as one of the top contenders to join the Harris ticket after she replaced ex-President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee last year.

Many pundits — including CNN star Jake Tapper — speculated afterwards whether Shapiro was not chosen because he is Jewish. Shapiro also supported Israel following the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023 — another potential issue for many progressive voters, political observers argued.

Harris was critical of Israel and how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conducted the war in Gaza following the 10/7 attack. She told anti-Israel protesters during a book tour in November:

Let’s be very clear, that the inhuman nature of what has happened to the Palestinian people in Gaza, the innocent civilians, the extent of hunger, famine, suffering, death, is something that we must acknowledge.

The Times reported that Shapiro was “pressed” on other issues tied to Israel as well.

“I wondered whether these questions were being posed to just me — the only Jewish guy in the running — or if everyone who had not held a federal office was being grilled about Israel in the same way,” Shapiro wrote in his book. 

Walz is now grappling with the political blowback from the $9 billion “industrial-scale” fraud scheme that has rocked his state.

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