It didn’t take long after Vice President Kamala Harris announced her running mate pick for Republicans to sink their teeth into him, with efforts to call Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s candidacy into question centering on his military record.
On Wednesday, Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, accused Walz of “lying” about serving in a combat zone and claiming he “dropped out” of the Army after learning his unit was set to be deployed to Iraq. (The governor has said he filed for retirement months before his battalion got its tour order.)
Vance’s criticisms are regurgitations of similar allegations first made in 2006, the year after he retired from the military to run for Congress, according to CNN.
The network’s KFile unit reported on Thursday that at least two people wrote in to Walz’s local paper, the Mankato Free Press, that year to accuse him of embellishing his record, claims Walz refuted at the time as defamatory and false. The local paper’s letters to the editor also prompted a subsequent flurry of letters in support of the congressional hopeful.
Walz served honorably for more than 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring, according to CBS News.
In 2003, he deployed to Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
His official candidate biography in 2006 used the same wording, saying that he “served overseas with his battalion in support of Operation Enduring Freedom,” but made no mention of where he served. Several campaign ads also featured his military service prominently, but did not mention any specifics of that service, according to CNN.
Despite those omissions, Walz never sought to hide his record, speaking openly in several interviews during his 2006 congressional run about his experience in Italy. He told the local alt-weekly, CityPages, that it was only the “luck of the draw” that allowed him to serve in Europe rather than in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Walz has never explicitly claimed to have been in active combat, but Republicans have fixated on a single 2018 clip of Walz referring to “weapons of war, that I carried in war” as a deliberate misrepresentation of his record.
The Harris/Walz campaign disputed that characterization in a statement this week, writing: “In his 24 years of service, the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times. Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country – in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way.”
The Minnesota governor had another high-profile defender Thursday in Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), who went on CNN to declare Republicans’ attacks on Walz’s service record as “so incredibly offensive.”
“It’s reminiscent of the swift boat bulls–t that Sen. John Kerry faced during his election [in 2004],” she told host Kaitlan Collins. “It’s even more offensive because these accusations are being launched by another veteran.”
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