During a recent interview with CNN, Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, attempted to divert attention from his false claims of military service by referencing the tragic deaths of children in school shootings.
This comes as Harris conducted her first sit-down interview since becoming the Democrats’ presidential candidate after Joe Biden.
“You said that you carried weapons in war, but you have never deployed actually in a war zone,” CNN’s Dana Bash said to the National Guard veteran. “A campaign official said that you misspoke. Did you?” she asked.
“Well, first of all, I’m incredibly proud I’ve done 24 years of wearing [the] uniform of this country, equally proud of my service in a public school classroom, whether it’s Congress or—or the governor [sic]. My record speaks for itself, but I think people are coming to get to know me. I—I speak like they do. I speak candidly,” Walz rambled, not answering the question.
Apparently hoping he would not be further pressed on his false claims if he raised the subject of dead children, he added: “I wear my emotions on my sleeves, and I speak especially passionately about—about our children being shot in schools and around—around guns. So I think people know me.”
Bash did press Walz, again asking him, “[T]he idea that you said that you were in war, did you misspeak, as the campaign has said?”
“Yeah… we were talking about, in this case, this was after a school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war. And my wife, the English teacher, told me my grammar’s not always correct,” Walz suggested, although his claim to have carried “weapons of war, in war” was clearly a false statement rather than a case of poor grammar.
Later in the interview, Walz claimed, “folks I’ve served with… they vouch for me.”
Lieutenant Colonel John Kolb, who previously commanded the battalion in which Walz served, has publicly criticized him for falsely claiming his rank and deserting the unit just before its deployment to Iraq.
“[W]hen the demands of service and leadership at the highest level got real, he chose another path,” Lt. Col. Kolb said of Walz, adding that the Democrat’s false claims to be a retired command sergeant major are “an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps.”
“I do not regret that Tim Walz retired early from the Minnesota Army National Guard, did not complete the Sergeants Major Academy, broke his enlistment contract or did not successfully complete any assignment as a Sergeant Major,” said Kolb, recalling that Walz “Unwittingly… got out of the way for better leadership.”
Walz insists that he was not aware of his unit’s impending deployment prior to his early retirement, however, press releases from his campaign at the time strongly indicate otherwise.
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