donald trumpThe presidential campaign is focusing on what advisers see as potential risks to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: his departure from the Army National Guard two decades ago.
Valz, presented Tuesday as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, he ended his 24-year military career to run for public office in 2005 – several months before the unit he led deployed to Iraq.
Walz officially retired from the Minnesota National Guard in May 2005. His unit was alerted to a deployment to Iraq in July, and the unit deployed there in October. Walz filed to run for Congress in January 2005 with documentation that was certified by the Federal Election Commission the following month.
“When Tim Walz was invited by his country to go to Iraq, do you know what he did? He abandoned the Army and allowed his unit to do without him – a fact for which he was aggressively criticized by many of the people he served with,” Senator JD VanceR-Ohio, Trump’s running mate and Marine veteran who served in Iraq, said Wednesday at a news conference in Michigan.
“I think it’s shameful to prepare your unit to go to Iraq, make a promise you’re going to keep, and then back out just before you actually have to go,” Vance added.
The strategy, which Trump expanded on Wednesday calling Walz a “DISGRACE” at Truth Social, it’s a throwback to 2004, when Republicans attacked Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s record as a Navy officer in Vietnam. Chris LaCivita — who was a consultant to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group that helped sink Kerry’s candidacy — is a senior adviser to the Trump campaign and has signaled a willingness to reopen the playbook on Walz.
“And when his men needed him most… as they headed into the Crucible of combat… he abandoned them… left them,” LaCivita posted Tuesday on X, shortly after Harris chose Walz to join her on the Democratic ticket. “Why? So he could run for Congress.”
In introducing Walz, 60, to a broader audience beyond Minnesota, Harris’ campaign emphasized his military background as well as his experience as a member of the military. soccer coach. Campaign officials frame his decision to leave the National Guard and pursue a career in politics as a path that offered him new and meaningful opportunities to help service members and veterans.
“After 24 years of military service, Governor Walz retired in 2005 and ran for Congress, where he chaired Veterans Affairs and was a tireless advocate for our men and women in uniform – and as Vice President he will continue to be a tireless advocate of our veterans and military families,” Harris campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said in a statement.
Walz has faced attacks like this before, including in his 2022 re-election campaign, when his Republican opponent questioned his decision leaving military service in 2005. Walz’s campaign responded with a letter signed by 50 veterans praising his record and leadership.
“Governor Walz has secured additional funding for new veterans homes,” read the letter, a copy of which the Harris campaign shared Wednesday with NBC News. “In his first term, Minnesota was one of seven states initially selected by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to participate in the ‘Governor’s Challenge’ to eliminate veteran deaths by suicide.”
Erick Erickson, a prominent conservative commentator, got attention Tuesday for one paid letter to the editor which examined Walz’s service and was published by the Willmar, Minn., newspaper West Central Tribune in 2018, days before he won his first term as governor. Erickson also called for the return of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which prompted LaCivita’s initial social media post. Other posts followed.
“He abandoned his men and gave up before they entered combat,” LaCivita wrote by Walz in response to a complimentary post by Alyssa Farah Griffin, co-host of the daytime talk show “The View” and former Trump White House aide who has since denounced Trump.
LaCivita’s previous work with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth remains one of the most aggressive and potentially consequential political attacks of the modern era.
Kerry – who received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and, for wounds suffered in battle, three Purple Heart medals – drew the ire of many veterans for his anti-war advocacy after he returned home. And when he was seeking the presidency in 2004, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ran ads accusing him of lying about his service in the 50ft Aluminum Craft who carried out dangerous missions in the waterways of the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam. Some of the veterans featured in the ads said he won awards under false premises.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam before befriending Kerry in the Senate, criticized the ads and noted that veterans making claims against Kerry didn’t fit on your boat. Some of those who did supported Kerry’s bills. The allegations, which Kerry did not immediately dispute, clouded the image he presented of himself as a war hero – which appeared to be the group’s aim from a political perspective. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth may not have proven its case, but it sowed doubts about Kerry’s apparent strength – his war service – and his credibility.
FactCheck.org completed after exhaustive research that “at this moment, 35 years later and half a world away, we see no way of resolving which of these versions of reality is closest to the truth”. Kerry lost to President George W. Bush.
Walz joined the National Guard in 1981, shortly after turning 17. After transferring from the Nebraska National Guard in 1996, he served in the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, said Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, public affairs officer for the Minnesota Guard. Walz, Augé added, “culminated his career serving as battalion sergeant major” and “retired as sergeant major in 2005 for charitable purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeant Major Academy.”
During Walz’s nearly 25 years of service, he participated in flood relief, responded to tornadoes and spent months on active duty in Italy, according to Harris’ campaign. Walz “was deployed to Italy in 2003 to protect against potential threats in Europe, while active military forces were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan,” The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported in 2022attributing the information to Walz in an article about the scrutiny of his military service.
Walz and Vance are the first veterans on a national ticket for either major party since McCain was the GOP presidential nominee in 2008. Vance, 40, briefly chronicled his experiences in Iraq in his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” recalling his work as a public affairs Navy.
“Sometimes I followed the civilian press, but usually I took photos or wrote short stories about individual Marines or their work,” he wrote. “At the beginning of my deployment, I joined a civil affairs unit to do community outreach. Civil affairs missions were typically considered more dangerous, as small numbers of Marines ventured into unprotected Iraqi territory to meet with locals.”
In a Tuesday post on X that highlighted Walz’s military and hunting experience, the Harris campaign shared undated video which showed him talking about gun control.
“We can ensure that the weapons of war that I carried in war are the only place those weapons are,” Walz says in the brief clip.
Vance alluded to the video at campaign stops on Wednesday, accusing Walz of misrepresenting his military service and claiming he had never spent time in a combat zone.
“Well, I wonder, Tim Walz, when have you been to war? What was that weapon you carried into the war, seeing as you deserted your unit just before they went to Iraq?” Vance asked at an event near Detroit. “What bothers me about Tim Walz is this trash of stolen value. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not. … I would be embarrassed if I were him and lied about my military service like he did.
Later, arriving for an event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Vance told reporters that he had “served in a combat zone” and “never said I saw a shooting, but I always told the truth about my service in the Marine Corps.” ”
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt also alluded to the video in a statement, telegraphing the campaign’s intentions to continue pressing Walz’s military record.
“Tim Walz is a fraud who wants to ban firearms like the ones he claims to carry in war — except Tim Walz was never deployed to a combat zone and lied about his National Guard service history,” Leavitt said. “If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: Like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”
Asked about the video, a Harris campaign spokesperson did not deny that Walz had embellished when he talked about bearing arms in war.
“In his 24 years of service, the Governor has loaded, fired and trained others to use weapons of war countless times,” the spokesperson said. “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.”
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
