Two decades after false claims of stolen bravery against his opponent helped George W. Bush win a second term in the White House, vice president Kamala HarrisHer campaign will not allow the same thing to happen to her or her running mate, the governor of Minnesota Tim Walz.
O The Harris campaign is defending Walz, an Army veteran who spent nearly a quarter century in the Minnesota National Guard, from Republicans claiming he defected to avoid deployment to Iraq and falsely accusing him of claiming to be a combat veteran.
His Republican opponent, Trump’s running mate and Ohio Senator JD Vance, made the disturbing allegations during a media interview in Wisconsin ahead of a large Harris-Walz rally in the Badger State. He told reporters that Walz, who retired from the Minnesota Guard after 24 years of service to run for Congress in the 2006 election, “left the military and allowed his unit to leave. [to Iraq] without him.”
Vance also accused Walz of falsely claiming to have seen fighting, citing comments the miner made about not wanting “weapons of war” to be available on American streets.
The Ohio senator’s accusation that his opponent abandoned his guard unit rather than move into combat is patently false.
According to military records, Walz officially retired from the Minnesota National Guard in May 2005, two months before his unit received word that it would deploy, four months before preparations for deployment began, and ten months before unit deployment.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign strongly rejected Vance’s claim that Walz had “quit” rather than join the men he led, accurately describing the governor’s separation from service as a normal retirement. after almost a quarter of a century. in uniform.
“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 of the United States he will continue to be an unrelenting champion of our veterans and military families,” they said.
According to Army records, Walz’s nearly two and a half decades in the Minnesota Guard began at age 17 and ended with him holding the rank of Command Sergeant Major, the highest rank possible for an enlisted soldier.
Like most National Guard soldiers, he was frequently deployed in response to national disasters, but he was also sent abroad to Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. mission in Afghanistan that ousted the Taliban in the wake of September 11 attacks.
The campaign spokesman also rejected Vance’s claim that Walz falsely claimed to have carried weapons against the enemy, noting that he never claimed to have seen combat.
“The governor has loaded, fired, and trained others to use weapons of war countless times,” they said, including specializing in heavy artillery to the point where he suffered hearing damage as a result of exposure to decades of heavy gunfire. They added that Walz “would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country” and said they are grateful to Vance for “putting his life on the line” by deploying to Iraq as a public affairs specialist with the United States Marine Corps. USA.
The attacks against the governor appear to be the idea of Chris LaCivita, one of two Republican Party operatives running former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. Twenty years ago, he was one of the consultants who orchestrated a smear campaign against John Kerrythen-senator from Massachusetts and the Democratic opponent who tried to deny Bush a second term in the White House.
The campaign was the work of a Republican group called “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” apparently made up of Vietnam veterans who served with Kerry, a U.S. Navy veteran who earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star while commanding small riverine vessels. in Vietnam. jungles.
It was 2004, just three years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and Kerry was running against Bush – and in opposition to the US-led war in Iraq – citing his military service. Opinion polls at the time showed that Americans viewed Kerry’s record as positive and placed him ahead of Bush following the party’s nominating conventions that year.
The group “Swift Boat Veterans” responded by airing television advertisements in which supposed veterans who claimed to have served with Kerry criticized him and accused him of being dishonest about his service record.
It was not true. Only one of the people in the announcement had actually served alongside Kerry, and the claims they made about Kerry’s alleged dishonesty did not withstand independent fact-checking. But the damage was done and Kerry would end up losing the 2004 election to Bush.
Two decades later, with Trump failing in polls against Harris and Walz, LaCivita began telegraphing her intention to dust off her “Swift Boat” playbook just minutes after Walz was announced as Harris’ running mate.
In response to a post on LaCivita wrote that the future vice president “abandoned his men and resigned before they went into battle.”
A person close to the Harris-Walz campaign said The Independent that the vice president and a series of surrogates plan to push back strongly against any attempt to “streamline” the Minnesota governor and have said that LaCivita’s playbook “won’t work this time.”
“It’s an old, tired strategy and the American people are too smart to fall for it, especially from someone allied with a dodger like Donald Trump,” they said.
Rick Wilson, a former GOP operative who founded and runs the anti-Trump super PAC Lincoln Project, said The Independent that LaCivita’s decision to go after Walz’s military record is a sign that he is increasingly desperate and trying to avoid being fired by Trump as the former president loses ground to Harris and Walz.
“Chris is worried about getting fired now, so obviously he’s going to do whatever it takes to play LaCivita’s greatest hits album. If Donald Trump wasn’t hiding in Mar-a-Lago, hiding like a damn psychopath, he might be more effective,” Wilson said.
He added that the attacks against Walz have “an Elvis impersonator vibe” of “a guy gambling at a casino/gas station 27 miles outside of Elko, Nevada.”
“Chris and Susie are in serious trouble in Trump world and the situation is not getting better,” he said.
LaCivita did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
