The spotlight on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s disputed service in the U.S. military might be new, but his inflation of his history goes back years.
In a video published Friday, the man who is now Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the November election is shown in 2007 accepting credit for his “service to our country … on the battlefield.”
It was service Walz never performed.
The video, featuring then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is crystal clear.
Pelosi introduced Walz, then a congressman and former teacher, at a news conference with the words, “I want him to know how much we all appreciate his service to our country, whether it’s in the classroom or on the battlefield.”
FLASHBACK: Tim Walz thanked Nancy Pelosi at a press conference in 2007 in which she said while introducing him that “we appreciate his service on the battlefield.”
CSPAN then identified Walz as an “Afghanistan veteran.” pic.twitter.com/6HaKNyfKsf
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 9, 2024
It’s true that Walz served for more than two decades with the Minnesota National Guard — service that isn’t in question and is not to be disparaged.
But “service on the battlefield” has a distinct meaning that’s far different from providing emergency relief in natural disasters. Even Nancy Pelosi understands that, which is no doubt why she used that phrasing. But in Walz’s case, it’s simply not true.
Have Walz’s lies and stolen valor disqualified him from the office of the vice president?
Yes: 100% (22 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
Even CNN, customarily pliant about the nature of reality (at least when it comes to Democrats), has been forced to acknowledge Walz’s exaggeration of his record.
“There is a difference between being in a combat area, being involved at a time of war, and actually being in a position where people are shooting at you,” CNN correspondent Tom Foreman said on the network on Wednesday.
“There is no evidence at any time Gov. Walz was in a position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest that he was.”
Of course, Walz wasn’t responsible for what Pelosi said — just as he wasn’t responsible for the C-SPAN chiron that identified him as an “Afghanistan War Veteran” when he was never on the ground there.
But any honest man should have felt compelled to clear up the point with Pelosi in real time, with the cameras running. Walz clearly did not.
But Walz didn’t just allow Pelosi’s description to go uncorrected in that video, posted by Greg Price, communications director for the conservative State Freedom Caucus Network.
Walz went a step further and referred to then-Rep. Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania as “my brother in arms.”
That’s technically true. Walz’s service in the National Guard made him a veteran who’d borne arms. But Murphy, according to his Defense Department biography, actually served in Iraq itself while serving with the 82nd Airborne Division and, as an attorney with the Judge Advocate General, had prosecuted Iraqi terrorism suspects.
The closest Walz got to an actual shooting war, according to CNN, was a stint in Italy.
Walz was clearly borrowing a bit of that luster when he claimed Murphy as a “brother in arms.”
This is what Democrats are hoping will fool Americans. They’re doing anything to pretend that Walz is not exactly the kind of leftist Democrat to run with a leftist Democrat like Kamala Harris — a governor who let his state’s largest city burn in the 2020 George Floyd riots and is sympathetic to Hamas sympathizers.
But that’s a lie as blatant as the one portrayed in this video.
Plenty of users noticed.
And he never bothered to correct anyone! What a loser.
— Based Patriot X (@BasedPatriotX) August 9, 2024
He definitely checks the box for a democratic pick. If he can lie about this, he will easily be able to lie to the public about more.
— Bramey (@Brameyyy) August 9, 2024
Okay. This is pretty damning.
— TheDogHouseTalkShow (@TheDogHouseTal) August 9, 2024
And this one put it perfectly:
Blatant stolen valor
— JD Sharp (@imjdsharp) August 9, 2024
“Blatant stolen valor,” conservative commentator and “The Vegas Take” podcaster J.D. Sharpe wrote.
“Blatant” is the word.
While the video doesn’t show Walz making any claims himself, he knew damn well that what Pelosi had said was wrong, but clearly didn’t feel the need to correct her.
Instead, he actually embossed the image she’d already presented, by calling another representative a “brother in arms,” a phrase that automatically brings to mind men serving together under enemy fire.
No, it’s not an outright lie. But it’s an obvious deception, a ruse, to deliberately give listeners a misleading impression.
And that was in 2007, when Walz was simply a freshman Democratic congressman.
Now he’s in the running for the vice presidency of the United States, a job only a heartbeat away from the leader of the free world.
But his history is catching up with him.
