CNN political analyst Van Jones said on “Anderson Cooper 360” Wednesday that Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) may have been “vague in his language” about military service.
“His record is open to criticism. He’s leaned into it a lot, but look, it causes a lot of problems. Let me explain why. There’s a photo of him from 2004 where he calls himself a Kerry Medal of Freedom recipient. The problem is the military. The Pentagon doesn’t recognize him as a Medal of Freedom recipient. So he either lied to get elected or he’s been corrected now. He can’t have both. You can’t claim you served in combat and then say 20 years later, ‘It was no big deal.’ It’s a character issue. And it’s a problem for the campaign. The fact that we’re talking about it and more and more people are talking about it is not something Kamala Harris wants to talk about.”
“They should clean it up. It’s conceivable that he may have been inconsiderate in the way he used language and the way he said things,” Jones said.
She added, “Everybody who goes on a campaign is a human being, but he’s running for a major position now. If he needs to clean it up, clean it up. The reality is, if you find out what he said was a little sloppy, fix it. Because there are a lot of people who will defend his character. There are gay students who will defend his character. Peers who worked with him will defend his character. If this came down to a character showdown between this candidate and Donald Trump, we’re going to win 50 states. Let’s clean this up and move on.”
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