Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back against those attacking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s military record, saying it was a “sign of the bankruptcy” of their critics’ thinking.
Walz’s 24 years as a member of the Army National Guard came under intense scrutiny from Republicans last week, particularly over whether the Minnesota governor misrepresented his time in the military.
“First of all, this is a sign that their thinking is bankrupt. They don’t have anything to say, so they make things up,” Pelosi said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” that aired Sunday.
“First of all, he was in the National Guard for 20 years and was planning on staying for 20 years, but then 9/11 happened and he enlisted for another four years. He left the National Guard to run for Congress a few months before the unit was deployed,” she added. “So, they’re just trying to confuse things because this was after he left the military.”
Some Republican critics, including Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), suggested last week that Mr. Walz had exaggerated his record and that he had abandoned his unit before deploying to Iraq to avoid combat duty.
“When Tim Waltz was called upon by his country to go to Iraq, guess what he did? He resigned from the Army and allowed his unit to go without him,” Vance, himself a Marine Corps veteran, said last week.
Vance deployed to Iraq but did not see combat.
“[Walz] “He came to Congress and was respected by his colleagues, elected as the ranking Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee, where he worked with Chet Edwards on the Appropriations and Powers Committees to achieve historic progress for veterans in meeting their needs, the most since the GI Bill in World War II,” Pelosi said.
Several Democrats have disputed Vance’s accusations, noting that Walz left the military in May 2005 to run for Congress and received his deployment orders in August of that year.
A man who worked for Waltz corroborated the claim, saying:News NationJoe Kalil said Waltz expected he might be deployed soon, but had no formal orders to do so at the time of his retirement.
Other Republican critics, including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Banks of Indiana, have questioned whether Walz has glamorized his military record and accused him of stealing honor by claiming to have worn or received undeserved military medals and ranks.
“Governor Walz would never disparage or undermine Americans’ service to this country. In fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. That’s the American way,” the Harris-Walz campaign said in a statement.NBC News reported: last week.
The campaign also updated Waltz’s online military biography, noting on its website that he once served at the rank of master sergeant. The change, first reported by Politico, is a minor shift from an earlier description of the vice presidential nominee as a “retired master sergeant.”
Walz’s Minnesota governor’s office website still refers to him as “Sergeant Major Walz.”
During his time in the military, Waltz served as a master sergeant but was discharged at the next lower rank because he had not completed the coursework required for that rank.
The National Guard has said in the past that Waltz served as a master sergeant during his time in the National Guard.
Pelosi said Harris and Walz’s campaigns should “simply dismiss” the allegations.
“Yeah, they should just ignore it, because if people are lying, like they’re lying, and they’re told that lie over and over, it’s kind of accepted in their group,” she said. “So they have to say, ‘No, that didn’t happen.'”
“So we have to get the facts straight. I’m not going to allow their false rhetoric to stand,” Pelosi added, calling Walz a “consistent, patriotic and courageous American.”
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.
Ellen Mitchell contributed reporting.
