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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to question the deployment service of Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, who is Donald Trump’s running mate, during a discussion about Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
During the interview, Pelosi appeared to struggle at times to provide an answer, but her most animated moment came during the discussion of Vance’s war zone service.
“To stick with Tim, so well-liked, nominated and elected by the members to be our top Democrat on the Veteran’s Affairs Committee where he brought his knowledge, his priorities, his vision for how we could help our vets better,” Pelosi told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell.
“And he was working with Chad Edwards of Texas, who was the appropriator, and our caucus did more for veterans in that period of time than since the GI Bill,” she claimed.
“J.D. Vance has criticized him as never having been in combat,” Mitchell noted.
“Has he? Has he? Has J.D. Vance been in combat?” Pelosi interjected.
“He was over in Iraq, I think, as a public relations officer, as a communications officer, I think that’s the case, but he’s also said that this is anti-Semitic that Josh Shapiro was not chosen because he wasn’t against Israel enough,” Mitchell responded.
“Let me say this, we have some challenges in our country. As I say all the time, what matters are the kitchen table issues for the American people. What matters is the distinction between the two visions for our country and the experience that has been brought. Joe Biden, 16 million jobs created. I don’t like to use his name, but Donald Trump has the worst job creation record since Herbert Hoover,” Pelosi said, which is demonstrably false.
WATCH:
Vance has never said he was in actual combat, but rather that he deployed to a war zone – Iraq – which is true. His beef with Walz is that the Democratic governor has repeatedly lied about his military service and rank; he has stated he was in combat when he wasn’t, and he said he achieved the title of command sergeant major, which he did not. Walz was a master sergeant who was attending the Army’s sergeant major academy but did not complete the course.
In addition, Vance, along with several fellow Minnesota Army National Guard members, has lambasted Walz for opting for a hasty retirement when his unit received orders to deploy to Iraq in the mid-2000s.
“He knew he was going to Iraq,” Vance told CNN host Dana Bash last month. “He decided to quit — to retire; whatever word you want to use … because he wanted to run for Congress. He lied about that. He said that when he decided to retire, he did not know he was going to Iraq. That is another untruth, as even his senior military officer said.” He added: “The truth is that Tim Walz didn’t tell the truth, and importantly, Dana, this is about Kamala Harris’ judgment.”
Former members of the Minnesota Army National Guard, who served alongside Gov. Tim Walz, expressed strong criticism of him during a lengthy interview with SiriusXM podcaster Megyn Kelly, which was posted online Monday.
In 2018, during his first gubernatorial campaign, retired Command Sergeant Majors Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr criticized Walz for leaving his men “hanging” in Iraq, a sentiment echoed by the veterans interviewed by Kelly.
“It is morally indefensible. He didn’t care. It was all about him,” one vet said. Another called Walz a “military impersonator” while a third said it’s impossible to justify what the Democrat did nearly 20 years ago. “I don’t understand how you do it morally,” he said.
“If you knew my blood was boiling right now because Walz has done nothing but lie to feather his own bed his entire career,” he added. “That’s how I know. I was there. I didn’t just make this stuff up. I was in the meetings. Soldiers died … Their parents didn’t want their soldiers to take a pass, take a knee?”