Vance accuses Walz of lying about retirement from military for political gain

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) pushed back on Gov. Tim Walz’s service record, arguing that the Minnesota governor lied about his time in the military for political gain.

Vance was speaking to CNN’s State of the Union with host Dana Bash on Sunday morning when he made the remarks. Walz’s service has come under scrutiny by the Trump campaign and media, particularly about when and why Walz retired since he was tapped to be Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.

“This is a guy who was captured on video saying, ‘I carried a gun in war.’ He never went to war,” said Vance, who also served in the military. “This is a guy who has been captured on video as other people say, ‘he‘s an Afghanistan veteran, he‘s a veteran of a war,’ nodding along in agreement instead of saying ‘no, no, no, I did serve my country and I did it honorably, but I never went to a war zone.’”

“I’m not criticizing Tim Walz’s service. I’m criticizing the fact that he lied about his service for political gain,” Vance added.

During the interview, Bash pointed out that Walz retired from the National Guard before it was announced that his unit would be deployed to Iraq.

But Vance pushed back on her and noted that Walz’s superior, former Minnesota National Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Doug Julin, went on CNN and said Walz may have known he was going to deploy before he used a “backdoor process” to get his retirement approved.

“We were informed that we would be alerted to go to Iraq within the next upcoming year, start preparing your team, getting your team together and let’s get the process in play,” Julin said.

The Washington Examiner reached out to Harris’s campaign for comment.