Vice President Kamala Harris’s and Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-MN) presidential campaign said Walz “misspoke” in a video from 2018 where he said he carried weapons into war.
In recent days, Republicans have questioned Walz’s military service, some of which has centered on a video where he referenced “weapons of war that I carried in war.” Walz served 24 years in the National Guard but was not deployed to an active combat zone during that time.
“We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at,” Walz said in the video during comments about gun violence.
Some, including former President Donald Trump’s running mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have said that those comments imply that Walz was portraying himself as someone who spent time in an active combat zone. Saturday, the Harris-Walz campaign addressed those comments.
“Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country — in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way,” Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign, said in a statement to the Associated Press.
“In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke,” Hitt added. “He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance who prioritize the gun lobby over our children.”
Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school and was deployed to Iraq in 2005 to work as a combat correspondent, which is similar to a military journalist, according to the Associated Press.
When asked on CNN’s State of the Union about Walz’s comments, Vance offered his own counter to Harris’s campaign statement that he “misspoke.”
“He ‘misspoke’, another word is that he lied about it and he didn’t correct the record for 15 years until he was put under political pressure because I called it out,” Vance said.
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Vance called Walz’s previous comments “scandalous behavior,” and said that he would like to hear the apology from Walz himself, not a campaign spokesperson.
“I think that the most important thing here Dana is, it goes to Kamala Harris’s judgment. Tim Walz is ultimately going to be Vice President, Kamala Harris is in great health I’m sure she’s going to be President, if she wins, for four, or maybe even eight years,” Vance said. “Why did Kamala Harris choose a person who has lied about their military service? I think that is a serious lapse in judgment and I don’t want to hear from a campaign spokesperson of Kamala Harris, I want to hear Kamala Harris herself address what I just said.”