Leave Tim Walz alone...until after the Democratic National Convention

By Hans Mahncke and Jeff Carlson

Many Republicans breathed a sigh of relief when Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate last week. The alternative, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, was widely seen as a stronger choice. We will never know why Walz was picked ahead of Shapiro, but it is not unreasonable to assume that it might have had something to do with the fact that Shapiro is Jewish, which could be a problem for many in the far-left camp.

Walz has his own problems. As soon as he was announced as Kamala’s running mate, Twitter exploded with stories about his military service record, serving in the Minnesota National Guard. These stories were not new and had been covered over the past two decades in parts of the Minnesota press and more comprehensively by independent bloggers and reporters. So, it wasn’t that Kamala did not know about these problems; it’s just that she or her advisors determined they weren’t a big deal. 

Well, that calculus has now blown up. The problems are a big deal and they’re becoming more significant with each passing day.

In fact, Walz’s problems are so catastrophic that it would be advantageous for Republicans to maintain a low profile until Walz’s nomination is officially approved by the Democratic National Convention and he can, for all intents and purposes, no longer be replaced. (On August 1, 1972, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, Thomas Eagleton, was replaced after the convention, with more time to spare before the election. Democrats ultimately suffered the largest landslide defeat in American electoral history.)

The main issue with Walz revolves around his military service record. Despite attempts by the media to depict the problem as one singular misstatement regarding serving in a combat zone, there are actually three separate issues where he seems to have been consistently dishonest over the past two decades regarding his service.

Let’s start with the one that the Kamala campaign and the media have tried to clean up for him. In a video posted by Democrat activist David Hogg on July 27, 2024, Walz can be heard claiming that he had “carried weapons of war in war.” That is not possible since Walz never served in a combat theater. The Kamala campaign tried to clean up this problem by claiming that Walz had simply “misspoken.” The media immediately parroted this line with no questions asked. In fact, the Kamala campaign themselves created the problem when the enthusiastically shared Hogg’s clip while bragging that Walz had “carried weapons of war in war.”

While the video appears to be the only instance uncovered so far where Walz directly claimed to have served on the battlefield, there are numerous other occasions where Walz misled people into believing he had, even though he did not say it in as many words. For instance, in a 2006 profile of Walz in The Atlantic, one of the stories claims that he had “just returned from fighting the war on terrorism." In a contribution for a book published in 2021 by the Minnesota Military and Veterans Museum, Walz created the impression that his service in the National Guard included a stint in Afghanistan. It did not.  

There are also numerous instances where Walz was introduced as an Afghanistan or battlefield veteran without clarifying the inaccuracy. During one appearance on C-SPAN, he was falsely introduced as having served in Afghanistan. Walz enthusiastically nodded along. In another instance, Walz strongly implied–to a Gold Star Family no less–that he had gone to Afghanistan and experienced post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his deployment. That too was false.

Ironically, the Hogg video that started it all was not only shared by Kamala’s campaign Twitter account, but also quote-tweeted by Walz himself, who said, “It’s true.”

Well, it wasn’t true. Walz did not deploy to any combat theater, which brings us to the second issue: deployment dodging. Walz retired from the Army National Reserves in May 2005. Then, in July 2005, his unit received its mobilization order to deploy to Iraq. Some might think that since Walz retired before the mobilization order, he could not have been dodging it. But this is contradicted by Walz’s own statement from March 2005, in which he acknowledged that the National Guard Public Affairs Office had announced that “all or a portion of Walz's battalion could be mobilized to serve in Iraq within the next two years.” At the time the announcement was made, Walz claimed that he had “a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on.” In truth, when push came to shove, Walz bailed. He never deployed. To be clear, he was within his rights to do that. The problem isn’t that he decided not to deploy but that that is not how he has been telling the story.

Third, there is the issue of rank. For the past 19 years, Walz has repeatedly claimed that he retired from the Army National Reserves with the high-ranking title of command sergeant major. He even had his Congressional Challenge Coin, a token presented by a member of Congress to acknowledge exceptional service or accomplishments, engraved with the command sergeant major designation. The problem is that Walz did not retire as a command sergeant major. He retired as a master sergeant, which is a lower rank. While it is correct that he had been provisionally given the title of command sergeant major, his premature retirement prior to his unit's deployment to Iraq prevented him from fulfilling the mandatory command sergeant major course at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy.

So, instead of this just being about one video in which Walz supposedly misspoke, as the Kamala campaign and the media are claiming, this is really a story about at least three separate matters, all related to stolen valor. 

As late as last night, an angry Walz complained that no one’s service should ever be questioned. The fact that he is responding at all suggests that the Kamala campaign is beginning to realize that Walz has become a liability. But the argument he made was even worse. It was a typical straw man argument. He claimed he is being attacked for his service but the truth is that no one has ever criticized Walz for his service. It's lying about his service that is the problem. And it is a problem that, regardless of what Kamala's campaign officials may think, will not go away. Stolen valor is one of the few remaining issues where truth still matters.

There are other problems with Walz’s record. Even those who don’t follow politics closely remember that, as governor of Minnesota, he was a draconian Covid authoritarian who once bragged about leaving his 87-year-old mother to fend for herself after her heart surgery because of Covid. We also don’t yet know much about his tenure as a high school teacher and head coach—or merely an assistant coach, depending on who tells the story. 

But whatever else we find out about Walz may not matter much because the stolen valor issue is more than enough to critically weaken the Democrat ticket all on its own. So much so that it is in the best interest of Republicans to tone it down for the next week or so until Democrats hold their convention and confirm Walz as Kamala’s running mate.

The sad truth is that the news cycle is so incredibly fast-paced these days that Democrats could easily replace Walz in the coming days, and by next week, no one would even remember the guy’s name. They might take a short-term hit in the polls, but it would probably matter little in November.

But if they keep Walz on the ticket, it will matter in November, and not in a good way. As we saw with the swift boat attacks against John Kerry in 2004, stolen valor is a highly potent campaign issue. The difference here is that while Kerry did actually go to Vietnam, was shot at, and injured, Walz did none of those things; he just pretended he did. And that makes it all the more important for Republicans to ensure that he remains on the ticket.