On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — who was appearing in his personal capacity — argued that statements from Republicans that 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) overstated his title and falsely claimed to have carried weapons in war — which the Harris-Walz campaign conceded the validity of by updating his bio on their campaign website and saying that Walz misspoke about carrying weapons in war — show “how desperate Republicans are not to talk about the issues.”
Host Kaitlan Collins asked, “Republicans are attacking Gov. Walz over when he retired from the military, after he served for 24 years, also overstating his title on some occasions, his rank where he was. As a fellow veteran who, you were careful about how you characterized your service on the campaign trail when you ran, what do you make of those attacks?”
Buttigieg responded, “I think it’s one example — one more example of how all they can do is tear down. Look, in the military, you’re eligible to retire after 20 years. Tim Walz stayed for 24 years. And some people are trying to attack him because he didn’t make it 25 or 26. It’s just not the way that most servicemembers, most veterans would talk about their own service or someone else’s service. … I would say saying that somebody’s time in the military is unworthy because they didn’t deploy to a warzone is a lot like saying that somebody’s life choices aren’t worthy because she happens to not have children.”
Collins then followed up, “Well, and one part of where they’ve been bolstered is him suggesting that he carried weapons in war, which they have clarified, I believe a spokesperson said tonight that he misspoke on that and that he was previously identified and had identified himself as a retired command sergeant major. He served as that, was elevated to that, but he reverted back to the rank of master sergeant when he left because he didn’t complete the appropriate coursework. Should he be just careful about how he talks about this, precise in how he talks about this, given it has bolstered what we’ve been hearing from Republicans?”
Buttigieg answered, “Yeah, of course. And they took the opportunity to clear that up. But again, I think this shows you how desperate Republicans are not to talk about the issues. They don’t want to talk about their proposal for tax cuts for the rich. They don’t want to talk about their campaign to end a woman’s right to choose in this country. So, they need us to be quibbling over the finer points of how, when you have a conditional promotion to command sergeant major, but don’t retire at that rank, it’s different from if you retire at that rank, but you still technically held that — those are the kinds of things they want us talking about, because they don’t want us talking about the underlying issue.”
He continued, “Same thing with the thing about the weapons that Tim Walz very much did carry and fire and train on and use across his 24-year military career, right? The reason why they’re going so deep and so hard just to find the one time, out of however million times he’s talked about the issue, the one time, when, instead of saying the weapons of war he carried, he said the weapons he carried at war, it’s to make sure that we don’t think about what he was actually talking about at the time, which is that weapons like the weapons he trained on, assault weapons, those military-style weapons, should not be in our neighborhoods, they should not be in our schools, and they should not be threatening the lives of our children, a position, by the way, that most Americans agree with. But the last thing the Trump ticket wants to talk about is why they are facing down and disagreeing with the 90% of Americans, including the vast majority of Republicans, who think we should at least have universal background checks to keep our kids and our communities safe. They want us to be talking about anything but their deeply unpopular plans, and this is an example of that. So, yeah, of course, it’s important to clear up the time that he misspoke, but let’s not allow them to successfully use that to distract [from] what is actually going to affect you right now, sitting at home, hoping your kids will be safe when they go to school, which is, of course, not the finer points of terminology.”
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