Harris-Walz Surrogate: Walz Doesn’t Need to Clarify Claims About Rank, ‘This Is an Issue of Truth Versus Lies’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Harris-Walz campaign surrogate Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) — who is a combat veteran — stated that the criticism of 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) around his military record “is an issue of truth versus lies,” and Republicans are “trying to do classic political character assassination.” Crow also stated that Walz doesn’t need to clear up his statements about his rank.

Co-host Brianna Keilar asked, “I want to ask you about some of these attacks by Republicans on Tim Walz’s military service, and I think that Democrats feel they’re very unfair, but they — and we’ve seen this before — have been effective, in some ways. How does he need to confront this, and does he need to do it tonight?”

Crow answered, “Well, I don’t think this is an issue of fairness or not. This is an issue of truth versus lies, right? The truth is, Tim Walz has 24 years of honorable service. They can’t attack his policies, they can’t attack his messages, because they know it’s very popular. So, they’re trying to do classic political character assassination. It’s not going to work, though, because it’s not true. He has a long and distinguished history of service and that stands on its own.”

Keilar then asked, “He has been inexact talking about his retired rank versus what he achieved in service versus what he retained upon retirement, talking about carrying a weapon of war into war, which, obviously he did not do. Does he need to clear that up?”

Crow answered, “No. The issue of the rank, people in the military actually know this distinction, that you can hold a position in the military, but not achieve all of the requirements for the training in this case. But he held the position of command sergeant major in his battalion. That’s the highest-ranking NCO, which [is] actually actually significant because that makes him the highest-ranking enlisted person ever to be on a presidential ticket, which is a win for working-class America, because military veterans know that the NCOs, the enlisted are the backbone of the military. And this is a really significant moment in history for us.”

The Harris-Walz campaign has admitted that Walz didn’t carry a weapon of war in war and revised the rank in his biography.

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