CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) over his attacks on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) military service record Sunday, pointing to questions surrounding former President Trump avoiding the Vietnam War draft.
Vance and other Republicans have repeatedly questioned Walz’s service in the National Guard, falsely claiming that his decision to retire in 2005 after 24 years of service was in order to avoid a deployment order to Iraq. Walz retired to run for Congress that year.
Bash pushed back on those attacks, calling into question Trump’s lack of military service. He received a series of medical deferments to avoid the Vietnam draft, deferments that have since come under scrutiny.
“Donald Trump didn’t serve in the military. He received a medical draft deferment for bone spurs to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, reportedly as a favor to his father,” she asked Vance. “Do you find that shameful, too?”
“I think that Donald Trump didn’t serve in the military, but he didn’t lie about it,” Vance said. “Dana, I’ve known Donald Trump for a long time. You don’t think he honors, or you think he had been for my service?”
“Donald Trump didn’t lie about serving in the military,” he continued. “He didn’t say that he went to Vietnam when he didn’t. This is the problem.”
“I don’t criticize anybody whether they served our country or not. I think it’s honorable to serve,” he added. “But obviously a lot of people have reasons for not serving. I criticize somebody for embellishing their record for lying, saying, ‘I went to war. Did it.’ Do you think that it’s a problem that he said, ‘I went to war,’ but he didn’t? Actually, that seems to be a problem to me.”
Walz was deployed to Italy to support U.S. troops in Iraq in 2003 but was never deployed to a combat zone himself.
Vance is also a veteran, having been deployed to Iraq as a public affairs officer in the Marine Corps as part of four years of service.
The attacks on Walz have been compared to “Swift Boat,” the 2004 scandal of attacks on then-Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) military record during his own presidential campaign, which were also misleading.
The Harris campaign has previously denounced the attacks on Walz’s service record.
“After 24 years of military service, Governor Walz retired in 2005 and ran for Congress, where he chaired Veterans Affairs and was a tireless advocate for our men and women in uniform — and as Vice President of the United States he will continue to be a relentless champion for our veterans and military families,” the campaign told The Associated Press last week.