Thousands attend a Harris-Walz rally this week Source: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Getty
Look, there’s no denying that Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has been off to a rough start. Racist MAGA constituents have been attacking him for having an Indian wife and children, forcing him to essentially defend the non-whiteness of his spouse by highlighting her other qualities.
Meanwhile, Vance is getting dragged by women across America for essentially telling them that if they choose not to have children that they’re worthless–while also inadvertently insulting step-parents, adoptive parents and people who are struggling to become parents. He’s catching flack for being a middle-class Ivy Leaguer who has tried to pass himself off as an all-American who came from humble beginnings.
There’s more. Some guy on the internet made a joke about him having sexual relations with a couch and now half of social media is clowning him for receiving “sectional healing.” On top of all that, the former Trump-hater-turned-Trump-humper has to back his racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, lying, observably unintelligent, criminally convicted felon of a running mate after every nonsensical attack he spits out of his anus-shaped mouth.
Source: Stephen Maturen / Getty
All this as every new piece of insight we learn about Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, sounds something like: “Tim Walz rescued a cat from a tree while bringing free lunch to school kids and helping an old lady cross the street while walking his two-dozen rescue dogs and filling in for Santa Clause during the holiday season.”
Maybe this is why Republicans are desperately reaching for legitimate reasons to attack the man. Trump and his campaign have already claimed ad nauseam that Walz will “UNLEASH HELL ON EARTH” by—*checks notes*—”proposing his own carbon-free agenda, suggesting stricter emission standards for gas-powered cars, and embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote.” (The horror, right?) Republicans (and Van Jones) have also claimed Harris, who is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, chose Walz over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to appease antisemitic Democrats.
The new round of lies and weirdo stuff
Now, Vance is out here attacking Walz on his 24-year military record, because, as Trump has long shown us, all of that pseudo-patriotic “support the troops” and “honor our veterans” rhetoric goes right out the window when it becomes politically inconvenient.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Vance accused Walz of quitting the Army National Guard after 24 years of service to avoid being deployed to Iraq and lying about being in combat. Neither are true.
From the Times:
Mr. Vance based his accusations on a Facebook post from 2018, and a paid letter to the editor to The West Central Tribune that same year in which the writers, Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr, both retired command sergeant majors in the Minnesota National Guard, accused Mr. Walz of “conveniently retiring a year before his battalion was deployed to Iraq.”
The criticisms were first leveled by Mr. Behrends and Mr. Herr during Mr. Walz’s first campaign for governor.
But Joseph Eustice, a 32-year veteran of the national guard who led the same battalion as Mr. Walz and served under him, said in an interview on Wednesday that the governor was a dependable soldier and that the attacks by his fellow comrades were unfounded.
“He was as good a soldier as you’d find, and to have two former sergeant majors say that he wasn’t, it’s just not true,” Mr. Eustice said, adding that he disagreed with Mr. Walz’s politics and most likely would not vote for him in November even though they were friends.
It probably would have been more convenient for opponents of Walz if he had retired a few days, maybe a week before the deployment to Iraq. But the fact that he retired several months before his unit was even notified that it would be deployed indicates that his detractors were and still are stretching themselves into a star-spangled knot to find a legitimate attack against the 60-year-old. And they’re failing miserably.
“After 24 years of military service, Governor Walz retired in 2005 and ran for Congress, where he chaired Veterans Affairs, and as vice president of the United States, he will continue to be a relentless champion for our veterans and military families,” said campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa.
Vance also thought he had Walz on the ropes after he came across a video clip Harris’ campaign posted Tuesday, in which the governor told a crowd about support for gun control, saying that “we can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war.” Vance took it upon himself to interpret that comment as Walz claiming he was in combat, which he wasn’t.
More from the Times:
“I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did,” Mr. Vance said.
Mr. Walz was deployed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, but not in a combat zone.
“The governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times,” Mr. Moussa said. “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.”
It’s almost as if Vance has forgotten he is the running mate of an accused draft dodger who once said this about late combat veteran John McCain: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
But that aside, there was also yesterday. That’s when Vance decided the best way forward was to make himself look like a broken toy soldier by trying to storm Air Force Two and get in Harris’ face after his plane landed at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Wisconsin, where hers also had landed.
But surprise! Vice President Harris, already out in the community, wasn’t there.
Awkward.
Vance was caught on video charging up to the plane with his entourage of white men in suits who looked like they were trying to recreate the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs, standing close to the plane looking stupid for a while and then walking back to talk to reporters in a transparent effort to play off how ridiculous the awkward performance was.
“Hopefully it’s gonna be my plane in a few months,” he told the reporters.
“I also thought you guys might be lonely because the vice president doesn’t answer questions from reporters,” he continued. “I hope that she has changed her mind because it would be good for the American people and I think it would be good for you all if she actually ran a real campaign instead of one from a basement with a teleprompter.”
Abort mission. Abort mission!
It’s unclear what Vance was even talking about since Harris has been the one pressing for Trump to attend a Sept. 10 debate that he already agreed to when he thought was running against President Joe Biden. Trump is the one who had been ducking and dodging the debate before recently walking back his cowardly ultimatum that it be moderated by Fox News. (He still hasn’t really committed to it though.) Trump is the one who got up on the stage at NABJ and thought launching racist attacks on Harris’ ethnicity would serve as an alternative to answering the questions he was asked.
According to the Independent, “Harris and Walz are in fact touring several battleground states this week,” while Vance “is trailing his Democratic rivals with much smaller campaign events.” If all Vance has up his sleeve are lies about Harris not talking to the media and desperate attacks on Walz’s military record, well, he’s going to continue to have a rough go of it.
Yeah—good luck with all that.
SEE MORE:
Democratic Nominee Kamala Harris Picks Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz As VP Running Mate
‘White Dudes For Harris’ Is Being Called Racist By Racist Conservatives. Shut Up.
