Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) clapped back at those attacking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s military record, stating it is a “sign of the bankruptcy” of critics’ ideas.
Walz’s 24 years in the Army National Guard came under intense scrutiny from Republicans last week, specifically over whether the Minnesota governor misrepresented his time in the service.
In an interview that aired Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” Pelosi said, “First of all, it’s a sign of the bankruptcy of their ideas. They don’t have anything to say, so they make up things.”
“So first of all, he was in the National Guard 20 years, he thought he’d stay 20 years. But then 9/11 happened, so he signed up for four more years. He retired from that to run for Congress months before his unit was assigned to being deployed,” she added. “So it was after he left, so they’re just trying to confuse things.”
Some GOP critics, notably including Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance (R-Ohio), suggested last week that Walz was inflating his credentials and that he abandoned his unit ahead of its deployment to Iraq to avoid serving in a war zone.
“When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him,” Vance, himself a Marine Corps veteran, said last week.
Vance was deployed to Iraq but never saw combat.
“[Walz] came to Congress and was respected by our colleagues, elected to be the top Democrat on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, where he, and working with Chet Edwards on the Appropriations Committee and on the Authorizing Committee … made historic advances for veterans, meeting their needs, more than had been done since the GI Bill during World War II,” Pelosi said.
Several Democrats have pushed back on Vance’s accusation, stressing Walz left the service to run for the U.S. House in May 2005 before a deployment order was given to his unit in August of that year.
One man who served under Walz backed up that claim, telling NewsNation’s Joe Khalil that Walz suspected he might be deployed soon but had been given no such official order at the time of his retirement.
Other GOP critics, including Rep. Jim Banks (Ind.), chair of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, questioned whether Walz was embellishing his military record, accusing him of stolen valor — wearing or claiming to have received unearned military awards or ranks.
“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,” the Harris-Walz campaign said in a statement, as reported by NBC News last week.
The campaign also updated its online biography of Walz’s military service, noting on its website that he once served at the command sergeant major rank. The change, first reported by Politico, is a small shift from its earlier reference to the vice presidential nominee as a “retired command sergeant major.”
The website for Walz’s gubernatorial office in Minnesota still describes him as “Command Sergeant Major Walz.”
Walz did serve as a command sergeant major while in the military, but he retired one step down as a master sergeant, as he had not completed required coursework for the higher rank.
The National Guard in the past has said Walz served as a command sergeant major while in the guard.
Pelosi argued the Harris-Walz campaign should “just dismiss” the allegations.
“Yeah, they should just dismiss it, because if people lie, as they are lying, and you hear the lie enough times, it sort of becomes … kind of accepted in their group,” she said. “And so, you have to say, ‘No, that didn’t happen.'”
“So the reality has to be driven home. I’m not one to let their misrepresentations persist,” Pelosi added, calling Walz a “consistent, patriotic, courageous American.”
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.
Ellen Mitchell contributed reporting.