Less than three months ahead of the 2024 presidential election and politicians are in full swing to criticize one another instead of arguing in favor of their own policies.
Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who was recently chosen by Vice President Kamala Harris to be her Democratic running mate, has faced scrutiny for comments he made about gun control and his military record.
The controversy surrounding this particular issue began last week, when the Democratic campaign published a video of Walz discussing the long-debated topic of gun control. In the clip, the governor said that it would be “common sense” to ban assault rifles. He added that these weapons should “only” be used as “weapons of war,” saying that he “carried [them] in war” himself.
In response, J.D. Vance—the Ohio senator selected to be Donald Trump’s running mate—questioned “when” his opponent was “ever in war,” suggesting he was making things up and sending the media into a tailspin of fact checks and further disagreement. Though a member of the Army National Guard for 24 years, Walz left the military in 2005 to enter into politics. He was deployed to Afghanistan but never entered combat.
The clip of him saying he was “in war” was from 2018 and has garnered a tremendous amount of backlash that he was belittling actual war veterans. During a recent interview, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Republicans “make things up” when asked about the controversy.
The California Democrat accused the GOP of their ideas falling into “bankruptcy,” suggesting they share false information when they do not have anything to say. She emphasized that Walz served in the National Guard, staying on a few extra years following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
But Pelosi failed to completely answer the question at hand, saying instead that Walz later retired and accusing Republicans of “trying to confuse things.” She also promoted the vice-presidential candidate’s accomplishments as a Democrat, who served on the Veterans Affairs Committee and working to accomplish “historic advances” for military members.
