Tim Walz blamed his “grammar” for falsely claiming to carry “weapons of war in war” in his first interview as vice presidential candidate Thursday —and side-stepped questions about lies over his DUI and why he said his children were conceived by IVF.
The Democratic candidate has come under scrutiny for a series of statements from his past which appeared to exaggerate his service record in the National Guard and for his 2006 campaign for Congress, when his spokespeople tried to deny he had been drunk when convicted of a DUI.
In his joint CNN interview with Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday, he gave a lengthy answer when asked by the network’s Dana Bash about a claim in 2018 that he carried guns “in war” despite never having been in combat—but never apologized for the claim, which Republicans including his rival JD Vance have called “stolen valor.”
“A campaign official said that you misspoke. Did you?” the CNN anchor asked.
“First of all, I‘m incredibly proud to have done 24 years of wearing the uniform of this country,” replied Walz, who deployed to Italy in 2003 during the Afghanistan War and didn’t see combat.