‘I Wish You Would Interview Him!’ Republican Congressman And Brianna Keilar Throw Down Over Tim Walz’s Military Record
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) and CNN’s Brianna Keilar threw down over Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s military record during a fiery segment on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, a group of 50 Republican veterans serving in Congress released a letter addressed to Walz excoriating him for certain misrepresentations about his service, as well as for retiring from the National Guard just before his unit was sent to Iraq.
On CNN, Keilar raised the subject by asserting that the letter attacked “Tim Walz’s military service” before asking Waltz “Why are you doing that?”
“No, I disagree,” replied Waltz. “I’m sorry, Brianna –”
“You were attacking — well, I read the letter — so then, OK, you are attacking his representation of –” interjected Keilar before being cut off herself.
“I am attacking the lies about his service,” submitted Waltz.
“Let me say what’s in the letter,” said Keilar. “The comment about the gun, the weapon of war that he obviously didn’t carry into war, and he should answer a question about that. And how he represented his retired rank, which was obviously different than what he was promoted to and what he retained after retirement. But also that issue of whether he abandoned his unit for a deployment to Iraq and did not go.”
The host then proceeded to play a clip of Joe Eustice, a veteran who served with Walz, defending his record despite his disagreements with Walz on politics.
“I mean that man hates Tim Walz’s politics, despises them, is not going to vote for him. But he served with him and he knows his service. So why are you and other Republicans doing this?” asked Keilar.
Here’s how the conversation unfolded from there:
WALTZ: Well, I want to be clear and correct your characterization. I’m not attacking his service. I served in the National Guard for 22 after, out of my 27 years. And I know plenty of guardsmen and reservists who served — maybe they went to combat, maybe they didn’t, they retired at a certain rank — good on them, and I celebrate them. He said he’s proud of that service. If he’s so damn proud about it, why does he have to continue to embellish it and to lie about it? Because the facts are clear. He was promoted to sergeant major, but he didn’t do the things necessary to retire at that rank and was demoted. And yet there is ample — hundreds, hundreds of incidences where he is describing himself as a retired command sergeant major. That may sound like semantics to some, but to veterans and particularly enlisted veterans, that matters. It’s a lie, it’s a misrepresentation and exaggeration, and he should account for that. I can tell you as —
KEILAR: It’s not stolen — it’s not stolen valor. I just want to be clear, and the letter, I’m reading this, I’m reading this, Mike and quote “abandoning the men and women under your leadership, just as they were getting ready to deploy, was certainly not honorable either.” That is an attack on his service.
WALTZ: That is attack on the decision to not go to combat with his unit as a leader. I was a commander of a unit, I had personal and other issues that I would have rather dealt with, but as a commander and particularly as a command sergeant major. And by the way, you know, I’ve never seen a National Guard unit not know at least a year in advance. And his commander and his replacement have both said on national television that he knew. Yet he made a decision to not lead those men and women down range to combat —
KEILAR: And Joe Eustice said he didn’t. He said there were rumors —
WALTZ: He should have to account for that decision, and yet —
KEILAR: Joe Eustice, and you know this as well as a guard, as a guard, a former guard member. There often, you have a sense that you may be deploying. You don’t always know necessarily where that is going to be. There’s always, frequently, something on the horizon. As Joe Eustice pointed out, he has five sons in the Guard right now, all of them rumored to be heading somewhere. I think it may have been reasonable to assume it might be Iraq, but he also put in his, you know, he declared for his candidacy before you saw those orders come out. I mean, what do you say to that? Because I know you’re you’re holding up what some guardsmen who served with him said, but you have others and ones who were not passed over for promotion, ones who in this case of Joe Eustice, someone who does not like his politics, but says he was a good soldier.
WALTZ: Brianna, you know, rather than defending these decisions, I wish you would interview him and ask him those questions, or that he would at least sit down and answer for these inconsistencies. The other thing we say in the letter is repeatedly he was described in front of him, introduced at events, described in articles, as a combat veteran and he did nothing to correct it. And he still today is doing nothing to correct it. So he clearly implied and allow others to describe himself as a combat veteran, and he clearly exaggerated his service, which he shouldn’t have done for political gain. That is unacceptable to the veterans community. It’s an insult to those who did what it took to be a command sergeant major and retire. For example, you don’t get to go take some classes at Yale and then leave and say, “I graduated from Yale.” There’s a clear distinction that he made that he shouldn’t have made. And that goes to both his judgment and Harris’s judgment when he’s going to be a heartbeat away as commander-in-chief and likely the only person with any military experience in the room.
KEILAR: Yeah, look, he has some questions to answer for —
WALTZ: I wish —
KEILAR: I don’t know if it’s worth burning down 24 years of service.
WALTZ: I wish he would sit down instead of me or JD Vance and answer those questions. The American people deserve it, the veterans community certainly deserve it.
Notably, Keilar went out of her way to defend Walz’s record while erroneously minimizing Vance’s service with the Marines Corps in Iraq earlier this month.
Watch above via CNN.
