Woman Who Stole Nomination Picks Man Who Stole Valor As Running Mate

It’s been just about 48 hours since Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz would be her running mate. And in that time, it’s already become clear how Walz has enjoyed such a successful political career in Minnesota. It’s not because he’s achieved anything notable for people living in the state, aside from making major cities far more dangerous. It’s not because he’s particularly charismatic or intelligent or compelling to listen to. Walz is none of those things.

Tim Walz is the governor of Minnesota because the local media, under orders from the state’s political machine, protected him for nearly two decades. They created a false persona — Tim Walz the war hero-turned-folksy teacher — and shut down any attempt to scrutinize his background. Specifically, the media buried evidence that Walz is a fraudster who has repeatedly and openly lied about his military service — maybe the one moral infraction Americans still universally condemn, regardless of party.

But Walz is on the national stage now, which means he’s receiving a lot more scrutiny from people who actually care about the truth. And it doesn’t appear that Walz’s allies — or Kamala Harris’ campaign — were remotely ready for this scrutiny, because with each passing day, they’re inadvertently providing even more evidence that Walz is guilty of stolen valor.

For instance, this is a video that Kamala Harris’ official campaign account uploaded on social media the other day. It shows Walz speaking about his opposition to gun rights:

Gov. @Tim_Walz: I spent 25 years in the Army and I hunt. I’ve been voting for common sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. We can research the impacts of gun violence. We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war,… pic.twitter.com/3IVaXi2RP2

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 6, 2024

The fact that this video was uploaded by Kamala Harris’ team tells you the extent of their “vetting” and their competence. They just uploaded footage of their VP lying about his military service, apparently without even realizing it.

In that clip Walz says he carried “weapons of war” while he was serving “in war.” But Walz never gets around to saying what war he was serving in, because there wasn’t one. He deployed to Italy with the Minnesota National Guard. And this was long after World War II ended, so Italy wasn’t a combat zone at the time he was there. There was no war in Italy. Therefore he never carried a weapon of war “in war.” He’s lying — pretty flagrantly — about his military service.

WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show

Walz’s defenders will try to parse what he said very carefully, and suggest he was really referring to the Global War on Terror. And they’ll suggest Walz carried rifles as part of that effort — maybe in training, or maybe while he was at some guard post at an airfield somewhere — so therefore, his statement is technically accurate. This is obviously a very strained attempt to change the clear meaning and implication of what Walz said. There is no reasonable person who would say he was carrying a weapon “in war” if he was sitting around in a non-combat post in Italy. 

Walz and his defenders have specifically gone to great lengths to associate him with Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, in a way that’s as misleading as possible. Alpha News reports that on his gubernatorial campaign website in 2018, Walz’s biography stated: “He joined his battalion overseas in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.” That’s somewhat close to the truth, but it’s deliberately misleading because it doesn’t clarify exactly where exactly Walz was stationed. 

Even more egregious, the Washington Free Beacon reports that in 2006, Walz’s campaign announcement described himself as a “Veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom.” And during the 2004 presidential race, Walz also held a sign that read, “Operation Enduring Freedom Veterans for Kerry.” It was purposefully misleading. It was all clearly designed to create the impression Walz had served in a combat role in Afghanistan.

Tim Walz held a sign in 2004 falsely identifying himself as an Operation “Enduring Freedom veteran,” even though he never served in Afghanistan. https://t.co/e4wRUWS08N pic.twitter.com/egUG45GtNx

— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) August 8, 2024

But Walz kept saying it. Also in 2004, as Jordan Schachtel reported yesterday on his Substack, the Bloomberg reporter Joshua Green — who was then employed by The Atlantic — repeated the lie. Green wrote that Walz had left his hometown, “to serve overseas in Operation Enduring Freedom.” 

At points, the implication was even more explicit. In The Atlantic profile, Green states that Walz was a “command sergeant major who’d just returned from fighting the war on terrorism.” This alleged service, Green says, is why Walz was chosen by Democrat Party elites for a career in politics. Green writes that these operatives were looking for, “veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” when they stumbled on Walz.

It’s obvious that Walz fed lies to this reporter and to the public, going back two decades, in order to portray himself as a war hero. But he was no war hero. He was a coward who abandoned his own National Guard unit. The moment he learned his battalion was going to Iraq, while his congressional run was underway, Walz quit. 

In a March 2005 press release, Walz claimed: “I don’t want to speculate on what shape my campaign will take if I am deployed, but I have no plans to drop out of the race.” He said his wife will be a major part of his campaign “whether I am in Minnesota or Iraq.” Walz’s press release concluded: “If called to duty, Walz would leave behind his wife Gwen and four year old daughter Hope.”

But Walz avoided that situation by quitting. Walz was a Command Sergeant Major at the time he quit. That’s a rank he accepted, knowing it came with responsibilities. But Walz didn’t meet those responsibilities, so he was demoted after he left the military. But Walz kept on referring to himself as a command sergeant major anyway, which is yet another instance of stolen valor. It’s like someone who wears a Ranger tab because they were selected for Ranger school and then failed. It’s a lie.

As Just the News reports: 

The Minnesota National Guard confirmed Wednesday that Gov. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate, was demoted and did not retire as a command sergeant major like he has claimed for years, including on his official gubernatorial biography. While Walz temporarily held the title of command sergeant major he ‘retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,’ Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News.

Separately, Alpha News spoke to Tom Behrends, the actual retired command sergeant major who replaced Walz. Here’s his assessment of Walz’ cowardice and deception:

There are a lot of people who served in Walz’s same National Guard unit who feel the same way. JR Salzman for example tweeted this picture, along with the caption: “Here I am on our Iraq deployment with the Minnesota Army National Guard, the very same deployment @Tim_Walz bailed on.”

Here I am on our Iraq deployment with the Minnesota Army National Guard, the very same deployment @Tim_Walz bailed on. https://t.co/FNEhq3FHFM pic.twitter.com/unfNptN2Oi

— J.R. Salzman (@jrsalzman) August 7, 2024

Salzman added: “I served in the Minnesota National Guard with him. He literally abandoned us when we were about to be deployed to Iraq. He’s a coward and should be treated as such.”

What’s remarkable about Walz’s lies is that he does it so often that his own allies are the ones outing him, albeit inadvertently. For example, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy just uploaded this photo of Walz and Josh Shapiro.

Can confirm. https://t.co/C22rIzkn7m pic.twitter.com/5TjLdAfvNV

— Phil Murphy (@PhilMurphy) August 6, 2024

The intent was to show that they get along. But Walz’s hat stuck out to a lot of veterans because it shows the Special Forces crest. It’s a hat that Walz wears a lot, even though he was never in the special forces:

Hey @Tim_Walz, this you? Do you often wear our crest even though you were only National Guard with zero deployments, never went through SFAS or the Q course, and by all accounts never even worked with Special Forces?

Stolen valor much? pic.twitter.com/5Jw0ebCk7I

— Green Beret Nap Time (@GBNT1952) August 7, 2024

By itself, you might argue this isn’t a big deal. But if you put it together with all of the lies Walz has told about his military record, it starts to paint a picture of a narcissist who enjoys portraying himself as an accomplished veteran, when he’s really a coward who’s hated by the people he served with and later abandoned.

At this point you have to wonder whether Americans will tolerate this for much longer. It’s truly a test of how low the bar is in the Democrat Party, if they keep Tim Walz on as their nominee. And from what we’re hearing, this is just the beginning. More and more examples of Walz’s stolen valor will come out. And it’s pretty ironic given that, when he was in Congress, Walz voted “yes” on the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it illegal to falsely claim military service to obtain some benefit. In other words Tim Walz may have violated the very law he passed against stolen valor.

In 2009, an Iraq War veteran named David Thul confronted Tim Walz’s staff about this. He brought the photo of Walz identifying as a “Operation Enduring Freedom” veteran. And the staffer admits that Walz had tricked some people into thinking he served in Afghanistan. Watch:

The staffer acknowledges that people were being misled about Walz’s biography, but apparently no one in Walz’s office changed it. And according to the Free Beacon, the staff took no action to correct Walz’s bio after this confrontation. It’s an incredible video.

At the moment there appears to be some creeping realization in the Harris campaign about how bad all of this is. Yesterday Walz was asked about his military record and he quickly ran away:

REPORTER: Your response to allegation of stolen valor?

WALZ: *ignores*

REPORTER: Your response to allegation of stolen valor!?

WALZ: *runs away* pic.twitter.com/el3sPGDYuM

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 7, 2024

So Walz’s strategy is the same as Harris’ — he’ll just avoid answering any questions. He’ll count on the media to cover for him, as they did for 20 years in Minnesota. But there are signs that strategy may not work anymore. Even CNN is now pointing out Walz’s history of fraud. Watch:

CNN: "[Tim] Walz did make a comment…he’s done it a couple times, where he has used language that has suggested that he carried weapons in a fighting situation…There is no evidence that any time that Gov. Walz was in the position of being shot at and some of his language could… pic.twitter.com/f3W6D3ZsIX

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) August 7, 2024

There was some opposition research on Josh Shapiro that surfaced over the past week or so. He may have covered up a homicide by ruling it a suicide in order to help a friend. That was one allegation. Oh, and he may have swept a sexual harassment claim under the rug too. That was another one.

The truth is that, in the modern political landscape, none of those alleged sins is really disqualifying. Josh Shapiro could have survived them. But there are very real questions about whether Tim Walz can survive this. Stolen valor is the one moral infraction that no one tolerates. It repulses all reasonable people at a fundamental level. And somehow, Tim Walz survived Kamala Harris’ supposedly rigorous vetting process despite lying repeatedly about his military record.

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI

As damning as this is for Tim Walz, it’s also a massive indictment of Kamala Harris. Picking Tim Walz to be her vice president was the first major decision that Kamala Harris has made since stealing the nomination. And, left to her own devices, she immediately flopped on her face. For all of her campaign’s contrived attacks on Donald Trump for supposedly malingering the military, Kamala Harris has managed to pick a running mate who, by his own actions, demonstrated very clearly that he thinks military service members are suckers. He’ll leave them behind in an instant, and then he’ll lie about it for decades.

If nothing else, the selection of Tim Walz is a pretty clear preview of the level of absolute incompetence a Kamala Harris administration would entail. She could have chosen the governor of Pennsylvania but instead, she went with a Leftist who abandoned his own National Guard unit and then repeatedly lied about it. No matter how many celebrities line up behind Kamala Harris, and no matter how long she hides from the press, the truth about Tim Walz will be impossible to deny. He will continue to drag her campaign down even further with each new revelation of his stolen valor. And by Election Day, millions more people will have come to a basic and obvious realization — which is that a woman who can’t even manage her campaign is not capable of running the country.