Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi excoriated Republicans for their attacks against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s military record, saying the broadsides amounted to a “bankruptcy of their ideas.”
“They don’t have anything to say so they make up things,” the California Democrat said Sunday.
Pelosi spoke to MSNBC’s Jen Psaki as Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance continued to accuse Walz — his Democratic competitor — of “stolen valor.” Walz enlisted two days after his 17th birthday and served for 24 years in the Army National Guard. He responded to floods and tornados and was deployed on active duty overseas before he retired in 2005 as he was considering running for Congress. He achieved one of the highest enlisted ranks but never saw combat, a fact he has acknowledged.
His unit later deployed to Iraq in 2006 after his retirement. Republicans have sought to characterize his departure as a dereliction of duty to avoid deployment, building on GOP attacks from several years ago, and pounced on Walz’s past statements that he carried “weapons of war.”
“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 claimed last week. The statement does not align with the actual timeline of events.
(Vance himself served in the Marine Corps for four years of active duty service and went to Iraq in a non-combat role for six months.)
Pelosi said Democrats should continue to hit back at the GOP attacks with force, pointing to the spate of mistruths leveled by Vance and Trump at recent rallies.
“They should just dismiss it because if people lie, as they are lying, and you hear the lie enough times, it sort of becomes some kind of accepted in their group,” Pelosi said. “And so you have to say ‘No, that didn’t happen.’”
“The reality has to be driven home,” she added. “I’m not one to let their misrepresentations persist.”