donald trumpthe running mate Sen. JD Vance he hit Kamala HarrisWednesday's vice presidential pick amid reports that Gov. Tim Walz had skipped being deployed to Iraq with the Minnesota National Guard.
Vance, who served with the US Marines in Iraq, said it was “disgraceful” that Walz would do this retired in 2005 as did his battalion he was preparing to go to war.
“I mean, your job as a discharge guy in a unit is to keep your people safe. It's not a job you can just quit at a moment's notice,” Vance told DailyMail.com during an exclusive onboard interview from his campaign plane, nicknamed Trump Force Two.
“So if he abandoned his troops before going to Iraq or wherever … absolutely shameful.”
Walz, the governor of Minnesotawas named by Harris as his running mate on Tuesday.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is accused of quitting his National Guard unit just before deploying to Iraq in 2005 to begin his political career.
He appeared alongside her at a campaign rally in Philadelphia later that day.
But reports quickly resurfaced of anger among his former brothers-in-arms accusing him of “betraying” their country just as they were preparing for deployment.
Retired Command Sergeant Major Thomas Behrends of the Minnesota National Guard accused Walz of “embellishing” his record and abandoning his unit when he left the Guard to run for Congress.
“In early 2005, a warning order was issued to the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, which included the position in which it was serving, to prepare to be mobilized to active duty for a deployment to Iraq,” he wrote on Facebook in 2018.
'On May 16, 2005 he resigned, betraying his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its soldiers hanging; without his senior non-commissioned officer, as the battalion was preparing for war.'
On Wednesday morning, Vance was en route to Michigan for a campaign event hours before Harris arrived at the same location.
He said his role was to remain “laser-focused” on examining his policy failures on immigration, energy and manufacturing.
But he added that he was surprised that the Harris campaign had not checked Walz's military record and accused him of lying to make a political point.
DailyMail.com travels with Trump's running mate JD Vance and his wife Usha aboard Trump Force Two
JD Vance spent six years in the US Marines, including six months deployed to Iraq
Vance added that he was surprised that the Harris campaign had not checked Walz's military record and accused him of lying to make a political point. Walz is pictured at right while serving in the US Army National Guard in 1992
“There was a clip that Kamala's campaign put out of him where he was making an argument about gun control,” Vance said. He said, Look, you shouldn't be able to carry the weapons that I carried in the war.
'And I'm, I'm thinking to myself, well, when did you go to war? What weapon did you take to war, Tim, because it looks like you jumped into your unit before they went to Iraq.
“I know he didn't go to a combat zone, so why is he lying to make a political point?”
Vance, who grew up in Ohio, is seen by the Trump campaign as the key to eating into the so-called “blue wall” of Democrats in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
On Wednesday, he will be first in Shelby Township, Michigan, and at 2 p.m. in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
The aim is to keep the pressure on Harris, who will arrive at both venues a few hours later.
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