CNN political analyst Van Jones said Wednesday on “Anderson Cooper 360” that Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) may have been “loose with his language” on his military service.
Former deputy communications director for Trump’s 2016 campaign Bryan Lanza said, “His record is fair for criticism. He’s leaning very much into it, but listen, it brings a lot of issues. I’ll tell you why. There’s a photo of him, a 2004 photo of him, where he refers to himself as an Enduring Freedom veteran for Kerry. The problem is the military, the Department of Defense does not qualify him as someone who is a recipient of an Enduring Freedom title. So either he misrepresented himself to run for office or the correction is now. He can’t have it both ways. He can’t claim he served in combat and then 20 years later say, ‘Oh it’s just no big deal.’ It goes to character. And that’s a problem for the campaign. The fact that we’re talking about it and more and more people are talking about it, it’s not what Kamala Harris wants to be talking about.”
Jones said, “They should clean it up. It’s conceivable that he’s been loose with his language or said stuff.”
He added, “People are human beings on these campaign trails but now he’s running for a major position. If he needs to clean it up, clean it up. The reality is if he said one or two things that turned out to be maybe a little bit sloppy, fix it. Because he’s got a gazillion people willing to stand up for his character. He’s got gay students who are willing to stand up for his character. He’s got people he served with who are willing to stand up for his character. If this comes down to a character contest between this ticket and Donald Trump, we’re going to win 50 states. Let’s just get this cleaned up and move on.”
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