After months of dragging her feet, Vice President Kamala Harris finally released her online policy platform regarding America’s veterans — and it’s as vague, disingenuous, and dishonest as you’d expect.
Included at the bottom of the new “Issues” tab on the Harris campaign’s website, the section offers very little substance on what policies a Harris-Walz administration would advance to better the lives of retired U.S. service members. Without explaining how, the Democrat presidential ticket pledges to “fight to end veteran homelessness, invest[] in mental health and suicide prevention efforts, and eliminat[e] barriers to employment and expand[] economic opportunity for military and veteran families.”
“A Harris-Walz administration will continue to ensure that service members, veterans and their families receive the benefits they have earned,” the section reads.
While the lack of policy specifics isn’t surprising given Harris and Walz’s efforts to avoid questioning about their extreme left-wing agenda, the campaign’s dishonest attempt to paint a rosy picture of the two Democrats’ track record on military issues is the most damning.
“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe we have a sacred obligation to care for our nation’s service members, veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors,” the campaign boasts.
If that’s true, then why wasn’t Harris present at the recent ceremony honoring the 13 service members killed in Afghanistan during her and Joe Biden’s botched 2021 withdrawal? Better yet, why hasn’t she or Biden bothered to contact these Gold Star families to offer condolences or apologize for the administration’s incompetence that got their loved ones killed? After all, Harris herself claimed, as Politico described, that she was the “last person in the room” when Biden made the decision to pull out of Afghanistan.
Rather than make efforts to aid and comfort these families, Harris and her campaign have done nothing but spread gross lies about Trump, who in contrast to the sitting vice president, has regularly met with and consoled these families.
The latest incident came weeks ago when Trump attended the aforementioned wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the 13 heroes who died in Kabul. With help from regime-approved media, Democrats attempted to manufacture a controversy that Trump — who was invited by the Gold Star families and had permission to photograph the occasion — disrespected the buried fallen by having his team record video at the cemetery.
Harris quickly amplified the baseless narrative and issued a lie-filled post on X, in which she claimed Trump “disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt.” Several of the Gold Star families who attended the ceremony with Trump posted videos in response, blasting the vice president for politicizing the commemoration and the Biden-Harris administration for its disastrous withdrawal.
“Why won’t you return a call and explain to us how you call my daughter-in-law’s death a success? Vice President Harris, why will you not express your condolences yourself? Why have we never heard from you? And finally, why would you take a day where we celebrated the death of our loved one and use it to disparage not only them but us?” asked Christy Shamblin, mother-in-law to Sergeant Nicole Gee.
Deceiving voters into thinking Trump loathes America’s military personnel is also a feature of Harris’ “veterans” platform. Also included in her aforementioned tweet, the campaign site repeats the debunked lie that Trump referred to deceased U.S. service members as “suckers” and “losers.”
Numerous former Trump administration officials have publicly refuted the anonymous allegations published by The Atlantic. Even left-wing “fact-checkers” like Snopes have admitted “there appeared to be no evidence of an audio or video recording of the remarks in question, nor was there any documentation, such as transcripts or presidential notes, to independently confirm or deny the alleged quotes’ authenticity.”
The campaign’s “veterans” section puts the cherry on top by playing word games with Walz’s military service, claiming he “served as a command sergeant major” in the Army National Guard. While it’s true Walz was promoted to command sergeant major toward the end of his service, he did not complete the minimum number of years required to retain the rank when he left his unit before it deployed to Iraq.
The Minnesota governor has regularly lied about his military record, which he blamed on bad grammar during he and Harris’ recent interview with CNN.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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