CNN's Brianna Keilar has walked back her defamatory attacks on Senator JD Vance (R-OH) after claiming that he embellished his military service.
Leftists are attacking Vance over his service record after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris's running mate, was exposed for stolen valor and embellishing his service record with the National Guard.
Keilar implied that Vance had also lied about his record by calling him the “imperfect messenger” in his attacks on Walz.
During a segment of CNN’s “Inside Politics," Keilar argued that Vance was misleading Americans saying, "But when you dig a little deeper into that, he was a public affairs specialist, someone who did not see combat, which certainly the title ‘combat correspondent’ kind of gives you a different impression. So he may be the imperfect messenger on that."
This attack immediately incited massive backlash both from Vance's camp as well as the entire Combat correspondent community which has thousands of active and veteran members.
The accusations against Walz revolve around claims that he inflated his rank in retirement and claiming that he carried a weapon in war, implying that he saw combat.
Walz has advertised himself as a “retired command sergeant major” when in reality he only served as one and retired a master sergeant because he failed to complete the requirements to retire as a command sergeant major.
But he still claimed that rank until he was picked as Harris's Vice President and Republicans began to point out that he lied.
The Harris campaign has since scrubbed Walz's record while there has been no apology from Walz for claiming a rank he had no right to claim. He has used that claim for years to advance his political career and veterans can't even get an apology from Walz.
Furthermore, Walz did not carry a weapon in war as he never deployed into a combat zone. Vance blasted Walz saying, "He has not spent a day in a combat zone. I'd be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did."
Vance didn't hold back saying, "When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, do you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him — a fact that he’s been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with."
Democrats could not have asked for a worse matchup between Vance and Walz. Vance is himself a veteran who did deploy to Iraq although he doesn't appear to have entered combat and more importantly hasn't claimed to carry a weapon in war like Walz has.
However, Vance did his deployment to Iraq and so far there is no information coming out about him serving in any way but an honorable way. Meanwhile, Walz is actively dodging allegations of stolen valor which is actually considered a crime.
The Stolen Valor Act of 2005 makes it a misdemeanor to falsely claim military service, rank, recognition, or even someone else's identity. Walz has falsely claimed rank and recognition in advancing his political career.
