GOP military veteran lawmakers accuse Walz of lying about his military service
A group of 50 Republicans in Congress who have served in the armed forces have signed a letter accusing the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, the Minnesota governor Tim Walz, of lying about his time in the Army National Guard.
The letter, shared with Politico, accuses Walz of “egregious misrepresentations” of his military service and calls on him to “come clean”. It is signed by members of the House and Senate across the spectrum of Republicans, including allies of Donald Trump and more moderate members.
The letter states:
You have stated that you are “damn proud” of your service, and like any American veteran, you should be. But there is no honor in lying about the nature of your service.
“You have violated the trust of our brothers and sisters in arms,” the letter continues.
Their blood, sweat, and sacrifice are the only reason our nation is able to exist. Until you admit you lied to them, there is no way you can be trusted to serve as Vice President.
A spokesperson for Walz responded by pointing to a recent statement signed by Democratic military veteran members of Congress defending Walz from attacks on his record, as well as an open letter of support featuring signatures of 1,000 military veterans.
Key events
Andrew Roth
The former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and other Democratic heavy-hitters flocked to a breakfast of Michigan delegates on Wednesday as they try to build enthusiasm in a key battleground state with polls close to a dead heat.
The Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and the senator Gary Peters also attended the breakfast, which was meant to recognize the congressman Dan Kildee and the senator Debbie Stabenow, who are not running again.
But attention was focused on races up and down the ticket in Michigan, as part of a larger strategy of protecting a blue wall of states for the presidency and in both the house and the senate. Pelosi, who remains one of the Democratic party’s most influential operatives, said:
We fully intend to hold the house and to win you cannot add by subtracting. You cannot add by subtracting. So we have to win. All the seats that we have were very important.
Jeffries called Michigan a “critical state in the battle for our future”/
Polling data shows Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate, has had a smoother launch as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate than JD Vance for Donald Trump.
About one-third of American adults, or 36%, have a favorable view of Walz, compared with about one-quarter (27%) who have a positive opinion of Vance, according to a survey by the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research.
Significantly more adults also have an unfavorable view of Vance than Walz, 44% to 25%, the poll shows.
The US job market appears weaker than first thought, according to official figures released on Wednesday.
The US created 818,000 fewer jobs than first calculated in the twelve month to the end of March, a 0.5% decrease, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ quarterly census of employment and wages.
The news comes as the Federal Reserve weighs a cut in its benchmark interest rate, the first since March 2020. The chair of the Fed, Jerome Powell, has signaled that the central bank is now leaning towards cutting rates after raising them to tamp down inflation. Powell will give an update on his views this Friday at the central bank’s annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
The news also comes in an election season when the economy is the top priority for voters. The outgoing president, Joe Biden, has received low marks from voters for his handling of the economy despite a remarkable recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. While inflation is fading, voters remain unhappy about prices.
Some 16m jobs have been created since Biden took office and average unemployment has remained lower than during any administration in 50 years.
Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee and Minnesota governor, has also faced accusations from his opponent, the Republican Ohio senator JD Vance, of lying about his family’s experience with in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Walz has repeatedly spoken about his struggle to have children with his wife, Gwen, while on the campaign trail and characterized the issue of IVF access as “personal” to him and his family. Walz told supporters at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, earlier this month:
This one’s personal for me about IVF and reproductive care. When we wanted to have children, we went through years of fertility treatment.
But on Tuesday, Gwen Walz issued a statement clarifying that she and her husband went through a different process known as intrauterine insemination, or IUI, to conceive their daughter, Hope. IUI is often attempted before IVF but does not face the same level of political controversy because it does not risk destroying unused embryos, according to AP.
Gwen Walz said that a neighbor, who was a nurse, helped administer “the shots I needed as part of the IUI process”, adding:
Our fertility journey was an incredibly personal and difficult experience. Like so many who have experienced these challenges, we kept it largely to ourselves at the time.
Since being named as Kamala Harris’s running mate, Walz’s 24-year record in the Army National Guard has become a target of attack from Republicans.
His Republican opponent, the Ohio senator JD Vance, has accused Walz of leaving the service in 2005 as a means of avoiding deployment to Iraq. Walz chose to leave the Guard in 2005 to run for Congress, and there is no evidence to suggest he retired to avoid wartime deployment.
Neither Walz nor Vance, who served in the Marine Corps for four years, have combat experience.
In 2018 during a gubernatorial campaign, Walz said “we can make sure those weapons of war that I carried in war” are not on America’s streets. A spokesperson acknowledged recently that he “misspoke”.
GOP military veteran lawmakers accuse Walz of lying about his military service
A group of 50 Republicans in Congress who have served in the armed forces have signed a letter accusing the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, the Minnesota governor Tim Walz, of lying about his time in the Army National Guard.
The letter, shared with Politico, accuses Walz of “egregious misrepresentations” of his military service and calls on him to “come clean”. It is signed by members of the House and Senate across the spectrum of Republicans, including allies of Donald Trump and more moderate members.
The letter states:
You have stated that you are “damn proud” of your service, and like any American veteran, you should be. But there is no honor in lying about the nature of your service.
“You have violated the trust of our brothers and sisters in arms,” the letter continues.
Their blood, sweat, and sacrifice are the only reason our nation is able to exist. Until you admit you lied to them, there is no way you can be trusted to serve as Vice President.
A spokesperson for Walz responded by pointing to a recent statement signed by Democratic military veteran members of Congress defending Walz from attacks on his record, as well as an open letter of support featuring signatures of 1,000 military veterans.
The Harris campaign said about 15,000 people attended the rally at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on Tuesday night to hear Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, in battleground Wisconsin.
More than half of Americans who are in generation Z say they have “very little” trust in the presidency, according to a new poll.
The Gallup-Walton Family Foundation survey published today shows 53% of voting-age members of generation Z – which it defines as those under the age of 28 – said they have “very little” trust in Congress, 51% said the same about the presidency, and 44% of the supreme court.
The survey was conducted in April and May, before Kamala Harris announced her candidacy and pledged to earn the votes of young people in this election.
Sam Levin
Tuesday night featured the ceremonial roll call when delegates from each state announce their support for the nominees. This portion of the event was led by the Grammy-nominated DJ Cassidy and had party vibes as each state had its own song.
Celebrities made surprise appearances – the film-maker Spike Lee with the New York delegation; the rapper Lil Jon with Georgia; the Stranger Things actor Sean Astin with Indiana; and the actor Wendell Pierce with Louisiana.
Lil Jon sang a spin on his hit Get Low, saying, “VP Harris … Governor Walz” to the tune of the “To the window … to the wall.”
Sam Levin
The Democratic national convention on Tuesday featured former Republicans, including a former Trump aide, as the party works to appeal to beyond their core voters.
The DNC brought out Stephanie Grisham, Donald Trump’s former press secretary, to offer a first-hand account of the Republican nominee’s character. Grisham, a Republican operative who also served as spokesperson for former first lady Melania Trump, said Donald Trump “has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth”.
Before Grisham, Kyle Sweetser, an Alabama voter, told the convention crowd he previously voted for Trump and donated to his campaign, but was now supporting Harris:
I’m not leftwing, period. But I believe our leaders should bring out the best in us, not the worst. That’s why I’m voting for Kamala Harris.
John Giles, mayor of Mesa, Arizona, said:
I have a confession to make. I’m a lifelong Republican. But I feel more at home here than in today’s Republican party.
Sam Levin
Michelle Obama, the former first lady, had one of the most energetic receptions of the night at the Democratic national convention on Tuesday.
She reflected on how the Republican nominee had attacked her family:
For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking and highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black.
She offered heartfelt praise for the vice-president, praising the “steel of her spine, the steadiness of her upbringing, the honesty of her example, and yes, the joy of her laughter and her light”. Obama said:
Kamala has shown her allegiance to this nation, not by spewing anger and bitterness, but by living a life of service and always pushing the doors of opportunity open to others. She understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.
The former first lady described “a deep pit in my stomach, a palpable sense of dread about the future”. But she got a standing ovation when she said: “America, hope is making a comeback.”
Sam Levin
Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, detailed an extensive progressive agenda that he said Democrats must enact if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz take the White House.
Sanders mentioned Harris’s name only a handful of times and instead focused his forceful speech on the need to expand healthcare access, reduce the cost of higher education and raise the minimum wage.
In a nod to big money that has targeted progressives in primaries, Sanders said:
Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections.
He also earned cheers when he said:
We must end this horrific war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and demand an immediate ceasefire.
A group of uncommitted delegates earlier in the night told reporters that they still hadn’t heard back from the Democratic convention on their demand to have a Palestinian American leader speak on stage.
David Smith
Amid chants of “Yes, she can!”, Barack Obama returned to the scene of past triumphs on Tuesday to pass the mantle of political history to Kamala Harris – and eviscerate her opponent Donald Trump.
The former president delivered the closing speech on night two of the Democratic national convention in his home city of Chicago. Obama prompted raucous cheers as he delivered a withering critique of Trump, who succeeded him in the White House in 2017.
It was another night crackling with energy in the packed arena as the US’s first Black president made the case for the nation to elect the first woman and first woman of colour to the Oval Office.
Obama was speaking 20 years after he first exploded on to the political stage at the Democratic convention in Boston. That summer, Harris helped host a fundraiser for Obama’s run for the Senate in Illinois. Four years later, she backed him against Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary, a campaign in which he coined the phrase “Yes, we can!”
The same chant greeted Obama when he took the stage in Chicago just after 10pm ET on Thursday and embraced his wife, Michelle. But halfway through his speech, Obama broke from his teleprompter remarks to ad lib: “Yes, she can!” The crowd instinctively chanted, “Yes, she can!” in response.