Buttigieg: Walz ‘One Time ... Slipped Up’ on Saying He Carried Weapons in War

BASH: “Now, the Harris campaign says Walz misspoke when he said he carried weapons of war. You heard me mention that to the senator. You served in the military. You deployed to Afghanistan. Does Senator Vance have a point when he said that we should hear more from Governor Walz himself or even Vice President Harris to correct the record there?”
Buttigieg: “No, he doesn’t. And the fact that a veteran wants to go out and disparage another veteran just goes against certainly everything I learned as — during my time in service. Look, I think, in many ways, it’s the exception that proves the rule. If the only thing that they can find about Tim Walz to complain about is to disparage his military record that was clearly honorable — remember, you can retire at 20 years, Tim Walz served for 24 — and the fact that they have to go back to find a clip from 2018 to find the one time that he slipped up when he talks about the weapons of war that he carried and said something instead about carrying a weapon in war, it’s kind of an exception that proves the rule in terms of how hard you have to look to find Tim Walz saying anything that isn’t precise and accurate. But there’s something, I think, much bigger at play here, which is, I watched that interview and watched J.D. Vance present himself as suddenly very particular about precision in speech and very concerned about honesty. He’s running with Donald Trump, somebody who has set records for lying in public life. He just gave a press conference where fact-checkers estimate that he told 162 distortions or lies. That, frankly, is just impressive in terms of being able to physically do that. It’s like the Olympics of lying. So, maybe just because it’s Sunday morning, I can’t stop thinking about the Scripture that says, ‘How can you look at your brother and say, let me take the speck out of your eye when you have a plank in your own eye?’”