Pete Buttigieg's Response to JD Vance Criticism of Tim Walz Goes Viral

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg's response to Ohio Senator JD Vance's criticism of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's military service has gone viral on social media on Sunday.

Amid this year's presidential election, military service has been a hot topic between the Republican and Democratic campaigns this past week, as Vance, Donald Trump's running mate, fiercely criticized Walz, Kamala Harris' running mate, claiming that he was lying about his military record after comments made by Walz in 2018 about being in combat resurfaced.

Although the governor, who previously served 24 years in the Army National Guard, never went to war, Walz, who was speaking about gun control in the resurfaced 2018 clip said, "We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at."

Walz has previously acknowledged that he never saw combat in the National Guard. Speaking to MPR News in 2018, he said: "I know that there are certainly folks that did far more than I did. I know that. I willingly say that I got far more out of the military than they got out of me."

In response to the resurfaced comments, the Harris-Walz campaign, said the Minnesota governor "misspoke" at the time.

Vance, who served in the Marine Corps for four years, also never saw combat. He worked as a combat correspondent in Iraq between August 2005 and February 2006. However, Vance has continued to double down on his remarks of Walz on CNN on Sunday and said, "This is the problem. I don't criticize anybody. Whether they served in our country or not. I think it's honorable to serve, but obviously a lot of people have reasons for not serving. I criticized somebody for embellishing their record, for lying saying 'I went to war.'"

In an interview with CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Buttigieg, a Democrat who also served in Afghanistan as an officer with the U.S. Navy, responded to Vance's CNN remarks.

"The fact that a veteran wants to go out and disparage another veteran goes against certainly everything I learned during my time in service. I think in many ways it is the exception that proves the rule. The only thing that they could find about Tim Walz to complain about is to disparage his military record, that is clearly honorable," Buttigieg said.

He added: "There's something much bigger at play here. I watched JD Vance present himself as suddenly very particular about precision in speech and honesty. He's running with Donald Trump, somebody who has set records for lying in public life," pointing out Trump's recent press conference at Mar-a-Lago that saw him make many statements that were later fact-checked.

Newsweek has reached out to Vance's campaign spokesperson, Harris-Walz campaign and Trump's campaign via email for comment.

Video of Buttigieg's response has made its way to X, formerly Twitter, with one clip posted by journalist Aaron Rupar having over 315,000 views as of Sunday afternoon.

In addition, Buttigieg took to X to reiterate his stance against Vance's criticisms.

"JD Vance is terribly concerned about precision in speech and honesty in politics. Also, he wants you to vote for Donald Trump," he wrote in his X post, which has over 500,000 views as of Sunday afternoon.

This comes after Vance was confronted by CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday about Trump avoiding military service in the Vietnam War.

In a pre-recorded interview released on State of the Union on Sunday morning, Bash asked Vance, "Donald Trump didn't serve in the military. He received a medical draft deferment for bone spurs to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, reportedly as a favor to his father. Do you find that shameful too?"

Trump has faced criticism for his medical deferment from the Vietnam War draft, which he attributed to bone spurs in his heels. In 2018, the daughters of the podiatrist who diagnosed the then-22-year-old Trump said that the diagnosis was made as a favor to his father, Fred Trump, according to a New York Times report.

Vance replied to Bash: "I think Donald Trump didn't serve in the military, but he didn't lie about it Dana. I've known Donald Trump for a long time. He really honors our veterans, he honors me for my service."