J.D. Vance’s New Attack on Tim Walz Proves Irony Is Dead

Ohio Senator J.D. Vance has gone on the attack against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s military service—even if he’s not the right guy to be pointing the finger.

“When were you ever in war?” Vance asked rhetorically at a Michigan rally on Wednesday. “What bothers me about Tim Walz is this stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you’re not.”

“And if he wants to criticize me for getting an Ivy League education, I’m proud of the fact that my Mawmaw supported me, that I was able to make something of myself—I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did,” Vance continued.

“When the U.S. Marine Corps asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it,” Vance said. “When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, he dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.”

Vance has offered veterans another snapshot of executive-level representation since he was selected as Donald Trump’s number two on the Republican ticket. But his service in the Marines wasn’t exactly the boots-on-the-ground experience that he’s now framing it as. Instead, Vance served a single four-year enlistment in the public affairs section in the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, and wrote in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, that he was “lucky to escape any real fighting.”

Meanwhile, Walz served as an enlisted soldier in the Army National Guard for two decades, ultimately attaining the rank of command sergeant major. He enlisted in the Nebraska National Guard at the age of 17 and transferred to the Minnesota National Guard 15 years later in 1996.

As part of the job, he responded to natural disasters, served with the European Security Force to support the war in Afghanistan, and was stationed around Europe to train with NATO militaries. He received several Army medals and retired as a master sergeant shortly before running for Congress in 2006. Walz has repeatedly said he left the military in order to run for office, not out of cowardice, as Vance implies.

Bringing the military disparity to the foreground of the election is, ultimately, an interesting choice for Vance and Trump, considering that a conveniently timed bone spur diagnosis helped the Republican presidential candidate skirt the Vietnam War draft in 1968.

Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance claimed Wednesday that he had never suggested Kamala Harris hadn’t tapped Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate due to his faith.

During a press conference at a campaign stop in Michigan, a reporter from NBC News asked Vance to clear up some confusion surrounding his assertion that Shapiro had been skipped over for antisemitic reasons.

“You have repeatedly suggested that the only reason Kamala Harris didn’t pick Josh Shapiro to be her running mate was because of his Jewish faith,” the reporter asked. “Do you have any evidence to support that assertion, that a person who is married to a Jewish man is somehow antisemitic, or bowing to antisemites?”

Vance responded with hostility, refusing to answer the question.

“Well, I reject the premise of the question. I did not say that was the only reason that Kamala Harris didn’t choose Josh Shapiro,” Vance replied. “So you should, you know, take a little less DNC talking points when you ask your questions, and ask a real question.”

But just two days earlier, Vance had said precisely the opposite.

“I think that they will have not picked Shapiro, frankly, out of antisemitism in their own caucus and in their own party,” Vance told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday, hours before Harris’s campaign had even announced her pick of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Vance would continue to trot out this argument over the next 48 hours. On Tuesday, Vance responded to the news of Walz’s pick by claiming that Harris had “listened to the Hamas wing of her party.”

At a rally in Philadelphia later that day, Vance immediately piggybacked off that sentiment and the statements of other Republicans who had begun claiming that Harris hadn’t picked Shapiro because he’s Jewish.

“I genuinely feel bad that for days, maybe even weeks, the guy actually had to run away from his Jewish heritage because of what the Democrats are saying about him. I think that’s scandalous and disgraceful,” Vance said. “Whatever disagreements on policy you have about somebody, the fact that that race, the vice presidential race on the Democratic side, became so focused on his ethnicity, I think is absolutely disgraceful.”

Vance’s weak attempt to walk back his statements on Wednesday fell flat, as it came just hours after Trump proudly repeated the exact same argument the Ohio senator claimed he’d never made.

On Wednesday morning, Trump suggested that Harris had not chosen Shapiro “because of the fact that he’s Jewish, and they think they’re going to offend somebody else.” In the same breath, Trump suggested that Jewish voters not supporting him ought to have their heads examined.

One of the leaders of the conservative manifesto Project 2025, Kevin Roberts, is delaying a book he wrote until after the 2024 election.

“There’s a time for writing, reading, and book tours—and a time to put down the books and go fight like hell to take back our country,” Roberts told RealClearPolitics. “That’s why I’ve chosen to move my book’s publication and promotion to after the election.”

The book, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, includes an introduction by Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and was due to be published in September. The book will now come out on November 12, one week after Election Day.

Vance’s foreword to the book lauds Roberts for criticizing corporations and breaking with the Republican establishment, as well as his strong emphasis on family. Most notably, Vance endorses Roberts’s call for revolution:

As Kevin Roberts writes, “It’s fine to take a laissez-faire approach when you are in the safety of the sunshine. But when the twilight descends and you hear the wolves, you’ve got to circle the wagons and load the muskets.”

We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay [sic] ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.

It’s highly likely that Roberts is delaying his book due to the negative publicity that Project 2025 has brought to Republicans and the Trump campaign. It contains plans to dismantle abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, labor rights, and numerous other protections. Trump has tried and failed to distance himself from the project, belying his own past support for the manifesto and Vance’s extensive ties to it.

Trump’s frustration with being tied to Project 2025 has led to one of its leaders stepping down from his role, bad blood between Trump’s campaign staff and the project’s operatives, conflict within MAGA world over the former president’s disavowals, and now a delayed book. But the Heritage Foundation’s massive effort means the project won’t go away, no matter how much Trump wants, and if he’s elected, Project 2025’s architects will put its dangerous ideas into practice.

Republican Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance appeared at a Kamala Harris rally in Phila—oh, it wasn’t a Harris rally? Then why on earth did he bring a massive sign that said “KAMALA”?

Donald Trump’s gaffe-prone running mate appeared at his own rally in Philadelphia Tuesday, where he stood in front of a sign that said, “KAMALA CHAOS”—only it didn’t quite read that way.

Vance had invited several people onstage with him to speak about the ways they’d been negatively affected by the Biden administration’s policies, specifically immigration. However, the small crowd that lurked behind Vance covered the word “CHAOS” on the low-hung banner. Vance appeared to stand in front of a giant sign that just read, “KAMALA.”

Across town, Harris and her newly announced running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz held a rally of their own. The campaign reported that 12,000 people had been in attendance, between the arena and the overflow section. Meanwhile, Vance’s rally drew a crowd of “more than 200 supporters” to a venue with a 1,300-person capacity, according to WHYY.

The ironic image quickly circulated online. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE, posted the image on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday.

The account captioned the photograph, “Here’s why you should hire union stagehands and stage designers: (They did not).”

IATSE confirmed Wednesday to The New Republic that Vance’s rally was nonunion. As their post went viral, the union took the opportunity to further criticize Trump.

“In 2004, Trump crossed our picket line as workers on ‘The Apprentice’ spoke up to get paid fairly,” IATSE wrote in another post. “He is dangerously anti-worker and anti-union.”

This should sting extra hard for Vance, who was brought in to appeal to white, working-class voters specifically. Earlier Tuesday, several prominent unions and union leaders had expressed their support for Walz, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers, and the United Automobile Workers.

Clearly, union support has tangible benefits. Harris’s rally, which was devoid of similar rigging errors, sported a large sign thanking “local union labor” for setting up the event.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s attempts to paint Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as a progressive bogeyman could morph into instant wins for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign.

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night, McCarthy described Walz as an ardent leftist, claiming that the governor’s politics were akin to those of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

“This is the most extreme,” McCarthy said. “I served with Tim. We came into Congress together. He’s known for being the Bernie Sanders of Congress.”

Putting aside the fact that Sanders is literally “the Bernie Sanders of Congress,” that comparison could work wonders for Harris’s fresh campaign, which has energized voters across the political spectrum but has yet to show evidence of capturing the progressives.

Harris chose Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, but the selection is still too recent to indicate whether he has moved the needle on her campaign. Still, his addition has piqued the interest of young voters, who have warmly described the 60-year-old as having “peak Midwestern dad vibes.”

It’s been less than three weeks since she announced her bid for the White House, but Harris’s candidacy has already galvanized the electorate. She’s won the support of Black voters, white college-educated women, and independent women voters, all of whom have shown more than 20-point gains in their levels of support since Harris announced her candidacy.

Republicans have suggested that Walz’s involvement could help to rejigger how they approach chipping away at Harris’s momentum, which so far has amounted to elementary-level ad hominem attacks on Harris’s race and identity that have only angered conservative voters.

“This provides the much-needed reset,” Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy told NBC News on Tuesday.

“If this race does come down to policy, I think it should be a hands-down victory—not just for Trump but for candidates all the way down the ballot,” he continued—adding that the possibility is on the table only “if Republicans keep our eye on the ball.”

Unfortunately for Ramaswamy, Trump doesn’t seem all that interested in only discussing policy.