‘He has to clean that up’: CNN panel calls for ‘apology’ from Tim Walz about misstating military rank

A CNN panel on Thursday urged vice presidential nominee Tim Walz to apologize for misrepresenting his military rank.

Fifty congressional Republicans with military backgrounds called on Walz Wednesday to publicly address “egregious misrepresentations” about his 24-year Army National Guard service, and accused him of falsely claiming to be a “Retired Command Sergeant Major,” despite allegedly not completing the requirements. CNN political commentators David Urban, Van Jones, and Alyssa Farah Griffin, on “CNN News Central,” each advocated for Walz to take ownership of his misstatements, saying it would be politically beneficial for him to do so.

“I want to hear Tim Walz stand up and explain to me why he said for 20-plus years that he was a retired command sergeant major when he wasn’t … He owes an apology to, I think, the people in the military,” Urban said. “Just say, ‘Look, I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m owning up to it.’”

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“He has to clean that up. He does. And I think it’s actually on brand for him to say, ‘you know what, I got a little bit full of myself and said some stuff that wasn’t true,’” Jones said. “‘And if my student did that, I want my student to correct it and I’m going to correct it and I think it’d actually enhance him … We’re in a business where people think if you’re just honest, we all sometimes posh up a story here and there. But now you’re on a main stage and get caught on it. Just cough up the fur ball so we can move on from this issue.”

Walz served as a command sergeant major in his final weeks of National Guard service but retired as a master sergeant because he did not finish the necessary coursework, according to The New York Times. Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, who served in the Marine Corps., has also accused Walz of “stolen valor” for asserting he carried weapons of war without having served in combat.

“I do think it’s important that after two cycles of having no veterans on the ticket, there’s a veteran on both sides of the ticket. And I do think if he owns it, it helps because most Americans are going to hear ’24 years in the National Guard.’ They’re going to care a little bit less about the rank that he claimed or if he held a weapon, but it’s better to own it,” Griffin said. “And I think he does have that capability of doing it, leaning into that, ‘I coached people, I taught people, you admit when you did something wrong.’”

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