J.D. Vance slams ‘shameful’ Tim Walz for ‘abandoning’ his Minnesota National Guard unit before they deployed to Iraq

Donald Trump’s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, criticized Kamala Harris’s pick for vice president on Wednesday amid reports that Gov. Tim Walz has canceled his deployment to Iraq with the Minnesota National Guard.

Vance, who served in the U.S. Marines in Iraq, said it was “disgraceful” when Walz retired in 2005, just as his battalion was preparing for war.

“I mean, your job as a senior ensar in a unit is to keep your people safe. That’s not a job you can just walk away from,” Vance told DailyMail.com during an exclusive interview aboard his campaign plane, nicknamed Trump Force Two.

“So if he abandoned his troops before they went to Iraq or wherever … absolutely outrageous.”

Walz, the governor of Minnesota, was named by Harris as her running mate on Tuesday.

Later that day, he appeared next to her at a campaign rally in Philadelphia.

But soon reports emerged of anger among his former comrades in arms, who accused him of “betraying” his country as they prepared for deployment.

Retired Minnesota National Guard Sergeant Major Thomas Behrends accused Walz of “embellishing” his record and abandoning his unit when he left the Guard to run for Congress.

“In early 2005, a warning order was issued to the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, which also noted the position in which he was serving, to prepare for mobilization to active duty for a deployment to Iraq,” he wrote on Facebook in 2018.

‘On May 16, 2005, he resigned, betraying his country. He left the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its soldiers behind, without their top noncommissioned officer, as the battalion prepared for war.’

On Wednesday morning, Vance was en route to Michigan for a campaign rally, just hours before Harris was scheduled to arrive at the same location.

He said his job was to remain “sharply focused” on examining her failed policies on immigration, energy and manufacturing.

However, he added that he was surprised that the Harris campaign had not investigated Walz’s military record and accused him of lying to make a political point.

DailyMail.com travels with Trump’s running mate JD Vance and his wife Usha aboard Trump Force Two

JD Vance served six years in the United States Marines, including six months in Iraq.

Vance added that he was surprised that the Harris campaign had not checked Walz’s military record and accused him of lying to make a political point. Walz is pictured at right while serving in the U.S. Army National Guard in 1992

“There was a clip that the Kamala campaign put out of him making an argument for gun control,” Vance said. “He said, ‘Look, you shouldn’t be carrying the weapons that I carried in the war.'”

‘And I, I think to myself, well, when did you go to war? What weapon did you carry in the war, Tim, because apparently you skipped your unit before they went to Iraq.

“I know he hasn’t been to a war zone, so why is he lying to make a political point?”

Vance, who grew up in Ohio, is seen by the Trump campaign as a key figure in breaking down the Democrats’ so-called “blue wall” in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday he will first be in Shelby Township, Michigan, and at 2 p.m. in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

The aim is to keep the pressure on Harris, who should be in both places a few hours later.