Trump and Vance are second to none in the ‘lying Olympics,’ says Pete Buttigieg

The Republican presidential race between Donald Trump and JD Vance may be slipping, but it’s still unmatched in the “lying Olympics,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says.

On Sunday, the final day of the Paris Olympics, the senior Democrat responded to remarks by the Ohio senator who criticized Tim Walz for wrongdoing his military service in an interview six years ago.

The Minnesota governor, who this week announced the Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, served 24 years in the Army National Guard but never in a combat zone, something he seemed to suggest in a 2018 interview.

During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Buttigieg attacked Vance, himself a former Marine reporter, for disparaging Walz’s military record at a rally this week and moments earlier on the same show.

“I watched that interview and I watched as JD Vance suddenly presented himself as very particular about the accuracy of his speech and very concerned about honesty,” Buttigieg said.

“He’s running with Donald Trump, someone who has a record of lying in public. He just held a press conference where fact checkers estimated he told 162 distortions or lies. It’s frankly just impressive in terms of being able to physically do it. It’s like the Lying Olympics.”

It was quite a composition from Buttigieg, a former intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve who has built a reputation for eloquent takedowns of Republican policy positions.

“The fact that a veteran wants to disparage another veteran certainly goes against everything I learned during my time in the service,” he said.

“The fact that they have to go back to find a clip from 2018 to find the one time he slipped when he talked about the weapons of war he carried and instead said something about carrying a weapon in war, that’s kind of the exception. That proves the rule in terms of how you’d have to look hard to find Tim Walz saying anything that isn’t precise and to the point.”

On the State of the Union, Vance claimed that he was not disputing Walz’s military service, but “that he lied about his service for political gain.”

“I think Tim Walz did that. That’s what I criticized. And yes, I think that’s scandalous behavior,” he said.

A statement from the Harris-Walz campaign on Saturday reversed Vance’s earlier criticism. “Governor Walz would never insult or diminish any American’s service to this country. In fact, he credits Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. That’s the American way,” it said.

“He dealt with weapons of war and strongly believes that only members of the military who are trained to carry these deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance who prioritize guns for our children.”

On CNN, Buttigieg also condemned Vance’s much-maligned comment that senior Democrats were “a bunch of childless cat ladies.” As part of his cleanup over those remarks, Vance insisted Sunday that he wasn’t criticizing people for not having children, but for being “anti-kid.”

“I don’t know which part is worse, the lie she just told when she said she never criticized people for not having kids because of course she did so much, including Kamala Harris and me and a lot of other people. , actually the millions of Americans he despised as childless cat ladies,” said Buttigieg, who has two adopted sons with her husband.

“The other part, just as troubling, is to say that anyone who disagrees with him is anti-child. That’s part of who he is, isn’t it? He seems incapable of talking about a vision for this country that is about uplifting people, building people or helping people.”