The Case of 'Stolen Valor'?
In introducing her running mate in Philadelphia on Aug. 6, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris prominently touted Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s 24 years of service in the Army National Guard.
Walz embraced the chance to discuss the importance of the military in his family and his life.
“For 24 years I proudly wore the uniform of this nation,” Walz, a Nebraska native who joined the Nebraska Army National Guard two days after his 17th birthday, said at the Philadelphia rally. “The National Guard gave me purpose. It gave me the strength of a shared commitment to something greater than ourselves.”
But the next day, Walz's military service came under attack from Republicans, including GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance, who accused the Minnesota governor of “stolen valor.”
Our staff sorted through the facts surrounding the three main attacks on Walz’s military record, so you can decide their merit:
- Vance, who served a four-year active duty enlistment in the Marine Corps as a combat correspondent, claimed that Walz “dropped out” of the National Guard when he learned his battalion was slated to be deployed to Iraq. Walz retired to focus on a run for Congress two months before his unit got official word of impending deployment, though the possibility had been rumored for months.
- Vance accused Walz of having once claimed to have served in combat, when he did not. Walz, whose military occupational specialties included field artillery senior sergeant, made this remark while advocating a ban on assault-style weapons: “We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.”
- The Republican National Committee claimed Walz misrepresented his military rank in campaign materials. The Harris campaign website praises Walz for “rising to the rank of Command Sergeant Major.” Walz did achieve that rank, but he retired as a master sergeant because he had not completed the requirements of a command sergeant major.
For more information on each claim, read "Attacks on Walz’s Military Record."
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For a story about chronic disease in children, Staff Writer Kate Yandell reviewed data from the National Survey of Children's Health, which has been conducting surveys of parents since 2003, and the National Health Interview Survey, which for decades asked parents about activity limitations in their children caused by chronic conditions. She also interviewed children's health experts, including Christina Bethell, a professor at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, which was founded to support the use of NSCH data. Read more.
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Former President Donald Trump recently has been promising to repeal the tax on Social Security benefits. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that such a proposal would cost the government $1.6 trillion to $1.8 trillion in revenues over 10 years, and could result in both programs becoming insolvent sooner than scheduled. Unless Trump provides a plan to replace the lost revenues, the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund would be depleted in 2032 and the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund would be exhausted by 2030, CRFB estimates. Trump has provided no details for such a plan. Read more.
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FactCheck.org co-founder Kathleen Hall Jamieson -- who is the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania -- has been named to a 15-member working group on communications for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee to the Director.
Jamieson is also a member of the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a distinguished scholar of the National Communication Association; and a member or fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the International Communication Association.
For more information, read the APPC press release.
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Reader: In his latest presser, [former President Donald] Trump said his inflation rate was 1.4%. What was it?
FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: Trump said in his Aug. 8 press conference: “I had 1% inflation. I had actually no inflation because if you look at the categories we had just about no inflation.”
Trump made a similar claim during the debate with President Joe Biden, when Trump said he had “essentially no inflation.” In that story, we wrote: “It’s true that inflation was relatively modest when Trump was president. The Consumer Price Index rose 7.8% under Trump’s four years — continuing a long period of low inflation.”
Trump may be referring to the annual average rate of inflation, but even then he would be low-balling the actual figure. As we wrote in "Trump's Final Numbers," which we updated last month, "The CPI rose an average of 1.9% each year of the Trump presidency (measured as the 12-month change ending each January), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was about the same as the average under Obama (1.8%) and below the average of 2.4% during each of George W. Bush’s years."
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Wrapping Up
Here's what else we've got for you this week:
- "Vance Wrong On Child Tax Credit, Harris’ Remarks About Climate Change and Having Kids": In defending his “childless cat lady” comments, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance wrongly claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris “is calling for an end to the child tax credit.” He also incorrectly claimed that Harris said “it was a bad idea to have kids because of climate change anxiety.”
- "FactChecking the First Harris/Walz Rally": Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic nominee for president, introduced her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for the first time at a rally in Philadelphia on Aug. 6. We found some misleading claims and assertions that required context in their remarks.
- "RFK Jr.’s Exaggerations on Chronic Disease in Children": Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has given children’s health and the “chronic disease epidemic” a prominent role in his campaign. Diagnoses of a variety of chronic conditions in children have increased in recent decades, but likely not to the extent that Kennedy claims or for the reasons he gives.
- "Trump TV Ad Repeats False ‘Border Czar,’ Illegal Immigration Claims": Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has launched a new general election ad that falsely labels Vice President Kamala Harris the “border czar” and falsely suggests that 10 million people illegally crossed the southern border on her watch and are still “here.”
- "Posts Mislead About Harris’ Romance with Willie Brown": Vice President Kamala Harris had a romantic relationship with powerful California politician Willie Brown in the 1990s. But claims on social media that she broke up his marriage misrepresent the facts. Brown had separated from his wife years before he and Harris had dated.
Y lo que publicamos en español (English versions are accessible in each story):
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