Brian Mast, Mike Waltz stump for JD Vance in Pennsylvania

Election 2024 RNC
Battle-tested leaders in Congress are going to war for the GOP ticket.

Two Florida Congressmen known for their military service are stumping for the Republican nominee for Vice President.

Both U.S. Reps. Brian Mast and Mike Waltz are telling Pennsylvanians the differences between JD Vance and Tim Walz.

“I was a Green Beret that served as a commander of a National Guard unit. And guess what, when the nation called and we were told to go, I went,” Waltz said. “As the commander of a unit, I didn’t leave my marine Berets leaderless, like somebody else we may know.”

Waltz said Walz’s “stolen valor” was something that “every veteran here in the room knows what it is and the veterans community is not going to let him get away with it.” That’s a reference to claims the Minnesota Governor made alluding to him fighting in war over the years, which didn’t happen.

Waltz also suggested the Democratic ticket would leave Americans vulnerable to hostile foreign actors.

“If our enemies aren’t afraid of its leadership, if they don’t respect our leaders, which is what we’re seeing right now. It’s all going to fall apart and that’s why we see the world on fire right now. Do you think Xi (Jinping), (Vladimir) Putin, Kim Jong Un are going to be afraid of Kamala Harris and walls and what we’ve seen?”

Mast, a former Staff Sergeant who lost his legs in Afghanistan, continued the theme, saying only Trump and Vance were trying to make the country “worthy of the sacrifice” of Gold Star families, as they are “fighting like hell to make this country worth your sacrifice in war.”

“There are only two people in this race who are fighting to make America worth your service and your sacrifice. And that’s JD and Donald Trump,” Mast said.

“Are you going to have people who live it, who fight it every single day to make this place worth what you all have given up, what your friends in combat have given up, what your friends who gave their lives gave up, what those family members who do not have them gave up, what friends you march alongside in Veterans’ Day parades gave up. They are fighting for that,” Mast said.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. He writes for the New York Post and National Review also, with previous work in the American Conservative and Washington Times and a 15+ year run as a columnist in Folio Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


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