Speaking during a segment on Friday, August 16, CNN’s Michael Smerconish sounded off on Kamala Harris’s 2024 running mate, Tim Walz. Specifically, Smerconish attacked Walz over what he called Walz’s “lie” about his DUI arrest. Smerconish said that Walz’s “lie” about the matter was, in his opinion, “indefensible.”
As background, it emerged on Thursday, August 15, that during the 2006 campaign season, Walz’s campaign lied about his DUI arrest. Specifically, it denied that Walz was drinking on the night that he was arrested for driving 41 miles per hour over the speed limit in a 55 miles-per-hour zone in 1995 when he received a DUI arrest.
When his blood alcohol level was tested at the time, Walz was found to have a 0.128, well over the state’s then-allowed limit of 0.1 for driving. That was found when he was taken to a hospital by a state trooper and received a blood test after being pulled over. Despite that record, the Walz campaign in 2006 claimed he wasn’t drinking.
Speaking about the matter, Smerconish said that he sees the DUI and lie about it as being even worse than Walz’s misrepresentations of his military service, saying, “I thought the DUI issue was a really significant and serious issue. I know that Republicans have spent a lot of time talking about the alleged stolen valor.”
Continuing, he said that while Walz’s “sloppy” speaking could be blamed for his comments about his military service, his lies about the DUI are “indefensible.” He said, “My own opinion, for what it’s worth, having studied the facts, is that there’s no there-there. Walz spoke sloppily, should not have represented a role that he had as having been a permanent role when it wasn’t. But the DUI story is indefensible.”
Smerconish then said, speaking about the campaign’s comments on Walz’s DUI arrest, “Kasie, you and I know a thing or two about congressional campaigns. They’re very small, they’re very tight. There’s usually like a campaign manager and a paid spokesperson, and that’s it, so the idea that this came from his spokesperson and it didn’t come from him? I don’t buy it.”
He added that while the main focus of this campaign will be about “the top of the ticket,” Kamlaa, the DUI lie is going to be a big issue. He said, “In the end, it’s gonna be about the top of the ticket. But to me, the DUI is bigger than the stolen valor allegation. Not because of the drinking, but because of the lie.”
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Then, when asked how the Harris campaign should be dealing with the DUI arrest, Smerconish said they need to face it head on, but really should have done more digging and found it earlier on. He said, “Full on, and it makes me wonder whether in the vetting process — maybe this is as a result of the expedited nature of her ascendancy as the candidate — but it makes me wonder how much they really knew about it. I’m sure they knew of the DWI, but it makes me wonder whether they were aware of all the underlying facts.”
Watch that here:
Featured image credit: Office of Governor Tim Walz & Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, PDM-owner, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Governor_Tim_Walz_at_Bemidji_Steel.jpg