Trump team targets Walz and his military record in attempt to slow down Harris

It was the first big day of the wrestle for the Midwest that is likely to decide the 2024 election, and someone important was missing — former President Donald Trump. But the Trump campaign is now on offense, with its vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance leading an attack on the military record and credibility of Vice President Kamala Harris’s new running mate Tim Walz. The focus on the Minnesota governor and claims that he sidestepped a deployment to Iraq by retiring from the Army National Guard to run for Congress in 2005 represented a searing welcome to the hard knuckle reality of a major national campaign against opponents for whom no issue is off limits. The Republican nominee left it to Vance to troll the newly minted Democratic ticket through the critical swing state territory Wednesday as a fresh 90-day race for the White House burst into life. Harris and Walz held two high-energy rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan that showed the euphoria inside a once-despairing Democratic Party for its two new candidates. The Democratic nominee borrowed a trick from Trump’s playbook, performing a dramatic arrival scene aboard Air Force Two in Michigan that mirrored his past use of the bigger presidential jet before a packed airport rally. For the second day in a row, Harris appeared before thousands of excited supporters who spelled out a collective warning sign for Trump — who is known to obsess over crowd sizes. She appeared to be quickly settling into her novel role as her party’s official candidate, displaying flashes of charisma and increasing confidence as her political honeymoon showed no signs of ending.= In one moment that delighted her supporters, Harris icily stared down hecklers in Detroit who chanted what appeared to be a pro-Palestinian message. “You know what, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that, otherwise, I’m speaking,” Harris said. It was a micro episode, but the video of the put-down quickly went viral on social media in a way that enhanced the vice president’s image as she navigated one of the many challenges she’s going to face in the next three months.