Minnesota House Republican candidate Tyler Kistner is doing everything he can to walk back ubiquitous claims he made in his 2020 run about “being in combat” as none of his military records square with his tall tales. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Kistner from making yet another run for the seat in the 2nd District, currently held by the only out LGBTQ member of Congress from the state, Rep. Angie Craig.
According to reporting from the Minnesota Reformer, Kistner’s campaign team has been on explanation duty, but that didn’t stop the GOP super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund from running a TV ad alleging that their boy Kistner has served “four combat deployments.”
VoteVets, a progressive veterans organization supporting Craig, demanded that the ad be pulled. The PAC claimed they’d sent an “incorrect version of the ad and fixed it ourselves on the same day.” The “incorrect” ad was taken down from the TV stations quickly, but it continued to run for 19 days on streaming services.
RELATED STORY: The party of stolen valor just dropped a new lead character. Meet Ohio House candidate J.R. Majewski
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As for Kistner’s claims in 2020, the Reformer cites the multiple times the candidate referred to himself as “the most decorated military member” in the race, said he’d put enemies “six feet under,” said he’s “been on the wrong end of a loaded weapon,” and in a virtual town hall, he made reference to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying, “I’ve been in such conflicts.”
After being called out by Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. Erika Cashin, one of his Republican opponents in the 2020 race, Kistner initially denied to his supporters that he’d ever made the claims about his service. Cashin put out a press release with all the receipts included and listed all the times and dates he’d made the comments.
The Reformer reported on Cashin’s comments and then found more times Kistner had made claims about seeing combat.
Kistner’s team—mainly his campaign consultant, Billy Grant—was forced to try explaining away the candidate’s lies.
As for the “six feet under” comment, Grant said it was simply a reference to combat missions his candidate had led under the Marine Special Operations unit, meaning a “partner force effectively killed more than eight violent extremist organizations in the North African region.”
The comment Kistner made about being on the “wrong end of a loaded weapon”? Grant explained that was in reference to a time he was in an argument with an allied military commander who pulled a gun on him.
When Kistner mentioned being in “such conflicts” and referred to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Grant said he’d simply meant in the larger sense of the fight against the Afghan and Iraqi enemies.
When Kistner said he’d been in “fights” and “combat,” Grant pointed to an award his candidate won for leading combat missions in North Africa, where he commanded the U.S. and allied nation forces.
But despite all the glossing over, it seems Republicans can’t ever seem to figure out that all the mansplaining in the world isn’t going to erase lying about combat duty that you were never really involved in.
J.R. Majewski, who is running against Democrat Marcy Kaptur for Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, has been campaigning on a hero's story—one in which after Sept. 11 he was deployed to Afghanistan and suffered under “tough” conditions. The only problem is, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press (AP), Majewski never stepped foot in Afghanistan.
The AP reports that according to military records, Majewski did serve his country. But he served by loading planes in an airbase in Qatar—a U.S. ally that lies 1,153 miles away from Afghanistan. His campaign website reads that he “was deployed to the Middle East in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.”
Then the AP reported more inconsistencies in Majewski’s claims.
Daily Kos’ Walter Einenkel writes:
“One of Majewski’s stories about his military service claimed that because he got into a ‘brawl’ in an Air Force dormitory in 2001, he ended up demoted. According to that version of events (i.e. the fact-free version that Majewski told), the rebellious Majewski received a censure from the Air Force that prevented him from reenlisting … because he was busted for driving while intoxicated on a U.S. air base in Japan.”
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