Corporate media rushed to play defense for Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as his military falsehoods were exposed.

Journalists worked to discredit the right’s newest line of attack, accusing Walz of stolen valor, and revived old arguments about “swiftboating.” The term originated during the Bush-Kerry campaign of 2004, when a Republican political operative by the name of Chris LaCivita helped organize Swift Boat veterans from Vietnam to scrutinize John Kerry’s service record, and the stories he told after coming home.

Despite the media’s best efforts, attacks on Walz’s years of lies aren’t going anywhere, Trump campaign insiders told the Daily Caller. LaCivita, now running the Trump campaign, and his staff will continue to hammer the message, using its own veteran Sen. J.D. Vance to “expose Walz’s military record.” (RELATED: Tim Walz Appears To Ignore Shouted Questions About ‘Stolen Valor’ Accusation)

“There’s more than enough evidence to prove that he did commit Stolen Valor. We will make sure the American people know that, especially our great veterans and service members who have honorably answered the call to serve and answered the call to go overseas when their country asked them to do that,” a Trump campaign spokesperson told the Caller. 

“And there’s no greater voice to highlight that than Senator Vance, who answered the call and deployed to Iraq when his country called on him and honorably served in the United States Marine Corps,” the spokesperson continued. 

A source familiar with the campaign’s thinking echoed the spokesperson’s thoughts, adding that Vance has a personal biography that gives him the perfect platform to expose Walz’s record.

I enjoyed sitting down with three of the major networks today to answer the tough questions any leader should answer. Kamala Harris has done as many tough interviews as Tim Walz has battlefield deployments.

— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 11, 2024

Walz’s military story unraveled after the Harris campaign shared a 2018 video of the governor pushing for gun control, saying that “those weapons of war, that I carried in war” should stay only in combat. Social media users were quick to point out that the governor never saw combat.

Walz was a member of the Minnesota National Guard for 24 years and deployed to Italy in 2003, according to The Washington Post. Veterans in the governor’s unit previously accused him in 2018 of retiring from the Guard to run for Congress once it was revealed that he would be deployed to Iraq. (RELATED: Pelosi Praised Walz For Serving ‘On The Battlefield’ In Resurfaced Video)

Harris’ now-running mate issued a March 2005 press release acknowledging that there was a chance he and his unit could be sent to Iraq, and implying he could go if called. Then several months later, Walz left his unit before they deployed.

Vance, too, accused the governor of “stolen valor.”

“As a Marine who served his country in uniform, when the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it,” Vance said. “I did what they asked me to do and I did it honorably and I’m very proud of that service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him, a fact that he has been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with.”

The media cast the attacks on Walz as dishonest or unimportant.

In 2004, LaCivita organized “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” which worked to cast doubt on Kerry’s Vietnam record. Corporate media outlets have since deemed “swiftboating” to be representative of slimy politics. Politico, noting that the tactic could potentially be re-run for the 2024 election, argued that it “focuses attacks on the running mate, not the principal.”

Bloomberg posted a feature on Walz on Aug. 6, falsely writing that the governor had been deployed to Iraq. The piece was then quietly updated to reflect that Walz instead went to Italy, and eventually a correction was added.

NPR painted “swiftboating” as an “unfair or untrue political attack” before conflating the 2004 election with the 2024 election. The outlet wrote that in 2004, the candidates were running to be “wartime presidents” and that Walz is unlikely to attract the same amount of scrutiny because he isn’t at the top of the ticket.

“They’re scrambling to cover for him because they know this is a massive liability,” a source familiar with the campaign’s thinking told the Caller. 

Wow, this is wild. (Also OEF was Afghanistan, NOT Iraq.)

Walz should be forced to confirm or deny whether he misled Bloomberg’s @JoshuaGreen, who is still reporting to this day that Walz did a tour in Iraq.

And Green should come out and say whether he was misled.

This is false… https://t.co/CmDrwyJBxR pic.twitter.com/30MpUhpCut

— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) August 7, 2024

As veterans continue to speak out against Walz’s misleading statements, LaCivita indicated to Politico that he may dust off the old playbook.

“The two biggest sins in the military are claiming credit for decorations you don’t have or claiming combat action that you did not participate in … And this much is certain: He’s guilty of at least one of them,” LaCivita said. “Nothing regarding his lies has been weaponized in a political sense. That’s about to change.”

Since his letter about his experience with Walz was unearthed, retired Minnesota National Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Behrends has continued to blast the vice presidential hopeful.

“The message that it sends to me is, you know, turn around and run and just keep running. I mean, go crawl under a rock. Get the hell out of here. Nobody even wants to mention your name again. You’re soiled, basically a traitor. You’re a deserter at that point,” Behrends, who replaced Walz in the unit, told Fox and Friends.

National Guardsman Thomas Behrends on Tim Walz: “Everybody’s looking at him and seeing his chameleon skin and realizing that, you know, this guy is a liar and a fraud.”@RobFinnertyUSA pic.twitter.com/gZ18pjCoff

— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) August 12, 2024

A Trump campaign spokesperson indicated to the Caller that there could be more of Walz’s compatriots like Behrends coming into the conversation.

“Not only will Senator Vance and our campaign continue to call out Tim Walz for his Stolen Valor, but we will support his former service members and veterans who feel disrespected by him and want to have a platform to speak out,” a Trump campaign spokesperson told the Caller. 

Retired Minnesota National Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Paul Herr, who co-wrote the letter with Behrends, also called Walz out.

“He continually claims that he’s a retired [sergeant] major. He is not, he is a retired master sergeant,” Herr told Fox and Friends. (RELATED: MORGAN MURPHY: Tim Walz Has Stolen Valor)

The Harris campaign eventually scrubbed Walz’s “retired Command Sergeant Major” title from his biography on its site after it was revealed that he served as a command sergeant major but retired as a master sergeant due to his failure to keep his multi-year commitment to earn the promotion.

Ned Ryun, CEO of American Majority Action and a longtime Trump ally who served on the administration’s 1776 Commission, told the Caller “swiftboating” will cut to the truth.

“I would say the only dishonesty we should be talking about is Walz’s regarding his military service,” Ryun told the Caller. “‘Swiftboating’ isn’t dishonest. It’s just about getting to the truth of it all since the corporate propagandists, per usual, seem deeply disinterested in the truth or facts about really anything.”