Minnesota Governor and Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Walz came under fire for remarks he made about serving in the military during an appearance at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. 

Walz, in his recent joint interview with Kamala Harris, appeared to avoid questions on his military background and instead discussed school shootings along with complaints of bad grammar.

Walz spoke without a teleprompter in his first official interview since he and Smith were designated, which was with CNN’s Dana Bash. Bash pressed Walz on past remarks from the 18-minute pre-taped segment alleging he had “carried weapons of war” when he had never been deployed to a combat zone.

“Tim Walz asked about lying and claiming he carried weapons in war said, ‘My grammar’s not always correct.’ Holy crap. He’s a moron. He’s had a month to come up with a response and this is it?!” radio host Clay Travis posted.

During the interview, Bash grilled Walz on that inconsistency: “The country is just starting to get to know you. I want to ask you a question about how you’ve described your service in the National Guard. You said that you carried weapons ‘in war,’ but you have never deployed actually in a war zone. A campaign official said you misspoke. Did you?”

Walz in turn responded by saying he was proud of his 24 years of service with the Army National Guard, as well as being a public school teacher.

He added: “I’m equally proud of my service in a public school classroom, whether it’s Congress or the governor,” Walz continued, first suggesting that his false claims were just the result of his manner of speaking. “My record speaks for itself, but I think people are coming to get to know me, I speak like they do.”

Bash continued to grill Walz on the topic: “The idea that you said that you were ‘in war, did you misspeak, as the campaign has said?”

Walz agreed with the criticism, saying “Yeah, I said — we were talking about, in this case, this was after a school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war, and my wife, the English teacher, told me my grammar’s not always correct. But again, if it’s not this, it’s an attack on my children for showing love for me or it’s an attack on my dog. I’m not gonna do that, and the one thing I’ll never do is I’ll never demean another member’s service.”

Critics took to social media as Walz’s comments circulated, highlighting a previous statement in which he called National Guard troops the “19-year-old cooks” ill-equipped to handle the riots that followed George Floyd death.