As soon as I heard Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance smearing the military service of his opponent, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, all I could think was: Seriously? Are we really doing this again?

Are we really going to allow Republicans — who are freaking out now that their presumed glide path back to the White House has become a very bumpy road — to slime Walz the way they slimed Vietnam veteran John Kerry 20 years ago?

“When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, do you know what he did?” Vance said last week in Michigan. “He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him — a fact that he’s been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with.”

Numerous journalists have called out this lie. They have also reported that the “people he served with” are Republicans rooting for former President Trump.

Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before being honorably discharged. During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, he was stationed in Italy, providing support to American combat troops. In early 2005, months before his unit was ordered to Iraq, he decided to retire from the Guard to run for Congress. He became only the second Democrat in more than a century to capture a traditionally Republican seat and continued to support the military as a member of the House Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees.

In 2018, when he was running for governor, Walz inaccurately claimed that he carried weapons “in war” in the course of making an argument against allowing civilians to possess assault weapons. Vance disingenuously accused Walz of “stolen valor,” a phrase typically used to describe lying about military service or honors.

Trump’s running mate should be ashamed of himself for attacking a fellow vet.

Like Walz, Vance enlisted right out of high school. He served four years in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Iraq for about six months in 2005 and 2006. He worked in public affairs and was never in combat, though that does not mean he was never in danger. No American in Iraq in those days, military or civilian, was totally safe.

To many Americans, the attempted sliming of Walz has a familiar ring.

“Republicans,” Hillary Clinton wrote on social media last week, “are re-running an old tactic and trying to smear a veteran who’s also a Democrat.”

“Swift-boating” worked once before. Why not try it again?

In 2004, then-Sen. Kerry, a bona fide war hero, ran against President George W. Bush. Like many privileged young men looking to avoid combat in Vietnam, Bush had served in the Texas Air National Guard.

Kerry had been a Navy lieutenant. He commanded a Swift boat on the Mekong Delta for four months in 1969, earning a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Devastated by what he had witnessed, Kerry became a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War soon after he returned home.

“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” he famously asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971, nearly two years before the United States pulled out of Vietnam.

His activism earned him the lasting enmity of those who supported the misbegotten war. He was accused of endangering soldiers who were still fighting.

Years later, when Kerry accepted his party’s nomination at the Democratic convention in Boston, he crisply saluted and said, “I’m John Kerry, and I’m reporting for duty.” This was threatening to Republicans, who settled on a then-novel strategy: They would turn Kerry’s greatest strength into his greatest weakness.

Hence the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and eventually the term “swiftboating.”

The “truth” they promulgated was that Kerry was a fraud who lied about his service. It was such an outlandish and untrue accusation that Kerry tried to ignore it. By the time his campaign realized it was hurting him, the lie had already been lodged in the public imagination.

It should come as no surprise that Republican political operative Chris LaCivita, one of the architects of the disingenuous campaign against Kerry, is now one of two co-managers of Trump’s campaign. His fingerprints are all over Vance’s outlandish claims about Walz.

The great irony is that Trump ducked service in Vietnam partly by claiming bone spurs in his heels.

That didn’t prevent Trump from savaging Republican Sen. John McCain, a Navy pilot who spent nearly six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and bore the scars of his torture there his entire life.

“I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said during his first presidential campaign.

As president, the Atlantic reported, he repeatedly disparaged service members who died in war — calling them “losers” and “suckers” — and requested that wounded veterans, especially amputees, not be allowed in military parades.

“Nobody wants to see that,” he told staff during a 2018 planning meeting.

Every time Vance attacks Walz’s military service, Democrats should remind voters that it’s in shameless service of a man who utterly disdains Americans who risk their lives to serve their country.

@robinkabcarian

Minnesota murder rates have risen under Democratic Gov. Tim Walz leadership as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate attempts to link spiraling crime trends of the 2020 era to the Trump administration. 

“I just want to set the record straight, because facts do matter and there’s not an alternative set of facts. Violent crime was up during the Trump presidency, and that’s even not counting his crimes,” Walz said at a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday. 

Walz was named as Harris’ running mate last week, and has since hit the campaign trail to rally support for the newly-formed ticket with less than 100 days until voters head to the polls. 

His comment on crime sparked critics to call out Minnesota’s violent crime rate under Walz’s leadership, with Fox News contributor Byron York outlining how murders increased in Minnesota after Walz was sworn in as governor. 

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“It turns out that rise included an increase in Minnesota. Here are the numbers of murders in Minnesota, starting in 2018, the last year before Walz became governor,” York posted to X. 

Walz was sworn in as governor in 2019. Data from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety reviewed by Fox News Digital shows that in 2018, the year before Walz took office, the state recorded 104 murders, a figure that increased by more than 12% in 2019, when the state recorded 117 murders. Murders in the state in 2020, when violent crimes spiked nationwide, skyrocketed to 185. In 2021, the state recorded 201 murders, 182 in 2022, and 172 last year. 

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Data from the state shows that in the four years before Walz took office, from 2015-2018, there was an average of about 113 murders recorded in the state each year, which has increased to 171 murders, according to the yearly average under Walz’s five years as governor. 

Protesters throw objects into a fire outside a Target store near the Third Police Precinct on May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The police precinct went up in flames late on May 28 on the third day of demonstrations over the death of George Floyd. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

Violent crime rates did spike to historic highs during Trump’s final year in the White House in 2020, which has been attributed to the widespread riots and protests that swept the nation following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020. 

TIM WALZ’S BLM RIOTS RESPONSE LEFT MINNESOTA HUSBAND, DAD OF 2 ‘DISGUSTED’: ‘CAN’T BELIEVE’ PEOPLE SUPPORT HIM

FBI crime data reviewed by Fox News Digital shows that homicides in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, slightly dipped nationally from 15,320 in 2016 to 15,312 in 2017. The data shows violent crime again dipped in 2018, at 14,604 homicides, and again in 2019 to 14,678, before skyrocketing in 2020 amid the riots to 18,965 homicides. 

A large fire burns on East Lake Street in Minneapolis during a third night of unrest following the death of George Floyd. (David Joles/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

All in, the violent crime spike of 2020 saw murders increase by nearly 30% compared to the year prior, according to FBI data. It marked the largest single-year increase in killings since the agency began tracking the crimes.

TRUMP PRAISED WALZ’S GEORGE FLOYD RIOT RESPONSE IN 2020, AUDIO SHOWS: ‘VERY HAPPY’

Experts who have previously spoken to Fox News Digital pointed to an array of variables that contributed to the increases of 2020 and the years following, including: anti-police rhetoric voiced by Black Lives Matter and defund the police proponents, the pandemic, a culture of lawlessness promoted by liberal district attorneys, and the “Ferguson effect” – when police pull back during high-profile and violent crime trends.

Demonstrators protest the death of a Black man in police custody in Rochester, New York, Sept. 6, 2020. (Reuters/Brendan McDermid)

​​Minneapolis was the epicenter of the 2020 riots, where Floyd, a Black man, died at the hands of a White officer during a police encounter in the city. Floyd’s death was followed by social justice protests and riots across the nation, which came at a time when COVID-19 cases and government-mandated lockdown measures meant to control the pandemic upended society in unprecedented ways ahead of the 2020 election.

​​More than 1,500 buildings in Minneapolis alone were damaged or destroyed due to the riots, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

WALZ SLAMMED FOR ‘HESITATING’ TO SEND IN GUARD AS HIS DAUGHTER TIPPED OFF RIOTERS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA

Former President Trump holds his first public campaign rally with his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, at the Van Andel Arena on July 20, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

The newly formed Harris-Walz ticket, which secured the Democratic nomination following President Biden dropping out of the race as concerns mounted surrounding his mental acuity, has focused its attention on Harris’ background as a California prosecutor when laying out its crime platform, most notably attacking Trump and his court battles. 

“As a tough prosecutor, Kamala Harris dealt with men like Trump all the time: Rapists, con men, frauds, criminals – she’s used to guys like Trump, used to putting them in their place,” a narrator for a recent pro-Harris ad says. 

Meanwhile, Trump has slammed left-wing led cities nationwide that didn’t do more to end the riots of 2020, and vowed to restore law and order across the nation to lower crime rates, including closing the border to illegal immigration.

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“The cartels will be crushed, crime will plummet, incomes will soar, the wars will end, and the American dream will come roaring back bigger, better and stronger than ever,” Trump said at a rally last week. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Katie Porter is seated at Starbucks, nursing an iced coffee and discussing might-have-beens as a stream of customers in seasonal uniform — shorts, flip-flops — flows steadily past.

This is not how she hoped to spend her summer.

The Orange County congresswoman had gone from unknown to political celebrity virtually overnight, wielding a whiteboard and marking pen to skewer lobbyists, torment chief executives and harry various corporate heavies — to the utter rapture of the online, cable-TV-consuming wing of the Democratic Party.

She transformed herself from UC law professor into a fundraising dynamo, a progressive heroine and oft-discussed prospect for higher office. Then it all came crashing down as Porter lost, badly, in a fractious Senate primary to fellow Rep. Adam B. Schiff. Now he’s the one cruising to election and potential lifetime tenure in Washington, as Porter confronts the end of her congressional career a few short months from now.

She has, Porter says, no regrets.

Not for how she waged her Senate campaign. Not for yielding the national political platform she built. Not for walking away from a House seat — which Republicans are eagerly eyeing — after three terms and six years in Washington, a point when many in her line of work are just getting started.

“What in the universe do I wish was different?” Porter asked, before answering herself. “A lot. A lot.”

The war in Gaza, for instance, which activated a peace movement in the Democratic Party and bolstered the candidacy of Rep. Barbara Lee, Porter’s main competition for liberal support against the more centrist Schiff.

“Do I think I underestimated some factors and overestimated some others? Sure. Do I think that there were calculations and calculuses that I made? Yes,” Porter went on. “But when I look at that campaign, I don’t think there was … a particular moment or a particular decision that shaped it either way.”

The morning rush had petered out. An egg-and-spinach wrap sat before Porter, untouched.

She’s still smarting over the millions of dollars in negative advertising the crypto industry and tech bros dumped on her head to help Schiff. But, she says, her endorsement of her erstwhile rival is wholehearted and sincere.

“Adam and Barbara and I remained very cordial throughout the race,” Porter said. “We saw each other every day at work. People forget that. We’re sitting in delegation meetings together; we’re on the airplane together. One of the first people I saw after I lost was Barbara Lee’s son, who was like, ‘You ran a great race.’ We understand that when you run, someone wins and someone loses.”

Her one hope for Schiff is that he uses the fall campaign (such as it is against his handpicked opponent, the hapless Republican Steve Garvey) to talk about some of the many issues facing California.

“We need a real policy debate in California,” Porter said. “We have a narrative about California being [Gov. Gavin Newsom’s] golden California dreaming, but also people who are like, ‘This is a failed state; people are leaving’ — that whole narrative. … This race was a chance to have a real policy debate about our state, and I don’t think that happened.”

Blame the short attention span of voters. Blame a diminished political press corps. Blame a contest that managed to captivate very few Californians. Blame hairsplitting among generally like-minded Democrats and the lack of any real GOP competition to spur a deep and meaningful discussion.

Even as Schiff coasts to election, Porter said: “I hope Adam will go back to some of the policies that were really important in the Senate race — whether that was housing, whether that was the environment, energy, whether that was taxes — and try to have some of those conversations and arrive in the Senate really willing to think about ‘What does California need from Washington?’”

A customer approached Porter, wide-eyed, to offer good wishes. The 47th Congressional District, which runs along the Orange County coast, is home to one of the most competitive House races in the country, a fight pitting Democrat Dave Min against Republican Scott Baugh to replace Porter on Capitol Hill.

She has few illusions about the institution she’s leaving behind.

Congress is a lumbering beast of a place, deeply polarized and highly antagonistic, and Porter said there’s little desire by leaders of either major party to fix that.

“My colleagues want to talk — and you will hear them talk this fall, whether it’s Congressman Schiff running for the Senate, or a House candidate or Vice President Harris — they want to talk endlessly about the crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court,” Porter said. “What about the crisis of confidence in us, in Congress, and who we work for and how effective we are? That’s a conversation worth having, too.”

(There’s a reason Porter was no favorite of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who threw her considerable clout behind Schiff in the Senate primary.)

For now, Porter is looking forward to returning to the classroom in January — her face lit up at the mention of standing in front of students again — taking up her old position at UC Irvine. She’ll teach a first-year law class and courses on commercial law and legislation.

She has a new Burmese kitten, Dino, and a basset hound puppy, Poppy. As a single mom of three children, she’ll gladly forsake the arduous cross-country commute to Washington, and also looks forward to being around when her kids get home from school.

A sip of coffee. Another passerby — a woman in a neon-green safety vest — bids Porter well.

She hasn’t ruled out a future run for statewide office — Porter could be a formidable candidate for attorney general or governor — but feels no haste to decide. (By contrast, she was the first to jump in to the Senate race, even before the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein had stated her intention to step aside.)

Porter reprimanded the nearly half dozen gubernatorial hopefuls who’ve already launched their campaigns.

“Between now and election day, in my opinion, nobody should be campaigning for governor,” Porter said. Democrats, quite rightly, insist that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy and that the party must do all it can to stop him.

“If you believe that” — here Porter brandished a fist — “then that’s what we should all be working on right now.” Not jockeying in an election still more than two years off.

At 50, still in the blush of youth by today’s silvered political standards, Porter has plenty of highway ahead of her.

She remains committed, she said, to public service of some sort.

“I’m not tired at all of being a candidate. I’m not tired of campaigning,” she said, finally turning attention to her neglected spinach wrap. “But I just don’t know what that looks like, and I’m not gonna be rushed.

“I’m going to look for the thing that feels right, whether that’s elective office — I don’t know at what level — whether that’s administration, whether that’s some kind of civil service board position in California,” or possibly a role in a Kamala Harris administration.

Her brief, ascendant House career may be nearly over. But, Porter suggested, she’s not through yet.