Tim Walz gets his ‘Welcome To The Bigs’ moment – and it doesn’t go well.

On Tuesday morning, Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate, in a move that received mixed reactions on the Democratic side, and relief on the Republican side.

Tim Walz, has been widely perceived as a very liberal governor. He famously waited too long to activate the national guard during the George Floyd riots in Minnesota, signed transgender legislation, and stated that “ones mans socialism is another mans neighborliness.” However, none of these are what caused a bevy of bad press for Walz and Harris following the announcement.

Tim Walz was accused on Wednesday of embellishing his military record to get ahead in his career. It was reported that he had left his battalion before they were deployed to Iraq, and lied about serving during ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’, the official name used by the U.S. government to describe the war in Afghanistan. In addition, multiple clips resurfaced of him claiming to have ‘Carried weapons of war in a fighting situation’. Tim Walz deployed once to Europe, and was never in a war zone.

Tim Walz also sparked an online frenzy after it was reported that he signed a bill that included measures to put tampons in boys bathrooms for boys as young as 14. This led to ‘Tampon Tim’ trending #1 on X, and thousands of memes being spread about the situation. For better or worse, and even Hillary Clinton got in on the action:

The broader point is that the Kamala Harris campaign will not be happy that Tim Walz has been branded so quickly by conservatives to be a super liberal governor that may have at best, exaggerated his military record, and at worse, committed stolen valor. However, this is politics, and Tim Walz is getting a big dose on how this game is played on the national stage. And up to this point, it isn’t going well for him.