Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio) fired back at CNN after a moderator accused him of whitewashing his own military service while the Republican vice presidential candidate sharply criticized his Democratic rival for his record.

Vance, who served as a U.S. Marine in Iraq, has targeted Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who has been questioned about how he has represented his military service since Vice President Harris nominated him as her running mate.

But CNN’s Brianna Keilar says Vance “may not be a perfect messenger” on the issue.

“Because we have him, as you introduced him, as a combat correspondent, which was Vance’s title,” Keilar told her CNN colleague Dana Bash on Thursday. “But if you dig a little deeper, he was a public affairs specialist, someone who was not in combat, which the title ‘combat correspondent’ certainly gives a different impression. So he might be the imperfect messenger in that regard.”

JD VANCE accuses Tim Walz of ‘lying’ about military service: ‘Stolen valor garbage’

CNN’s Brianna Keilar suggested that Republican Senator JD Vance of Ohio had whitewashed his own military record after the Republican vice presidential candidate repeatedly attacked his Democratic rival Tim Walz for his controversial comments. (Screenshot/CNN)

Vance criticized Keilar and CNN on social media.

“Brianna, this is disgusting and you and your entire network should be ashamed of yourselves,” Vance wrote on X. “When I got the call to go to Iraq, I went. Tim Walz said he carried a gun in the war. Did he? No. It was a lie.”

Vance told reporters on Wednesday: “I served in a combat zone. I never said I saw a firefight myself, but I always told the truth about my service in the Marine Corps. That’s the difference.”

CNN did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Critics have spotlighted an old video, coincidentally shared by the Harris campaign, in which Walz calls for gun control and tells voters, “We can make sure that these weapons of war that I carried in war are the only place where these weapons are.”

Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Behrends, who said he was a member of Walz’s battalion, sharply criticized the governor’s comments.

“To most people, that would mean he was actually in combat, carrying a weapon in a combat zone, receiving combat pay and being in a dangerous and hostile environment where he was shot at,” Behrends told the Ingraham Angle on Wednesday.

A CNN correspondent even reviewed Walz’s statements on Wednesday and said there was “no evidence” that he carried weapons in combat, as the vice presidential candidate had previously apparently suggested.

CNN fact-checks Tim Walz’s “absolutely false” claim that he carried weapons “in war”

Republican vice presidential candidate Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio) slammed CNN’s Brianna Keiler as “repulsive” and said she and her network “should be ashamed” of suggesting he botched his military service. (Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)

Walz was never in an active war zone. According to the Minnesota Guard, he deployed to Italy with the Minnesota National Guard on Aug. 3, 2003, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. The battalion supported security missions at various locations in Europe and Turkey, according to the Guard, and Walz was stationed in Vicenza, Italy, until his return to Minnesota in 2004. He was not deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Vance’s opponent has been at the center of a brewing controversy since he joined the Democrats. Walz, who served in the Minnesota National Guard for 24 years, has repeatedly referred to himself as a “retired command sergeant major,” which is inaccurate. According to the Minnesota National Guard, Walz did serve as a command sergeant major, “but he retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for retirement purposes because he had not completed additional courses at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy.”

On Thursday, following the dispute, the Harris campaign changed the wording in Walz’s biography on its website. The biography initially said Walz was a “retired command sergeant major,” but was then updated to say he “served as a command sergeant major.”

The media is hyping up “folksys” Tim Walz and saying the progressive governor brings the personality of a “centrist Midwesterner” to the Democratic ticket

Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has faced intense scrutiny over his military record since being named Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Walz was also criticized for the timing of his retirement from the military. There were allegations that he left earlier than he had planned to avoid deployment to Iraq.

Tom Schilling, a veteran who served in the same battalion as Walz, said he “let his soldiers down” before they deployed to Iraq in 2005.

“We all did what we were supposed to do, we did the right thing,” Schilling said Wednesday on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime.” “What he did is dishonorable. He let someone else take his place. He just walked out on us.”

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The Harris campaign released a statement saying: “In his 24 years of service, the Governor has carried, fired and trained others in the use of weapons of war countless times. Governor Walz would never insult or belittle any American’s service to this country – in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for risking his life for our country. That is the American way.”

Fox News’ Alexa Moutevelis, Jennifer Griffin and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.