Tangle - Tim Walz's military record.

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Tim Walz’s service record. Over the past week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, has faced scrutiny over his time in the Army National Guard. Republicans, led by the party’s vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (OH), allege that Walz has misrepresented his time in the Guard to enhance his political profile, and they question the timing of his retirement.You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can watch the entire Tangle Live event at City Winery NYC on our YouTube Channel!Check out Episode 5 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. Please give us a 5-star rating and leave a comment!Today’s clickables: A quick note (0:50), Quick hits (2:05), Today’s story (4:30) Left’s take (8:04), Right’s take (12:15), Isaac’s take (16:11), Listener Question (21:25), Under the Radar (24:15), Numbers (24:58), Have a nice day (26:00)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Help share Tangle.I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it. Email Tangle to a friend here, share Tangle on X/Twitter here, or share Tangle on Facebook here.Take the survey: What do you think of Tim Walz’s military service record? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Oh, that coffee smells good. Can you pass me the sugar when you're finished? Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? That's salt, not sugar. Let's get you another coffee. Feeling distracted?

You're not alone. Many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with mortgage payments on their minds. If you're struggling with your payments, speak to your bank. The earlier they understand your situation, the more options and relief measures could be available to you. Learn more at Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government at Canada.ca slash ItPaysToKnow. A message from the Government of Canada. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tango Podcast, the place where we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about Tim Walz's military record, which is under some increased scrutiny now as it's become the focus of some attack lines from former President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. And there's some credence to the attack lines, which we're going to talk about in today's episode. Before we jump in, though, I want to give you a quick heads up that on Friday, we published a members-only, pretty lengthy and extensive post on our primary system, how it's broken,

how it got broken. So we talked a lot about the history of primaries in the United States and also how we might fix it. And I shared some thoughts about what my takeaways are and where I land on potential reforms. It is a little bit wonky, I guess you could say, but kind of one of those pieces that I feel like is maybe more important than we all think. The primary system is at the root of a lot of the issues that we discuss in Tangle and a lot of the issues with our country and polarization and partisanship and Congress just failing on a number of fronts. So I hope you read it. I think it's an important piece and the people who did read it thought it was super interesting. You can find it on our website, readtangle.com. And like I said, it's a members only post, so you'll have to be a paying subscriber

to read the whole thing. All right, with that out of the way, I'm going to pass it over to John to break down our main story today, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Hope you had a great weekend. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, a new poll from the New York Times-Siena College shows that Vice President Kamala Harris is leading former President Donald Trump 50-46 in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Separately, Cook Political Report shifted its ratings for Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada from lean Republican to toss-up. Number two, former President Donald Trump said his campaign had its emails hacked by

Iran. Politico revealed it was receiving internal Trump campaign communications from an anonymous sender, but could not confirm the source, while Microsoft said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted a presidential campaign in June. Number three, two months after former President Donald Trump promised to eliminate taxes on tips for service workers, Vice President Kamala Harris proposed the same policy. Number four, Israel ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza the day after an airstrike killed more than 90 people at a school-turned-shelter. Israel said the toll was inflated

and 19 militants were among the dead. And number five, the Biden administration has reportedly offered Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his top allies amnesty from drug trafficking charges if Maduro agrees to leave office at the end of his term. The administration denied the report. Republicans wasting no time taking shots at Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over his military record. The issue coming to the forefront last week when Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, now a GOP vice presidential nominee who himself served in the Marines, began questioning the circumstances surrounding Walz's 2005 retirement after 24 years with the Army National Guard. J.D. Vance is slamming the military record of his rival for the vice presidency,

Tim Walls. The Ohio senator is alleging the Minnesota governor deliberately, quote, abandoned his unit by retiring before it was deployed to Iraq nearly 20 years ago. The Harris-Walls campaign has responded, saying in part, quote, after 24 years of military service, Walls retired in 2005 and ran for Congress. The campaign added Governor Walls would never insult or undermine any American service to this country. Over the past week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, has faced scrutiny over his time in the Army National Guard. Republicans led by the party's vice presidential nominee, Senator J.D. Vance from Ohio,

allege that Walz has misrepresented his time in the Guard to enhance his political profile, and they question the timing of his retirement. Walz served in the National Guard for a total of 24 years, enlisting with the Nebraska Army National Guard in 1981 and transferring to the Minnesota Army National Guard in 1996. He served many roles during that time, including infantry senior sergeant, administrative specialist, cannon crew member, and field artillery senior sergeant. Near the end of his service, he was provisionally promoted to commander sergeant major,

the highest rank for enlisted soldiers in the military, but retired as a Master Sergeant after not completing the requisite coursework to retain his rank. His awards at the time of his retirement included an Army Commendation Medal and multiple Army Achievement Medals. The timing of Walls' retirement is one of the main sources of scrutiny of his time in the National Guard. In 2005, Walls kicked off his congressional campaign while still serving in the Guard, and in March of that year stated that he would continue his campaign despite the possibility that his unit would be sent to Iraq. He retired from service in May, and in August, the Department of the Army issued a mobilization

order for his unit, which deployed in March 2006. Walls, and some others in his unit, have maintained that they did not know whether they would be deployed at the. Walls and some others in his unit have maintained that they did not know whether they would be deployed at the time Walls retired, but his departure angered others in the Guard, including the command sergeant major who replaced him and went to Iraq. The Minnesota National Guard told Fox News that Walls submitted his retirement papers five to seven months prior to his retirement. At a news conference on Wednesday, Vance criticized the timing of Walls' decision. When Tim Walls was asked by his country to go to Iraq, do you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him,

Vance said in comments that were also echoed by former President Donald Trump. Republicans have resurfaced other questions about Walls' service, including allegations that he lied about his record. Between 2003 and 2004, Wallace served in Italy with the National Guard, providing support to troops during the early stages of the war in Afghanistan, but not spending time in active conflict zones. Still, Wallace's campaign described him as a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom in a press release announcing his candidacy in 2006, which some critics said suggests he served in Afghanistan. Others have highlighted Walls' comments on gun violence in 2018 when he said, we can make sure those weapons of war

that I carried in war are only carried in war. Republicans say this comment implied that Walls served in combat, with some calling it tantamount to stolen valor. On Friday, the Harris campaign said that Walls misspoke in those comments. Finally, Republicans say Walz has inflated his military rank for political benefit, arguing that he improperly characterized himself as retiring as a commander sergeant major when he had not completed the coursework to retain that rank at the end of his service. After Vice President Harris announced Walz as her running mate, his biography on her campaign website initially referred to him as a retired command sergeant major, but the page was later updated to say that he once served at the command sergeant major rank. Today, we'll explore the controversy over Walls' military record with

perspectives from the left and the right, and then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Got a mortgage? Chances are you're thinking about your payments right now. Need help? Ask your bank about relief measures that may be available to you. Learn more at Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year.

Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th.

All right, first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left defends walls but warns Democrats not to ignore the controversy, noting the impact of the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry in 2004. Some say the attacks on walls are dishonorable and should be forcefully refuted. Others suggest Republicans' strategy will fall flat. In the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson wrote, Democrats sink this swift boat immediately. The accusation of stolen valor leveled against Walls by GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance should sound familiar to voters of a certain age. It is the same kind of smarmy innuendo that Republicans used to defame then-Senator John F. Kerry when he was running to unseat George W. Bush in 2004, Robinson said. Vance and other Republicans are now trying to discredit Walz's 24 years of service

in the National Guard. Their claims are that Walz retired from the National Guard in 2005 to avoid being sent to fight in Iraq, which is false. That Walz has no right to say that he attained the rank of Command Sergeant Major, which is also false. And that Walz was wrong in the past to refer to assault rifles as weapons that I carried in war, which Walz should acknowledge and clarify. Democrats should recall that Kerry tried remaining above the fray, but the response was not forceful enough, as evidenced by the fact that swift voting is now a widely used term for the kind of attack Republicans have launched against

Walls, Robinson wrote. Surely, the Harris-Walls team has enough staff, money, and brainpower to do two things at once. They should push full speed ahead with a campaign whose huge crowds and joyful enthusiasm have reshaped the presidential contest practically overnight. And they should push back, hard, against the Republicans' attempt to do to Walls what they did to Kerry. In MSNBC, Paul Rykoff argued,

Tim Walls deserves better than Team Trump's stolen valor smears. Walls is a veteran who cares deeply about the well-being of his fellow veterans, which is why it's enraging and sad to watch Ohio Senator and fellow veteran J.D. Vance and Team Trump attempt to smear his military record and accuse him of stolen valor, Rykoff wrote. Wallace has dedicated his political career to helping other veterans. As the ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, veterans had no finer and more tenacious advocates than Wallace. Every veteran service organization and veteran leader knows he is one of our own, and that we could always count on him.

The Harris-Wallace campaign was clearly not ready for the swift boat attacks, but they were entirely predictable. Details, military records, and validators who know Walls and the truth should have buttoned up in advance, Rykoff said. Whether the swift boat attacks are fair or not, the Harris campaign should have been more prepared for the battle. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Now the campaign, and Walls himself, need to get a plan together, be transparent, clear, and forceful, and make up the ground lost. In New York Magazine, Ed Kilgore said, the swift boating of Tim Walls won't work. The GOP is deploying an old playbook item that Trump campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita knows well from his deep involvement in the swift boating of John Kerry in 2004, an attack on Wallace's military record. One of his

strongest credentials in rebutting the idea he is some sort of anti-American zealot, Kilgore wrote. The facts underlying the LaCivita-Vance line of attack don't appear to justify all the angry passion. No one is disputing that Wallace served honorably in the Guard for 24 years. Wallace had been talking for quite some time about retiring in order to run for Congress, which is precisely what he did, and that he had no way of knowing about the subsequent deployment when he retired. The attacks on Wallace's military record come across as pretty weak tea. Even the most serious, the claim that he dodged serving in Iraq, requires an asterisk. J.D. Vance's running mate, Donald Trump, has endlessly described that war as a disastrous mistake, Kilgore said.

We're in a different era of American experiences with war. 2.9 million young men were drafted into the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. John Kerry's service there resonated with a lot of voters. In the post-conscription era, people like Walz and Vance, a public affairs officer deployed to Iraq who chose to put on the uniform, are the exception rather than the rule. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right says the allegations against Wals are merited and deserve answers. Some suggest Walls betrayed his unit by choosing not to deploy with them. Others say the criticisms are not warranted and Walls should be thanked for his service.

In The Federalist, Matt Beebe wrote, Tim Walls misrepresented his military service. He needs to answer some questions. As a career politician, Wallace has long touted his service in the National Guard. Yet this service is only now getting close attention as questions arise about how and where he served, Beebe said. There is no question that Wallace bailed on his National Guard unit when it was called up for deployment to Iraq. But it also appears that he has been mischaracterizing his military service since at least 2005.

The Harris campaign tacitly acknowledged as much by correcting the record this week. The deeper analysis of Wallace's historical campaign messaging reveals that the recent tweaking may not be the first time he's tried to carefully thread the needle on messaging about his military service and suggests an intention to mislead voters that runs all the way back to his first campaign for Congress in 2005, Beebe wrote. To what extent did this intentional misinformation, spread by his own campaign, skew media coverage? And why did Walls tighten up his messaging after his election victory? There are questions the American public deserve prompt answers to. In Newsweek, Dan Holloway said,

To combat veterans like me, Tim Walls' abandonment of his unit is unforgivable. Walz indeed spent 24 years as an enlisted soldier in the Minnesota National Guard. As far as I can tell, he deployed once to Italy and once to Norway. But when it was finally his turn to deploy in the actual global war on terror, Walz instead chose his own aspirations over leadership,

Holloway wrote. Walz would have been the battalion command sergeant major, the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer and arguably the most important leader in his unit. And in the moment they needed him most, when they were about to deploy to Iraq, Walls chose to abandon his men to run for Congress. This isn't a leader. This is a man who uses others to further his own ambitions, then discards them when they become inconvenient.

He abandoned his men and left the military before completing the school necessary to become a command sergeant major. Though this hasn't stopped him from using the title on the Minnesota government site in his bio, Holloway said. Leadership is decisive and accountable. Walls cuts and runs, then lies and hides. In the end, no matter what you hear about Tim Walz, this is the truth. When his men needed him before what would have been his only combat deployment, he was nowhere to be found.

He bailed on them to chase political aspirations. In Fox News, Adam Kinzinger argued, Tim Walz serves his country honorably for 24 years. J.D. Vance and Trump need to respect that. Following in his father's footsteps, Tim Walz joined the Army Guard, enlisting just two days after his 17th birthday, when he first became eligible, and served honorably for 24 years, achieving the highest enlisted rank offered. Then he went on to serve as champion for veterans and military families in Congress, leading the effort to pass a bipartisan bill to provide mental health services to veterans, leading a bipartisan effort to expand the GI services to veterans, leading a bipartisan effort

to expand the GI Bill, and repeatedly voting to increase military funding, the nation should be proud, and J.D. Vance should be respectful of his fellow brother-in-arms. The attacks from everyone, especially Donald Trump, are a disservice not just to Governor Walz, but to anyone who served in uniform, Kinzinger wrote. These attacks from the likes of Trump and Vance bode darkly for the future, and we must push back against us with everything we have. Serving in the military is honorable and must be seen as such, regardless of the Veterans Party affiliation. Donald Trump, a draft dodger, doesn't even come close to measuring up to Tim Walz after his decades of service to this nation. J.D. Vance should know better.

All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for it with the left and the writer saying, which brings us to my take. brings us to my take. So on this week's Sunday podcast, I did a quick six-pack of takes before interviewing former Congressman Scott Klug. If you have not listened to that podcast, I definitely suggest you go back to yesterday and check it out. In one of those takes, I said that I thought these attacks had some legs, that Walls had real questions to answer, and that this could be a big problem for him. Still, I think it's worth separating the wheat from the chaff here. Let me start with what I think are fair and legitimate criticisms. First, the Trump-Vance campaign is right that Walls has lied to voters, or at the very least

misled them about serving in combat. For instance, the Harris campaign itself posted a video of Walls making his stump speech about gun control. In it, Walls says, quote, we can make sure those weapons of war that I carried in war are only carried in war. Any voter listening to that would assume Walls served in combat. He did not. The Harris-Walls campaign has said that he misspoke, and Walls served in combat. He did not. The Harris-Walls campaign has said that he misspoke, and Walls himself has openly acknowledged that he never went to combat, so it's unclear why he'd talk to voters this way. Second, there's a strong argument that Walls inflated his rank. This one is a little more complicated, since Walls did reach the rank of

command sergeant major, but he would have had to serve in that role for three years and complete months of coursework to retain that title upon retirement. Still, in at least two clips, one from 2006 and one from 2018, Walls calls himself a retired command sergeant major. The Harris campaign was initially referring to him that way too. This is plainly inaccurate, as you only refer to veterans by the rank they retired with, not the highest rank they once obtained. This is a particularly sensitive protocol to honor the military community, so while it may not be a huge deal if other people refer to Walls that way, perhaps mistakenly, it is a big deal if Walls or the Harris campaign do. Indeed, Walls' former battalion leader John Kolb

came out and hammered him on Facebook for using the title. He did not earn the rank or successfully complete any assignment as an E-9, Kolb reportedly wrote. It is an affront to the non-commissioned officer corpse that he continues to glom onto the title. I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane. It does not make me a pilot. So those two are a big deal. The other attacks are a different story. The accusation I've seen most commonly is that Walls abandoned his men before they were deployed, leaving them without a leader. This was an attack line against Walls in a previous election. All of it has been reported and fact-checked, and there is genuinely no evidence for the claim.

Walls served for 24 years and retired to run for Congress, a process that can take months, if not years, to complete. One National Guardsman has claimed that rumors of a deployment were circulating before Walls retired, but the paper trail shows Walls filed to run for Congress a month before those rumors even started. Fox News also reported that Walls submitted his retirement papers five to seven months prior to his retirement. The available facts just don't bear this claim out, and some of Walls' former service members have defended him against the allegation. The other weak accusation is that Walls falsely claimed to have served in Afghanistan. In a 2006 press release, Walls calls himself a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, even though he was never deployed to Afghanistan. But Walls was deployed to Europe between 2003 and

2004 to support Operation Enduring Freedom, which was a wider operation than what took place in Afghanistan alone. So again, while it might mislead some voters, I think in this case it's fair for him, as well as all service members deployed on operational support, to describe themselves this way. Now, will any of this matter? On the one hand, plenty of swing voters are also military veterans, and there aren't many things more offensive to veterans than stolen valor. On the other hand, I'm not so sure the Trump fans campaign wants to center military service in this race, given Trump's history of dodging war and his tenuous relationship with some military leaders. I'm sure the Harris campaign is teeing up the comebacks already. Still, I happen to think these attacks are going to stick. Walls has clearly misled people about

his service, and while he and Harris are soaking up the glow of a campaign restart, eventually they're going to have to sit for adversarial interviews and take the debate stage. It's an embarrassment to reporters and to the Harris campaign that the two aren't answering tough questions yet. And so far, I've seen no indication they have good answers for the way Wallace has described his military service. It took a few weeks for the Trump-Vance campaign to organize after Biden dropped out, but now it seems centered on its new opponent. These kinds of attacks are more like the kind I'd expect a focus campaign to levy against a quickly vetted running mate. We'll be right back after this quick break. We'll be right back after this quick break. cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop

of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Are you sure you parked over here? Do you see it anywhere? I think it's back this way. Come on. Hey, you're going the wrong way. Feeling distracted?

You're not alone. Whether renting, considering buying a home, or renewing a mortgage, many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances and clear your head, visit Canada.ca slash ItPaysToKnow. A message from the Government of Canada. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Alright, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Vivek in La Honda, California. Vivek said, you've stated proudly, if I may say so, on a number of occasions, your credentials as a free speech absolutist. Do the riots in England, triggered by all kinds of misinformation and outright calls to violence, give you the

tiniest of pause? There are many other examples, like people being lynched by mobs in India or Bangladesh because of falsehoods that were spread online. Is there any line you'd draw? I've struggled with this for some time. Okay, so first of all, for those who aren't in the loop, there have been riots and demonstrations in the UK over this past week, all in response to the killing of three British girls in Southport, England. Very quickly, news spread that the killer was a Muslim migrant, leading to destruction and threats against mosques in Southport and then across the country. The killer, however, was a second-generation English citizen, not a Muslim or a migrant. To answer your question directly, of course, stories like this give me pause. If they didn't, then I wouldn't be a person critically considering his own worldview. But events like this also consistently fail to

change my position. First, when I say I'm a free speech absolutist, I'm making a statement both about our law and our culture. Primarily, my belief is that we shouldn't allow the government to limit speech. Secondarily, I think we should promote a society where we don't shirk away from ideas we hate or cancel the people speaking them, as doing so often gives those ideas more subversive power. Instead, we should confront ideas we find challenging or dangerous with more speech. In the UK, I would push others to counter the online misinformation with two salient facts. One, the killer was not a Muslim or a migrant, so attacking Muslims is an unconnected response.

Two, even if the killer had been either of those things, attacking all Muslims or all migrants is still an unconnected response. Every community has bad actors, but we don't hold entire subpopulations of people responsible for their decisions. Even as a free speech absolutist, I acknowledge there are limits to free speech. My rights end where they start to infringe on the rights of another. Calls to violence and stoking racism can and should be restricted both in online forums and within a lawful society. As a reporter, I'm an absolutist in the sense I would not censor newsworthy statements. But as a person, I acknowledge that some speech can indeed be unlawful.

If you're interested in this topic, you might find an interview I did with Grace Lavery on this very podcast. Interesting, that interview was in 2020, but we'll link to it in today's episode description. All right, that is it for my take and your questions answered. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under-the-radar story for today, folks.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s third-party bid appears to be hurting Trump more than Harris' polling data consistently shows. The Trump campaign elevated Kennedy early in his campaign, believing he'd be a foil for Democrats. But over time, it became clear that Kennedy pulled significantly more votes from Trump than Biden. With Harris atop the ticket, the data is even more pronounced. A half a dozen polls have all shown that Harris leads Trump by an average of 1.5 points in head-to-head matchups, but her lead grows to 3.3 points in a crowded race, including Kennedy. The Washington Post has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of months the U.S. Army recommends

service members begin planning for retirement before their intended retirement date is 24 to 36 months. The approximate number of days it takes for the National Guard to process retirement requests is 90, according to Major General Randy E. Manor, acting Vice Chief of the National Guard Bureau. The number of days between Tim Walz filing his paperwork to run for Congress with the Federal Election Commission and the National Guard's announcement of a possible mobilization of 2,000 troops to Iraq is 35. The number of days between the National Guard's announcement of a possible partial mobilization and Walz's last day with the National Guard is 60. The number of days between Walz's last day with the National Guard and his unit officially

receiving their orders to deploy to Iraq is 59. And the number of service member from Walz's unit, 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, who were killed in combat in Iraq is one, according to the Minnesota National Guard. And last but not least, our Have a Nice Day story. Research has found a positive correlation between volunteering in the community and increasing positive emotions, less loneliness, and greater social support, according to Eric Kim, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Jeff Kellert, a retiree who now volunteers at local organizations for about 30 hours a week, said he feels the effects. Together, with a good sense of self-esteem and self-confidence, I feel like I'm doing something productive, Kellert said. AP News has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode.

As always, if you'd like to support our work, please head over to retangle.com and sign up for a membership. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Ma Wall signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kedak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the

podcast was produced by Diet75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. Bye.