VP Harris’ Ex-Boyfriend Breaks Down During Live TV Segment
Former daytime TV talk show host Montel Williams, who once dated Vice President Kamala Harris, became emotional during a CNN panel discussion on Thursday that addressed the deep divisions in American politics.
Williams, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and a veteran who served 22 years and achieved the rank of lieutenant commander, joined the panel in discussing comments made by Sen. J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, who is also a Marine Corps combat veteran. Vance's remarks were directed at Harris's running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Governor Walz, who served 24 years in the U.S. Army, is currently facing controversy over claims that he served in combat, which he later acknowledged were untrue. Walz is also under scrutiny for retiring from the military shortly before his unit was deployed to Iraq. Additionally, Walz had claimed to have retired as a sergeant major, but the Minnesota National Guard has since clarified that he did not complete the Army’s Sergeant Major Academy and instead retired at the rank of Master Sergeant.
This week, Vance criticized Walz's military record, accusing him of "stolen valor."
On CNN, Williams addressed host Sara Sidner and the panel’s conservative commentator, Scott Jennings, stating that Walz has a “right to say what he said” about his military service. Williams then praised Harris and expressed concerns about the possibility of a new civil war in the U.S.
“It’s her tenor. The tenor is, ‘Let’s unite, not divide.’ It’s time to have more conversations, even like the ones we’re having right here, though I disagree with what you’ve said, we’ve disagreed. We’ve also kind of just slightly realized that we could turn that beach ball just a little bit and see a different panel, see a different point of view.”
“See a point of commonality,” Sidner interjected.
“She is really focused on trying to make America understand that what unites us is far greater than what divides us as a mass. And we ought to pay attention,” Williams continued. “Those people on the fringes who are taking away the wrong message, those people who have some form of mental illness, we’re taking away a long message saying that, ‘If my side doesn’t win, then burn the whole thing down.’ We can’t do this.
“We’ve got to remember, you know, folks like me, and we’ve probably got 40 million veterans alive, the majority of them put their hand up in the air and said, ‘I do solemnly swear and affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,’ period. That’s what we believe in,” he added as he began to tear up.
“That’s why I put on the uniform, to protect this for your generation, your generation. Let’s start focusing on how we protect this and stop firing up those idiots who really think that they can — because, at the end of the day, what do you want? You want to eat out of the garbage can? Because that’s what’s going to happen. If we go to a civil war, remember, more deaths in the American Civil War than any other conflict since,” he said.
“Brother against brother,” Sidner added.
“We gonna do it again? Sorry,” Williams said, apologizing.
“Don’t be sorry. This is a serious — this is a really, really serious moment in our history.”
Earlier this week, during a press conference, Vance commented on Walz, saying, “What really bothers me about Tim Walz isn’t even the positions he’s taken, though certainly he has been a far-left radical. What really bothers me about Tim Walz, as a Marine who served his country in uniform, is when the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do, and I did it honorably and I’m very proud of that service.
“When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him—a fact he’s been criticized for aggressively by many of the people he served with,” he added.