Dan is a managing editor at Raw Story based in Colorado, producing and editing breaking political news.
Dan previously worked as a news associate at The Associated Press in Philadelphia, and later as local editor, breaking news editor and eventually manager at Patch, overseeing the company’s breaking news and Long Island/Hudson Valley teams.
Dan has covered major breaking stories such as mass shootings and wildfires in California, and overseen teams that covered George Santos and the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
A native of Colorado and the Philadelphia area, Dan graduated with a degree in journalism from Temple University.
Van Jones suggested Wednesday night that Tim Walz may have been "loose with his language" about his service record and said the Kamala Harris campaign ought to "clean it up."
Bryan Lanza, former deputy communications director for Trump's 2016 campaign, told CNN's "AC360" that Walz's record is fair for criticism.
"There's a lot of issues," he said. "I'll tell you what there's a photo of him, a 2004 photo of him, where he refers to himself as an Enduring Freedom veteran for [John] Kerry. The problem is, the Department of Defense does not qualify him as someone who is a recipient of an Enduring Freedom title."
Lanza said Walz either "misrepresented himself" to run for office, or the correction is now.
"He can't have it both ways," said Lanza. "He can't claim he served in combat and then 20 years later say, 'Oh it's just no big deal.' It goes to character. And that's a problem for the campaign. The fact that we're talking about it and more and more people are talking about it, it's not what Kamala Harris wants to be talking about."
Jones said the campaign needs to address the discrepancy, acknowledging that while "people are human beings" on the campaign trail," Walz is now running for a "major position."
"The reality is if he said one or two things that turned out to be maybe a little bit sloppy, fix it. Because he's got a gazillion people willing to stand up for his character."
Among those willing to vouch for Walz: Gay students and people he served with, noted Jones.
"If this comes down to a character contest between this ticket and Donald Trump, we're going to win 50 states," he said. "Let's just get this cleaned up and move on."
