Tim Walz’ Attacked by MAGA Over Dog Photos

MAGA-affiliated social media accounts have attacked Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz for allegedly lying about the identity of his dog Scout.
On Monday, user @GrageDustin, a self-described “Minnesota GOP Hype Man” posted two screenshots of Walz’s social media posts showing photographs of him posing with two different dogs. Walz mentions his dog Scout in both posts.
“Yes this is Tim Walz tweeting about his dog Scout,” @GrageDustin wrote. “Only problem is that these are two completely different dogs.” The post had been viewed 7 million times by Tuesday morning.
Conservative user @AlexanderPayton picked up on the alleged scandal, writing “Happy National Dog Day from Tim Walz, who somehow apparently lied about this too.”
And prominent MAGA influencer @catturd2, who earlier this year admitted to running over and killing his own dog Smiles, posted an image of a man in a suit surrounded by dozens of different dogs, captioned “Tim Walz with his 50 dogs named Scout.”
But the accounts accusing Walz of lying about his dog were soon corrected. A community note was added to @GrageDustin’s original post which said, “The dog in the second photo is one Tim Walz met while taking Scout (from the first photo) to the dog park.” The note linked to a video on Walz’s Instagram showing Scout playing with the second dog at the dog park.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris/Walz campaign for comment via email.
Left-leaning accounts were quick to hit back after the “fake Scout” scandal was debunked.
Kamala Harris supporting user @WUTankKids wrote “MAGAs are so dumb…the dog on the right is just a random dog at the dog park that Scout was playing with….you morons could’ve done “your own research” and went to Tim Walz’s Instagram and found the video in 10 seconds”. The post had garnered over 400,000 views by Tuesday.
Left-leaning user @swannmarcus89 joked that it was the latest in a run of underwhelming “scandals” involving the Minnesota governor.
“TIM WALZ SCANDAL UPDATE: In 2022 Tim Walz went to a dog park and took a picture with somebody else’s dog,” the user wrote, alongside a list of previous “scandals” including “prevents son from walking into teleprompter,” “Lying about low spice tolerance because he once ate chili powder,” defensive coordinators aren’t real coaches,” “stolen valor after retiring as a different rank than he served as due to a technicality,” and “18 years ago he claimed he got an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce that was actually given to him by the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce.”
Other users pointed out the irony of MAGA users accusing Walz of being a bad dog owner when South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who was at one time considered a potential running mate for Donald Trump, said that she shot and killed her puppy Cricket because she was “untrainable”.
User @CaneRidgeSSR reposted an early August post by Noem criticizing Walz. The repost showed a picture of Walz, holding a gun pointed at the sky, posing with a different dog (neither Scout, nor the unidentified dog at the dog park) captioned “Notice how the barrel of Walz’s gun is pointed away from his dog.
While frequent Trump-critic @Acyn posted a clip of former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki making the comparison on MSNBC. “Psaki: This is an ironic attack, coming from the party whose own rising star Kristi Noem boasted about hating her own family dog so much she took it to a gravel pit and shot it.”