R.I.P. to MAGA’s Tim Walz Dog-Replacement Conspiracy Theory

MAGA world is going through some tough times. Donald Trump is still melting down over the DNC. J.D. Vance can’t be normal even while ordering doughnuts on-camera. And now the team that brought us Birtherism and “Taylor Swift and Joe Biden fixed the Super Bowl” can’t even come up with a decent conspiracy theory about the Kamala Harris–Tim Walz ticket.

Their latest attempt fizzled out in just one day. Dustin Grage, a columnist at the right-wing website Town Hall, posted two screenshots to X on Monday showing Walz posing with dogs. One photo showed the Minnesota governor with his black Labrador retriever mix Scout, who often appears in his social-media posts and was profiled by Vogue. The other photo showed Walz patting a brown-and-white dog with the caption, “Couldn’t think of a better way to spend a beautiful fall day than at the dog park. I know Scout enjoyed it.”

Conservatives on X ran with the idea that the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee had a Scout “problem.” They never said exactly what they were accusing Walz of doing: fatally shooting the real Scout in a gravel pit? Employing a Scout body double? Not actually having a dog because he thinks pet ownership is “low class”? But everyone from Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, to MAGA influencer @catturd2 agreed that the two dog posts proved Walz is a liar, or at the very least “weird.”

Tim Walz with his 50 dogs named Scout. pic.twitter.com/qaXxBT9Kae

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) August 26, 2024

Scoutgate was even mentioned twice on Newsmax:

Tim Walz went to a dog park, and right-wing media and online idiots have tried to make it into A Thing

Newsmax host: "By the way, did you hear Tim Walz with the dog situation on Dog Day a day ago? Two different dogs, they both have the same name. I don't think he's got a dog." pic.twitter.com/En3j7WdVRH

— Lis Power (@LisPower1) August 27, 2024

Seriously, one of Newsmax's evening shows ended with a segment "Did Tim Walz lie about his dog?" pic.twitter.com/xhuCSxl8Fk

— Lis Power (@LisPower1) August 27, 2024

But the story quickly fizzled when other X users discovered that the second photo merely shows Walz patting one of Scout’s doggie friends. A video Walz posted to Instagram on October 19, 2022, shows him playing with Scout, the brown-and-white dog in the photo, and a third doggie bystander.

So all we’ve learned is that Walz is guilty of being nice to multiple dogs, and Trump supporters are bad at both “doing their own research” and coming up with plausible conspiracy theories about the governor. This is particularly embarrassing because, as highlighted by the guy who started the Scout debacle, Walz’s missing cat was right there!

Many of you have been asking, how has Tim Walz gotten away with so much?

Let me explain:

Here is a local story about Afton, the Governor’s cat that went missing four months prior. Only the real hard hitting news here in Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/RBeucDP06c

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) August 26, 2024