Republicans spent Monday ginning up a quickly-disproven conspiracy about vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s dog—apparently because none of their attacks have landed and they’re getting “desperate”, as MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki said later that day.
A Townhall columnist, Missouri’s attorney general, Donald Trump Jr.’s wife, the founder of Turning Point USA, and others questioned the identity of Walz’s dog, Scout, based on a 2022 photo of Walz petting a different dog, while writing in a social media post, “Couldn’t think of a better way to spend a beautiful fall day than at the dog park. I know Scout enjoyed it.”
Any confusion was quickly eliminated, as Walz—on that same October day—posted an Instagram video with the dog in the picture along with Scout and several others.
Psaki noted the irony in Republicans’ failed line of attack, since it’s “coming from the party whose own rising star…Kristi Noem, talked about hating her own family dog so much that she took it to a gravel pit and shot it.” Noem, who had been considered a top VP nominee for Donald Trump earlier this year, saw those hopes dashed after a damning excerpt in her memoir about killing her dog drew bipartisan criticism.
“Better luck next time, guys,” Psaki said. “In the meantime, my advice in these situations would be to take a page from the FDR playbook.”
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Psaki noted how Roosevelt ridiculed Republican attacks concerning his dog, Fala, during his fourth and final reelection campaign in 1944. Their claim that Roosevelt had left his dog behind while in the Aleutian Islands and then sent a Navy warship to bring him back was false.
“These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala,” Roosevelt said, prompting laughter. “I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself…But I think I have a right to resent—to object—to libelous statements about my dog.”
Psaki concluded: “I think there’s actually an important lesson here. FDR was right: If you resort to attacking a candidate’s dog, you’re probably losing, and you deserve all of the ridicule coming your way.”
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