You’ve heard of doughnut holes, but Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz really wants to make sure you get a taste of his signature doughnut trolls.
Social media accounts for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign shared a clip Wednesday of Walz and daughter Hope, sporting coordinating camouflage ballcaps while picking up some snacks at a farm store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. While Hope is caught cheerfully proclaiming that “we’re a big fan of pumpkin in this family. We’re pumpkin people,” pledging allegiance to autumnal vibes, her dad takes the opportunity to smoothly shade his Republican opponent.
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“Peaches too, that’s what I said,” Walz begins, stacking clamshells of baked goods in his hands. “I could balance it out to have a nutritional diet.”
“Look at me, I have no problem picking out doughnuts and things,” he chuckles.
Walz appears to be referencing the now-viral clip of Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, fellow Diet Mountain Dew enthusiast JD Vance, seemingly struggling to order doughnuts last month in Georgia. In the video, Vance asks several employees how long they’ve worked there, replying to each with, “Okay, good,” as if he’s been sent to fact-check some very specific timeline of doughnut enterprise developments. How long has the shop been open, he wonders? “About four years.” This is also met with an, “Okay, good.” The conversational struggle continues while actually ordering the pastries, as Vance flaps his hand in kind of a defeated way, mumbling “a lot of glazed here, some sprinkles stuff, some of these cinnamon rolls.” It’s less an order and more of a stream of consciousness narration of a man encountering sprinkles in the wild for the very first time. He has heard of them, but now that he’s come face to face with them, wonders how to even comprehend such wonders. He eventually gives up: “Just whatever makes sense.”
What does that even mean? The world continues to wonder.
Walz, a key architect of the death-by-a-thousand-cuts messaging strategy of repeatedly labeling Republicans as “weird,” managed to deliver a subtle blow with that one comment. It’s not vicious enough to be labeled as outright mean, but its truth is inarguable and its effect lasting. It’s not a mistake that they passed out those “Coach” placards at the Democratic National Convention last month: The Harris campaign knows that in Walz, they have a weapon that takes the form of a guy a lot of people would be willing to listen to.
As political strategist Caitlin Legacki told Vanity Fair earlier this summer, “[Walz] looks like a normal guy. He’s the type of guy that your dad would be friends with. You know, he’s your former high school teacher.”
As Walz enjoys both a delicious treat and the sweet taste of a zinger well-delivered, we can mark this one down as another adventure of Tim Walz, Man of the People.
