Critics hit back at Meghan McCain, a former conservative voice on The View who is the daughter of the late Arizona Senator John McCain, after she criticized Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, Tim Walz, for hawking a Harris-Walz branded camouflage hat, reminding her of similar merchandise from her own father's campaign.
Walz posted a picture of himself wearing the hat on X, formerly Twitter, with the following caption:
"Capping off the night."
You can see his post and the photo below.
@Tim_Walz/X
You can see the hat below.
kamalaharris.com
Shortly afterward, McCain criticized Walz for wearing the cap:
""Putting someone in a camo hat doesn’t make them a moderate or appealing to red state people. No one is that dumb."
You can see her post below.
X users, however, quickly noticed that a nearly identical camo hat had been released during the 2008 U.S. presidential election when Senator McCain was the Republican nominee with Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Official Campaign Web Site - John McCain
McCain was swiftly called out for her hypocrisy.
Journalist Taylor Lorenz later pointed out some interesting stats about the Walz-Harris cap:
"The campaign made 3k hats originally. Initial inventory sold out in less than 30 min. Thousands of hats are currently on back-order. Over $1M in hats were sold yesterday alone. The team designed and developed the merch and had it for sale all in under 5 hours. The hats are union-made, American-made."
You can see her post below.
The Harris-Walz camo hat was launched for $40 on Tuesday afternoon at kamalaharris.com and sold out by Wednesday. Harris' campaign said sales have totaled almost $1 million. With its shipping date having been updated three times, it is now available only for preorder with an expected October release date.
The official campaign merchandise, designed to resemble hunting gear, was inspired by the cap Walz wore in a video shared by the Harris campaign, where he accepted her invitation to join the ticket as her running mate.
Lorenz and fellow Washington Post reporter Steve O'Neill observed that the hat "fits nicely with Walz’s political persona, which pairs folksy Midwest bona fides and dad-joke groaners with liberal policies."
