Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) walked away from the counter at a cafe without paying, with Walz’s daughter revealing that “someone will be up” to pay.
Video footage posted to X appeared showed the two men walking away from the counter after Walz’s daughter tells them she will “wait” for the tea and informs a worker behind the counter that a campaign staffer is coming to the counter to pay.
“I’ll wait for your tea,” Walz’s daughter says as the two men walk away.
After being handed the tea, Walz’s daughter can be heard thanking the worker and informing them that “someone will be up here to pay.”
The worker then informs Walz’s daughter that “it’s okay,” before she points and adds, “Right, well no, like, he’s coming. Thank you so much.”
People took to social media to criticize them for walking away without paying, and having an assistant pay for their order.
“These guys are just like you and me,” one person wrote in a post on X. “They take their food without paying and have an assistant pay for them.”
“They are accustomed to the taxpayer paying their bills,” another person wrote in a post on X.
“This is so embarrassing, Tim Walz and Doug Emhoff left a restaurant without paying, prompting Tim’s daughter to inform staff that someone would be along to pay for their bill,” journalist Ian Miles Cheong wrote in a post on X. “Totally a middle class thing, am I right.”
The two men visited the Otro Cafe in Phoenix, Arizona, according to AZCentral.
Stephanie Murray, a national politics reporter with AzCentral wrote in a post on X that Walz and Emhoff had stopped at the cafe “with their kids” on the “first day of early voting,” and added that “from what” she heard, Walz “ordered an iced tea and a morning bun.”
“Tim Walz and Doug Emhoff stop at Otro Cae in Phoenix for pastries with their kids,” Murray wrote. “It’s the first day of early voting in Arizona. From what I could hear, the governor ordered an iced tea and a morning bun.”