‘Stay away from my delicious cat’: JD Vance now says Ohio residents are eating kitties and even the police are like ‘nah, bro’

By now, we know that politicians affiliated with Donald Trump cannot be trusted around animals, from Kristi Noem willingly admitting to killing her dog to Trump endorser RFK Jr. willingly admitting to planting a dead bear cub in Central Park. 

Now, Trump’s running mate has joined the increasing discussion around animals during the presidential race, a political discourse that is truly bizarre given that there are far more important matters to discuss (gun control? Abortion rights? Heck, even a philly cheesesteak order?). 

In any case, JD Vance has yet again invoked our furry companions to accelerate his policy of immigration fear mongering. In a now-debunked statement, the vice presidential candidate pointed to reports that Haitian immigrants were responsible for abducting and eating the pets of residents in Springfield, in his home state of Ohio. 

“I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield,” Vance wrote on X. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” Vance concluded the message by resurfacing a term that’s also been debunked, asking “where is our border czar?”

Like the true Trump mentee he is, Vance’s claims were promptly deemed to be false, with a report from Springfield News-Sun finding that police had fielded no reports of stolen or eaten pets. “[That’s] not something that’s on our radar right now,” police representatives told the publication.

Despite it being false, Vance isn’t the only right-wing figure to comment on the supposed pet-eating maniacs of Springfield, with commentators like Charlie Kirk and Ian Miles Cheong recirculating the claims on social media. 

For his part, X owner and bromantic Trump partner Elon Musk also circulated the claims, writing on his platform that people should vote for Kamala Harris if “want this to happen to your neighborhood.” Musk also took the claims as a rallying call for Trump as some sort of animal savior, resharing an AI-generated image of the former president cuddling a duck and kitten. It’s less the wholesome image he thinks it is, and more the stuff of nightmares. 

Of course, there’s irony laced all throughout this story, most notably in the fact that the man who once equated cat ownership with ruining the country is now proclaiming to be some great pet defender. Also, if there’s anyone whose interactions with animals should be monitored, it’s Trump endorser RFK Jr., who was accused of eating a dog and also reportedly beheaded a beached whale.

Taking the pet-eating claims as the joke that they are, some Democratic voters have relished in Vance’s latest attempt at fear-mongering, joking that their “Democrat pals need to stay away from my delicious cat.” Others claimed this Ohioan pet talking point is evidence of how the Trump campaign is “running things” as “reactionary populists and not strategic planners.”Another user summed up the hullabaloo quite neatly, writing that “if it comes out of the mouth of a right winger, it probably isn’t true.”