Veep nominee and John Wayne Gacy look-alike JD Vance doubles down on his rabidly racist pet eating rhetoric

The 2024 presidential election race has been defined by some truly bizarre gaffes, from mentions of Hannibal Lecter to a story involving a beheaded beached whale, but perhaps the strangest moment came courtesy of JD Vance and his claims of pet-eating in the state of Ohio. 

For context, the vice presidential candidate this week circulated claims that Haitian immigrants in his home state were killing and eating residents’ pets. While Ohioan officials found there to be no evidence behind the claims, stories of supposed pet-eating nonetheless kicked off online, resulting in commentary from the likes of Elon Musk and sparking an AI-generated ‘Cats for Trump’ campaign.

The dust was just settling on the story when Donald Trump, who had spent the hours prior resharing cat images on X, breathed new life into the claims during the presidential debate. The Republican candidate resurfaced the story on an even bigger platform, amplifying claims that immigrants in Ohio were killing and eating pets. 

Of course, the pet-eating debacle is simply part of Trump’s broader racial and anti-immigration fear-mongering, something that has consistently defined his campaign. The former president has consistently attributed crime and drug use to immigration, and his efforts to fan these racial flames have only been accelerated by Vance. 

While you might think — given that the claims were debunked and he attracted widespread backlash because of them — that Vance would soften his position on the pet-eating story, the alleged couch-lover actually did the opposite in a recent interview. Doubling down on the racist messaging, Vance said “no one has spread false claims” about the pets in Ohio, adding that the Haitian immigrant community in Ohio has “caused a lot of problems.”

“[Immigration] has led to animals disappearing,” Vance said. He went on to reiterate his claim that residents had shared anecdotes of pet-eating and that the Ohio city manager “isn’t fully in touch with what’s going on on the ground there.” 

While yet again repeating racially motivated claims that have no supportive evidence is inflammatory enough, Vance’s response to the question is doubly provocative given that it was posed by Yamiche Alcindor. The highly esteemed NBC political correspondent is herself the daughter of Haitian immigrants, and rather than respond thoughtfully to her real concerns around the risk posed to immigrants by Vance’s pet-eating theories, he chose to simply repeat them.

Indeed, Alcindor’s sentiment around the danger posed by Vance’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has been a cause for concern among Haitian Americans, with the journalist herself resharing a quote that described the claims as “repulsive, denigrating [and] dangerous lies.” Others have flocked to social media to demand an end to the rhetoric, with one Haitian American X user writing that they are “NOT here for this.”

Of course, Vance’s attempt to be some great pet savior is not only racist, but laced with unprecedented levels of irony. The same guy who claimed cat ownership had ruined the country is now heralding himself as some champion of animals, and is obviously oblivious to the fact that his Trump-affiliated pals like Kristi Noem and RFK Jr. are the ones whose interactions with animals should be monitored.