J.D. Vance’s Shocking Explanation for Sharing Cat-Eating Conspiracy

J.D. Vance amplified a false and racist rumor that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating pets in Ohio—without seeing any evidence himself. 

The Republican vice presidential nominee shared the conspiracy theory on X Monday, accusing the immigrants of being in the U.S. illegally, “draining social services” and “generally causing chaos.” In addition, the Trump-Vance campaign sent out a news release repeating the false claims, saying, “It’s coming to your city next.” 

When The New York Times contacted the campaign, they did not provide any evidence and only said Vance was responding to large numbers of calls and emails from Springfield, Ohio, residents, who have also repeated the claims in town meetings. But according to the local newspaper, the Springfield News-Sun, there have been no police reports of any pets being killed and eaten and the conspiracy seems to have originated from a Facebook post that didn’t contain any evidence.  

The rumor was also given life after a report from Canton, Ohio, of a woman who was arrested for allegedly killing and eating a cat. The woman, however, is a U.S. citizen, and there is no indication she is a Haitian immigrant.

Conservative politicians, pundits, and influencers have all amplified the rumor, which furthers the right-wing narrative that immigrants are invading the country, breaking laws, and bringing their savage cultural practices with them. In 2018, Donald Trump reportedly claimed that all Haitian immigrants have AIDS and referred to the country as a “shithole.” 

With a presidential debate approaching Tuesday night between Trump and Kamala Harris, Republicans will likely repeat such claims in an attempt to frame Democrats as being soft on immigration, and conflate this false rumor with the perpetual “border crisis.” Will Democrats have an effective response and call out these claims for how weird they are, or will they adopt Republican fearmongering?

A survey published Monday found that voters in three swing states are supportive of an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and limiting military aid to Israel.  

A Cato Institute survey of 1,500 Americans conducted by YouGov found that a majority of likely voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin favored an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, where Israel’s 11-month military onslaught has killed nearly 41,000 people, displaced nearly two million, and resulted in a catastrophic famine and health crisis. 

Eight in 10 swing-state voters, regardless of political affiliation, supported an immediate cease-fire, according to the new poll. In Wisconsin, 80 percent of respondents favored a cease-fire, while in Pennsylvania and Michigan, the numbers were 75 percent and 74 percent, respectively.

Across all three swing states, more than 88 percent of Democrats supported an immediate cease-fire, while more than 78 percent of independents supported one.

A majority of voters also supported making military aid to Israel conditional or not supplying it at all: 61 percent in Wisconsin, 51 percent in Pennsylvania, and 56 percent in Michigan. Limiting aid to Israel’s cause was supported by 74 percent of Democrats in Wisconsin, and 64 in Pennsylvania and Michigan. 

Kamala Harris’s campaign published its first official “Issues” page on Monday, debuting its milquetoast platform about Gaza. The position stood in sharp relief to advocates’ pleas that, as president, she might limit or end military aid to Israel, based on any one of the state’s array of violations of international law: its indiscriminate killing of civilians and aid workers, illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, alleged sexual torture of prisoners, and reported murder of a U.S. citizen in the West Bank. 

“Vice President Harris will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and she will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself,” the site read, stomping out hopes of even a conditional aid agreement. “She and President Biden are working to end the war in Gaza, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination. She and President Biden are working around the clock to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done.”

With the clock counting down to the first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee seems to prefer living in a fantasy land.

On Monday, Trump was practically writing fanfiction about the possibility of still facing off against his last opponent, President Joe Biden, despite the reality of the coming hours.

“Comrade Kamala Harris goes to an ultra Left Wing, Trump Hating, spice shop, which I hear has terrible, overpriced product, and calls for ‘unity,’” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, referring to Harris’s weekend stop at a Pittsburgh spice market called Penzey Spices. Penzeys is openly anti-Trump and anti-Republican in all its PR materials.

“As people begin to realize that she is a Marxist, FAR MORE LIBERAL than Crazy Bernie Sanders, or even Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren, her poll numbers are beginning to crash. Who are they going to put in next? How about a Biden comeback?” Trump continued.

With less than 60 days until Election Day, Harris and Trump will face off for the first time Tuesday on ABC at 9:00 p.m. ET.

A HarrisX/Harris poll (no relation to the vice president) sponsored by the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies conducted last week saw Trump and Harris neck and neck among registered voters, though other polls have predicted Harris to have a slight advantage, particularly in key battleground states. Last week, the Trump campaign attempted to brush off New Hampshire entirely after spending considerable resources to win there, when a top volunteer leaked that it was clear the Granite State would vote for the Democrat.

“This election is going to be won in those seven swing states” and not in New Hampshire, the Trump campaign’s New Hampshire co-chair Lou Gargiulo told Politico at the time, referring to Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. “That’s where the effort’s got to be put.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday praised a January 6 rioter who entered the Capitol building through a broken window and drank shots of whiskey in Representative Nancy Pelosi’s office.

Greene was leading a hearing on her report, “Unusually Cruel: A Continued Investigation Into the Treatment of J6 Political Prisoners,” and one of the people testifying was Trennis Evans, convicted of knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building on January 6, 2021, serving 20 days in prison.

Greene asked Evans about his crimes, and he responded that “the government was kind enough to provide me a federal prison stay for demonstrations.” Greene followed up and asked, “Did you burn down the Capitol on January 6?” while holding up a picture of burning buildings, purportedly from one of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests.

Evans responded in the negative, and said he would have been better off if he was an antifa protester, claiming that such a person was sentenced on the same day as him and only received probation. Greene then asked Evans if he assaulted anyone on January 6.

“Only the fabric of democracy, I hear,” Evans responded jokingly, drawing a chuckle from Greene.

“God bless you for your humor. Thank you,” Greene said.

It’s not surprising that Greene would appreciate a joke on assaulting democracy, given how she feels about the Capitol insurrection. Nearly two years ago, she remarked that if she had organized the riots along with Steve Bannon, “we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.” Greene also doesn’t seem to know the difference between a peaceful protest and a riot, once attacking a sit-in at a House of Representatives building supporting a cease-fire in Gaza as an “insurrection.”

To praise a rioter, however, is to praise someone whose goal it was to overthrow a U.S. election and attack the people whose job it was to certify the results. Greene probably would be saying something quite different if left-wing protesters sought to overturn a Republican election through violence, and probably wouldn’t be laughing over threats to “the fabric of democracy.”

Donald Trump may have gotten a massive reprieve in the criminal sentencing for his hush-money trial, but that doesn’t mean that his attorneys are finished with trying to wipe the whole issue off the table.

Last week, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan delayed Trump’s sentencing from September 18 to November 26, after the presidential election. But by Monday, Trump’s legal team had already asked a federal appeals court to intervene, requesting a total pause in the proceedings on the basis that Merchan’s adjustment “does not allow adequate time for interlocutory” appeal after the Supreme Court’s broad immunity ruling.

“Because of the significance of the Presidential immunity doctrine, the federal government and the public share an interest in that outcome—even if these novel and complex issues are to be addressed after the 2024 Presidential election,” wrote Trump attorneys Emil Bove and Todd Blanche.

Trump was found guilty in May of 34 felony charges related to falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in the first degree. Trump was accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug before the 2016 presidential election in an effort to skew public opinion.

Trump’s other legal trials are also hanging in the balance. The former president’s January 6 federal election interference case, which resumed Thursday, was considered practically dead after the Supreme Court granted the presidential office sweeping immunity protections. But the Republican presidential nominee has managed to drop soundbites in recent weeks that amount to outright confessions to the underlying charges—something that legal experts believe could be used against him in court.