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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
Morning Joe hosts have mocked JD Vance’s cat “obsession” after the Ohio senator pushed a bizarre conspiracy theory that immigrants are stealing and eating pets.
Vance is among the most vocal Republican voices peddling baseless claims that Haitians are roaming across his state to steal, kill, and finally devour cats and other domesticated animals.
“Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio,” Vance wrote on X on Monday.
“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”
MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-hosts took a swipe at the Republican vice presidential nominee for his xenophobic claims.
“In 2018 or 2020, the lie about immigrants and illegal immigrants, Katty, was that they were bringing leprosy to America,” Joe Scarborough said on Tuesday morning. “Which, of course, they were not. Now, it’s that they are eating your dogs.”
“Cats!” co-anchor Katty Kay interjected, before quipping: “Don’t live in Ohio with a cat because it might get eaten, obviously…”
After some back and forth about “Mittens going to be dinner,” the pair set their sights on the absurdity of Vance’s theory.
The rumors appeared to have been sparked from a Springfield Facebook group after one local falsely claimed that Haitians were decapitating waterfowl in parks. Another wrote that cats and dogs were being “carved up for consumption.”
The internet has since been ablaze with memes and AI-generated images of Trump cradling pet cats and ducks.
Vance’s false claims were swiftly debunked by Springfield authorities, who confirmed that there have been no reports of pets being stolen and eaten in the community.
“This is absolutely ridiculous and scraping the bottom of the barrel. And JD Vance has been amplifying this,” Kay continued. “What is this guy’s obsession about cats? First he hates them, then he likes them, then he’s trying to save them. I don’t get it.”
Kay concluded: “Maybe too many women like cats rather than JD Vance. Cat women.”
The senator’s latest cat-based backlash follows his resurfaced comments calling Democrat women a “bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives” who are making “the country miserable too.”
He made the remarks in 2021 during a Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson, and has since faced flak in the wake of Harris’s presidential run, with the vice president being a co-parent to her two stepchildren, Ella and Cole Emhoff.
Vance’s penchant for all things feline stems further back than some of his most recent remarks, having selected his Secret Service codename as “Bobcat.”
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