J.D. Vance Tells People to Spread Racist Cat Conspiracy Theory

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) speaks to reporters in front of the border wall with Mexico on Sept. 6, 2024 in San Diego, California.

Donald Trump’s running mate doubled down on the disproven, racist lie that Haitians are eating cats and other animals in Springfield, Ohio, on Tuesday, acknowledging on X, formerly Twitter, that the conspiracy theory is a “rumor” while encouraging followers to keep spreading it, anyway.

Springfield police have said they have not received any reports of such events, and city engagement manager Karen Graves said “there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

J.D. Vance posted about the fabrication on Monday. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” he wrote. “Where is our border czar?”

Vance said on Tuesday that there was some possibility the story wasn’t true, but ultimately, it was clear that didn’t matter to him. He posted on X: “In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants.”

He continued: “It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

But then, he went on feeding the fire: “Do you know what’s confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here.”

Vance was apparently referring to 11-year-old Aiden Clark, who was killed in a crash between his school bus and an SUV driven by a man from Haiti. Clark’s family asked that his story not be used to fuel racism. “Please do not mix up the values of our family with the uninformed majority that vocalize their hate. Aiden embraced different cultures and would insist you do the same,” they said.

“In short,” Vance added, “don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing.”

In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who've said their neighbors' pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false. Do you know…— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 10, 2024

Memes of Trump saving cats from Haitian migrants have flooded right-wing social media, including the accounts of Republican lawmakers like Ted Cruz, who posted an image of two cats with the text, “please vote for Trump so the Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”

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John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, addressed the conspiracy theory on Tuesday, calling it racist and dangerous. He said that “elected officials in the Republican Party” were pushing “yet another conspiracy theory that’s just seeking to divide people based on lies.”

Kirby noted that people “might act on that kind of information and act on it in a way where somebody could get hurt.” It isn’t a theoretical fear, with Ryan Reilly of NBC News pointing out that when Trump supporters plotted to kill refugees in 2016, their lawyers argued they were duped by false Facebook posts.

Conservatives seemed to delight in the outrage. “How do we know we are winning? Democrats are losing their minds over memes in the halls of Congress,” wrote conservative commentator Benny Johnson, posting a video of Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) pointing to an AI-generated image of Trump hugging a duck and a kitten.

Johnson also pointed to how the Arizona GOP created 12 billboards that said “eat less kittens vote Republican!”

“This is so savage,” he wrote.

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Since the pandemic, as many as 20,000 Haitians have immigrated legally to Springfield to work in factories and warehouses. A similar lie percolated in March when conservatives posted about what Elon Musk called “cannibal gangs” of Haitians coming to the U.S. Musk has also shared the conspiracy theory about Haitians eating cats.

On Monday, the X owner amplified a post that, like Vance’s, acknowledged some room for falsehood — and then brushed it aside. “They can debunk it all. Go ahead, call us racist bigots!” wrote an account called Dumb Bitch Capital, LLC. The post continued: “None of that even matters. It was never about the damn cat.” The account then fear-mongered about Haitian immigrants, like Vance did.