by Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance continues to rage against foreign-born members of his own district, sharing footage with his 1.9 million social media followers that he claims shows African immigrants in Dayton , Ohio “eating cats” – but it seems instead. showing nothing more than poultry cooking on an outdoor grill.
“Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves,” Vance posted Saturday on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. “Another underrated story with merit.”
Vance claimed, falsely, that in recent days Haitians – who are not African – living in Springfield – a town of 58,000 that is not Dayton – have been stealing, killing and eating their neighbors’ pets.
The video was originally posted by Christopher Rufo of the right-wing Manhattan Institute, who offered a $5,000 reward to anyone who could provide “proof” of cat-eating immigrants in Ohio. The movie was filmed last year in Dayton, Rufo wrote in a companion article published Saturday on his personal website. He said he spoke to the person who shot the video, and that this person said the cat-eaters were “some Africans who live right next door to my child’s mother,” according to Rufo’s piece, which insists the claims were verified by “multiple eyewitnesses and visual cross-references.”
“A case can be made for migration, but at the same time, it cannot be denied that it comes with costs – which, in this case, seem to include a pair of flayed cats on a blue barbecue in Dayton, Ohio,” the article concludes.
Backlash was swift, with responses ranging from, “I’m surprised that a self-professed ‘hillbilly’ doesn’t know what whole chickens look like,” to, “HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT CHICKENS LOOK LIKE WITH CHICKEN WHAT YOU HAVE. F****ING DIPSHIT.” Oliver Alexander, an open source intelligence analyst, weighed in, sharing images of suffocating chickens looking remarkably similar to whatever was being grilled in the video. “You obviously have a strange chicken. Dude never saw a chicken that wasn’t dino-nugget shaped,” he wrote.
Rufo did not respond to a request for comment Saturday. Vance’s campaign declined to comment on the record. An expert at the National Chicken Council did not respond to inquiries. However, a source close to Vance said The Independent that they do not believe that the carcasses seen on the grill are chickens. A visual comparison of skinned cats prepared for use in the laboratory and fully feathered chickens makes it almost certain that the animals in the video are not.
Saturday’s repost by Vance, a Yale-educated lawyer representing Ohio State, marks yet another escalation of the anti-immigrant narrative he launched publicly less than a week ago. On Monday, Vance falsely claimed that newly arrived Haitians in Springfield were feasting on their neighbors’ pets, sparking national outrage from the right. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz enthusiastically kicked the pot, posting a photo that same day of a cat with one line of text reading, “Vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”
As the concocted story gathered steam, it was quickly debunked by Springfield officials, who said they had no information to support Vance’s allegations. However, that didn’t stop the Trump-Vance campaign from sending out a press release accusing Haitians of “unchecked” consumption of not only domestic animals, but also local wildlife such as ducks and geese. On Tuesday night, during the first (and likely only) presidential debate between Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Kamala Harris, the former president took the opportunity to escalate tensions even more.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump argued at the event Tuesday afternoon. “The people who came in. They are eating the cats. They are eating, they are eating the pets of the people who live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
Since then, members of the Haitian community have become targets, many of whom have been afraid to leave their homes for fear of being attacked by angry residents.
“It’s causing so much panic in the community,” said Springfield resident and local leader Viles Dorsainvil The Independent. “… The words that come out of their mouths don’t matter. They are seeking the highest office in America. The onus is on them to do better, because words are powerful.”
He said Haitians in Springfield have been calling the nonprofit Haitian Community Aid and Support Center, which Dorsainville founded last year, to ask if it’s safe for them to go outside.
“And we tell them, when they’re going out, to be careful,” Dorsainvil said.
On Thursday morning, multiple schools and government offices were evacuated in Springfield after bomb threats, and then again on Friday, which forced the evacuation of two elementary schools and a middle school. No explosives received at any of the locations listed in the threat, Springfield authorities said in a news release.
Still, a day later, Vance was back at it.
As one disappointed X user wrote, “It feels like these people won’t be happy until someone gets hurt or killed.”
