'Capable of shame': Woman who spread 'cat-eating' lies hailed as 'more decent' than GOP ticket

18 September 2024

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that despite JD Vance knowing his claim that 20,000 Haitians were stealing and eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio was false, the 2024 GOP vice presidential nominee is demanding that reporters "fact-check" the baseless, debunked claim.

Furthermore, Journalist Justin Baragona noted via X, "The Vance campaign provided the Wall Street Journal with a police report to prove their claims about cat-eating Haitians in Springfield. The WSJ spoke to the woman who filed it, who said she later found her cat alive and well in her basement. She also apologized to her Haitian neighbors."

Baragona also provided a screenshot of an excerpt from the WSJ's report:

A Vance spokesperson on Tuesday provided The Wall Street Journal with a police report in which a resident had claimed her pet might have been taken by Haitian neighbors. But when a reporter went to Anna Kilgore's house Tuesday evening, she said her cat Miss Sassy, which went missing in late August, had actually returned a few days later-found safe in her own basement. Kilgore, wearing a Trump shirt and hat, said she apologized to her Haitian neighbors with the help of her daughter and a mobile-phone translation app.

Political analyst Keith Boykin replied: "This is how Black people got killed in the Jim Crow era. Something 'bad' happened to a white person, and a lynch mob rushed out to string up a Black person. It's how Emmett Till got lynched, how the Central Park Five got framed, and how Haitian immigrants are being targeted."

New York Times columnist David French added: "This is why you don't just accept random accounts from citizens and broadcast them to the nation as truth without any investigation or inquiry."

Conservative Bill Kristol wrote: "The Springfield resident has apologized. The Vance campaign has not. Because they apparently could care less if they’re spreading lies."

MSNBC's Chris Hayes said: "One hopeful aspect of this story is that ordinary people - across the political spectrum - have routinely shown themselves to be more decent and capable of shame and regret than the men at the top of the Republican ticket."

Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, added: "Somehow, the racist Trump lady who immediately jumped to the conclusion that Haitians had taken her cat that was in her basement still has more BASIC HUMAN DECENCY than JD Vance... because she, at least, apologized."

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