A fake fact-checking article claims Trump’s running mate JD Vance killed his cat

On September 12, social media users began claiming that JD Vance killed his family cat, citing a number of articles by a well-known fact-checking site. Turns out, however, these articles are fake. © X

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it has – false accusations of killing pets have become the latest issue at the centre of American political debates. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump began by making false accusations about Haitian migrants killing and eating pets in Ohio during his debate with Democratic rival Kamala Harris. However, on September 12, Democratic supporters online started making claims of their own – that Trump’s running mate JD Vance killed his family’s cat. There’s even an article from the fact-checking website PolitiFact that verifies the story. Turns out, however, the fact-checking article is fake. PolitiFact never published that article.  

Social media users have a new theory about why US presidential candidate Donald Trump made false accusations that Haitian immigrants were eating pets during his debate with rival Kamala Harris. They say that it was an effort to distract from stories that Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, apparently killed his family’s cat. Pro-Democratic accounts started circulating these claims on September 12 (examples here and here). Together, these posts garnered more than 1.6 million views on X.