JD Vance, Donald Trump and other Republicans are clinging to a racist and thoroughly debunked lie that a group of legal immigrants in Ohio are abducting, killing and eating people’s pets.
There’s zero truth to the claim . And yet, there’s a mountain of evidence — in the last week, month, year and half-century — that it’s Republicans who pose the gravest threat to America’s animals.
Most recently, several former colleagues of Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation and the man behind Project 2025, told The Guardian that Roberts once said he’d killed a neighbor’s dog with a shovel.
Kenneth Hammond, who worked with Roberts in the history department at New Mexico State University in 2004, was one of three colleagues who shared the story with the outlet, which published its report on Tuesday.
“My recollection of his account was that he was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping the baby and probably the parents awake and that he kind of lost it and took a shovel and killed the dog,” Hammond said.
Another colleague recalled Roberts sharing the story at a dinner party he hosted, adding that Roberts said he’d considered killing the dog’s puppies as well.
Roberts told The Guardian the story is “patently untrue.”
If he indeed killed the dog, Roberts would actually be in good company. Numerous other Republicans (and their supporters) have harmed or threatened — whether directly or indirectly — America’s animals in recent history, some fatally. Including:
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem
Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) walks to an interview during the second day of the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022, in Orlando, Florida.
Noem bragged in her autobiography about shooting a 14-month-old puppy because she found it “less than worthless” as a hunting dog. (The puppy wasn’t very good at helping her find other animals to kill, so she killed it? Ironic!)
Noem also described how she killed a goat because it was “nasty and mean” by shooting it with a shotgun after she “dragged him to a gravel pit.” Her first shot merely wounded the animal, but she’d only brought one shell, so she had to go get another one from the truck.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. waves to supporters after speaking at a campaign stop on Monday, May 13, 2024, in Austin, Texas.
Thanks to RFK Jr.’s failed independent presidential bid, we’ve learned he’s cut a whale’s head off with a chainsaw, allegedly barbecued and eaten a dog (he maintains it was a goat), and planned to skin and eat a bear cub but got distracted and dumped the carcass in New York City’s Central Park instead.
Sources told CBS New York the cub was found with “stab and slash wounds on its body.”
Former Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran
Former Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) gestures to the audience at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi, on Thursday, July 31, 2014.
During a campaign stop in 2014, the late senator from Mississippi wistfully recalled “ doing all kinds of indecent things to animals ” when he was younger.
“It was fun,” he said. “It was an adventure to be out there in the country and to see what goes on. Picking up pecans ... doing all kinds of indecent things to animals.”
Cochran didn’t elaborate, so we can only speculate about the nature of his, um, indecency.
Former South Carolina Republican Party Leader Todd Kincannon
Todd Kincannon is seen in this 2018 Lexington County Detention Center booking photo.
Kincannon killed his mother’s dog in 2018 “because God told him to.”
According to police records obtained by The Associated Press , Kincannon emerged from his parents’ home wearing only his underwear and, while “covered in blood and dog hair,” told officers that “every 1,000 years there needs to be a sacrifice and blood must be spilt.”
Illinois Rep. Mike Bost
Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) leaves the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018.
In 1986, Bost shot a neighbor’s beagle to death while it was in a penned enclosure because, according to court records, he was angry it bit his daughter after she provoked it by chasing it. Police records show Bost nevertheless had no problem letting his own dog roam around the neighborhood.
Former Iowa Rep. Steve King
Former Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) attends a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 8, 2018.
In addition to defending white supremacists , the nine-time Iowa Republican also defended dogfighting .
In 2007, King voted against a law that strengthened penalties for illegal dogfighting and cockfighting, as well as made it a felony to transport animals across state lines for that purpose.
He also tried to defeat an amendment that criminalized “bringing a child to a dogfight or a cockfight.”
Former New York Rep. George Santos
Former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) speaks during a press conference outside the Capitol in Washington on Nov. 30, 2023.
Former New York Rep. George Santos once stole $3,000 from a GoFundMe intended to cover the cost of lifesaving surgery for a U.S. Navy veteran’s dying service dog.
Former Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe
Former Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is seen in the Capitol during a Senate vote on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022.
Inhofe, who died in 2024, held annual “ old world pigeon shoots ,” in which hundreds of doves raised in captivity were tossed in the air and shot by supporters as part of a fundraiser.
An undercover video at one event showed that Inhofe and his allies left behind dozens of wounded birds to slowly die in a field.
Inhofe ended the shooting events in 2017 after years of protest from animal rights groups.
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) speaks during Secretary of State Antony Blinken's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington on May 21, 2024.
Romney famously tied his dog, Seamus, to the roof of the family car during a 12-hour cross-country road trip in 1983. The tale dogged Romney during his 2008 and 2012 presidential runs.
But don’t compare Romney to Noem or RFK Jr.
“I didn’t eat my dog,” he told HuffPost earlier this year, saying he resents the comparison. “I didn’t shoot my dog. I loved my dog and my dog loved me.”
BONUS: Donald Trump Jr.
Donald Trump Jr. signs books on June 15, 2024, at Huntington Place Convention Center in Detroit.
Donald Trump’s namesake loves big-game hunting , having regularly traveled abroad to kill animals in foreign countries.
In 2019, Trump Jr. used U.S. government resources to kill an endangered sheep in Mongolia, for which the Mongolian government had to issue a permit retroactively.
And in 2017, he spent Earth Day shooting prairie dogs in Montana with the state’s current governor, Republican Greg Gianforte.
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