Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly has defended Donald Trump’s claim that migrants are killing and eating pets in Ohio, while also praising the former president’s aggressive style of political communication.
“That’s the thing about Trump: believe it or don’t believe it,” Kelly said, during an episode of her podcast that aired Monday. “And frankly, I saw two cats on a barbecue on Chris Rufo’s feed, but whatever.”
In what has become one of the best remembered moments of the Sept. 10 ABC debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the former president said that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the dogs – the people that came in – they are eating the cats.”
The claim, made earlier in the campaign by Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, has been widely denied by officials and law enforcement from the city of Springfield. A spokesperson for the city previously told Newsweek that there had been “no credible reports” that cats or dogs had been harmed by the migrant community in the small city.
Megyn Kelly visits SiriusXM Studios on March 28, 2024 in New York City. During a recent episode of her podcast, Kelly said that she had seen footage of cats on a barbecue on the X feed of Chris Rufo.
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
However, Kelly said she believed the claim, citing images she saw on the X feed of Christopher Rufo, an American conservative activist who on Sept. 14 shared a video supposedly showing a cat’s carcass on a barbecue.
The footage was subsequently shared by JD Vance, who captioned it with: “Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves. Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”
Many in the comments of Vance’s post pointed out that the creature in the video more closely resembled a chicken, with one writing: It seems very possible the person recording had never seen a raw chicken with the legs attached and misidentified what he was seeing.”
Rufo had previously offered $5,000 to “anyone who can provide my team with hard, verifiable evidence that Haitian migrants are eating cats in Springfield, Ohio.”
Regardless of the veracity of Trump’s message, Kelly said that his remarks at the debate had brought attention to the issue of immigration.
“That’s him bringing an issue home to people in a way that you can remember,” Kelly said. “It’s easy to remember and it’s horrifying, and either way it keeps the issue in the news non-stop.”
Her guest, National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty, said that Trump’s message would hold particular appeal for the small-town, suburban voter.
Kelly’s argument echoed that made by Vance during his Sept. 15 interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.
After being confronted about his claims, Vance said: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
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