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Jimmy Kimmel said Donald Trump owed his running mate JD Vance the “worst debate moment ever” when he spread the wild lie that migrants eat pets.
“I had a liberal elite day today,” Kimmel said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday before immediately attacking Trump for his litany of false claims during and leading up to the political confrontation with Kamala Harris.
“I woke up, ate a big cat for breakfast and then I had a baby – and right after that I had an abortion. Then after school I picked up my kids from their mandatory transgender surgeries and now I’m back here spreading Marxist propaganda on TV.”
The Republican presidential candidate made numerous wild, false claims during the debate, one of which stood out in particular: the debunked claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eat domestic dogs and cats.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came here. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And that’s what’s happening in our country, and it’s a disgrace,” Trump proclaimed in his strange tirade.
Kimmel sharply criticized Trump for his comments, calling it “perhaps the worst debate moment ever” and blaming Trump’s running mate for bringing the issue to the Republican presidential candidate’s radar in the first place.
“JD has decided, ‘I’m going to make this the centerpiece of every campaign speech,'” Kimmel said.
“Then it got into Trump’s little brain and now that moron is forced to constantly defend it.”
Before the debate, Vance had spread unfounded rumors on social media.
The falsehood appears to have originated from a Springfield Facebook group that warned residents that pets such as cats and dogs were being “dismembered” and eaten, and advised locals to beware of the Haitian community.
Ohio officials have since refuted these allegations and stated that there are no credible reports of such incidents.
The late-night show host played a clip of CNN Senator Kaitlan Collins questioning the Ohio senator about his and Trump’s “responsibility” to “not spread false information.”
In the clip that went viral, Collins remarked to Vance, “If someone calls your office and says they saw Bigfoot, that doesn’t mean they saw Bigfoot.”
Vance replied, “That’s a perfectly valid argument, but nobody calls my office and says they’ve seen Bigfoot.”
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! The host joked, “Well, not yet, they’re not” – before reading out to his audience the phone number of Vance’s office.
“But if you want to call JD Vance and say you saw Bigfoot,” he added to applause from his audience, “the direct line to his office is (202) 224-3353.”
As the phone number flashed on the screen, he continued, “But please don’t, he’s very busy. Last night he got a lot of calls saying the sprinkles on Baskin Robbins ice cream make you gay.”
Kimmel again sarcastically urged his viewers “not to call (202) 224-3353 to report a Bigfoot sighting.”
The false claims about migrants in Ohio weren’t Trump’s only lie Tuesday night when he met Harris face-to-face for the first time – prompting ABC News anchors Linsey Davis and David Muir to do some fact-checking.
He also spread the lie that Democrats supported post-natal abortions – and blamed Vance for his comments on abortion.
When asked whether he would veto a national abortion ban if it landed on his desk if he won the election, Trump twice refused to give a clear answer.
Davis pointed out that Vance had claimed Trump would veto the bill, to which Vance replied, “Well, to be honest, I haven’t discussed that with JD.”
