Trump picks ‘cat fight’ with New York City mayoral candidate

It’s no secret that President Trump and Vice President JD Vance are not exactly warm and fuzzy on animals.

One of Trump’s oft-used lines is to say someone “died like a dog,” was “choked like a dog” or was “treated like a dog.”

As a Washington Post article in 2018 reported, Trump has a long history of “using canine insults to dehumanize enemies.”

He has regularly called those who ran, um, “afowl” of him “dogs,” including former FBI Director James Comey, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, then Sen. Marco Rubio (who clearly recovered from the name calling, becoming Trump’s secretary of state in 2025).

In the 2024 presidential race, Vance famously said the country would be run by “childless cat ladies” if Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won the election, prompting a hissing match with cat lovers everywhere.

And both Vance and Trump spread what turned out to be false accusations that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were stealing people’s dogs and cats and eating them.

Politifact bestowed its “lie of the year” award on that whopper.

Now Trump has turned his cat-calling on New York City Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, a longtime feline fan and animal rights champion.

Trump, speaking on the cable program Fox & Friends, dismissed Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels as a “cat-loving lightweight,” as the Daily News put it.

“He wants cats in [the mayor’s residence] Gracie Mansion… We don’t need to have thousands of cats,” Trump said.

Sliwa didn’t let that sleeping insult lie.

“New Yorkers care for people and for animals, and so do I,” Sliwa said in a statement. “As mayor, I will deliver a humane, affordable, and livable city by focusing on animal welfare, tackling affordability, cleaning up the city, improving quality of life, being tough on crime.”

Sliwa and his wife share a one-bedroom apartment in New York City with six cats.