A squirrel that ran on stage just before Vice President Kamala Harris gave her election concession speech has been labeled the ghost of P’nut, whose death Trump denounced.
The mysterious squirrel dashed onto blue carpet at Howard University on Wednesday moments before Harris stepped on to speak after calling ex-President Donald Trump to concede the election to him.
Video footage that has gone viral showed the animal making its way across the carpet before exiting from stage right.
Many Internet users immediately associated it with P’Nut, a squirrel that became an Instagram-famous celebrity among Republicans in the days leading up to the election.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation officers seized P’Nut and Fred the raccoon from their owner, Mark Longo, on October 30 after anonymous complaints and finding he did not have a permit to house wildlife.
P’Nut, also known as Peanut, bit an individual in the investigation, promoting officers to euthanize it along with Fred in order to test for rabies.
Longo took to social media to lament that taxpayer money was being used to kill pets.
P’Nut, which Longo took in after its mother was run over by a car seven years ago, was famously pictured wearing a mini cowboy hat. The squirrel inspired Longo to open P’Nuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary, and helped him make money as ‘Squirrel Daddy’ on OnlyFans.
Longo said he was in the midst of applying for a permit to keep the animals.
The case caught the attention of the Trump campaign.
Two days before the election, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, JD Vance, said at a North Carolina rally: ‘I know Don is fired up about P’Nut the squirrel.’
That day, the Trump campaign posted the squirrel’s cowboy hat picture on TikTok and wrote, ‘RIP Peanut’.
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‘Needlessly murdered by Democrat bureaucrats in New York,’ read another post.
The final image was an illustration of P’Nut’s ghost with its front paws on Trump’s shoulders and the caption: ‘We will avenge you on Tuesday at the ballot box.’
On Wednesday, some X users were more entertained by the Howard University squirrel than Harris’ remarks.
‘The Spirit of PNut lives on!’ wrote one X user. ‘The ghost of Peanut making a victory lap.’
Another X user said: ‘The ghost off peanut the squirrel showed up to haunt Kamala at her “I failed” speech.”‘
‘The ghost of peanut will haunt the dems,’ wrote another user.
Harris in her speech told supporters that her loss ‘doesn’t mean we won’t win’ eventually and that she and the Biden administration will ‘engage in a peaceful transfer of power’ to Trump.
Trump’s sweep of the battleground states and the GOP winning the Senate majority and taking a lead in retaining the House has left the Democratic Party sifting through how the election turned out disastrous for them.
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