WATCH: NewsNation Anchor Devotes Entire Segment To Confronting GOP Official Over Cat Litter Box ‘Hoax’ That Inspired Her Bill

Tommy ChristopherJan 26th, 2023, 8:18 am

NewsNation anchor Leland Vittert devoted a full segment to doggedly confronting a Republican legislator whose bill is pegged to a debunked panic over cat litter in school classrooms.

Last year, an urban myth about schools providing litter boxes for children who “identify as animals” took hold among Republicans, and continues to spread in conservative culture. North Dakota House of Representatives District 3 Rep. Lori VanWinkle has even introduced a bill that contains an “emergency provision” inspired by the hoax.

On Wednesday night’s edition of NewsNation’s On Balance with Leland Vittert, Vittert hosted VanWinkle to discuss the bill, and spent the entire interview knocking down the premise of the bill, and by the end VanWinkle was downplaying the provision:

Vittert: Do we have any confirmed sightings of furries in North Dakota schools?

Van WInkle: Thanks, Leland, for having me. You know, I don’t specifically have a confirmed number on that for you, but that the talk is that, you know, these kids want to identify as being cats or dogs. And actually, the latest one I heard lately was a rock. And therefore, that student doesn’t talk in class because rocks don’t talk. So this is what our teachers are having to try to navigate when they should be able to be focused on teaching children.

Vittert: And I think anybody agrees that if this was happening in schools, it would be a problem. But I’m wondering, of all the issues in North Dakota, if this is something that’s actually happened yet.

Van WInkle: Yeah. I mean, the kids in our high school, I believe in 2021 when we were fighting. So issues of COVID, there was talk that these kids were dressing up as cats and demanding that litter boxes be the next thing that they would want. And it is happening in other states. I know it’s happening in Minnesota as well.

Vittert: And I forgive me. And I and I’ve seen this before. Tony Dungy tweeted about it, the litter boxes and cats and everything else. We actually did a story about this last year. A Nebraska lawmaker had to apologize for this very thing. Debunked litter box claim, Bachmann said during state legislative debate. And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in schools for these children’s use. How is this sanitary? And he had to come back and apologize for it because it was an Internet hoax.

Van WInkle: I can’t speak on what he did. To tell you the truth there. This really wasn’t the basis of what I was attempting to cover in the bill. It just made a provision for the fact that.

Vittert: What were you attempting to cover?

Van WInkle: Actually, my bill is the premise of the bill is to protect children and male and female sexes in the school system.

Vittert: So this is about secondary provision.

Van WInkle: The secondary provision was that if somebody wanted to identify as a non-human, that also would not be an accommodation that the school would have to deal with. So covering the bases.

Vittert: No, I, I understand it’s certainly been a huge issue. I wonder in terms of in the bathroom issue and how kids identify has been an enormous issue over the past couple of years. I’m thinking about Virginia and other places. Given that we don’t have any cases that I’ve yet to see actually reported by a credible news organization of a child demanding a litter box in a school, I. Does it sort of cheapen the argument by Republicans and by good-minded and well-intentioned people such as yourself who want to have real conversations about the cultural issues that we we are dealing with?

Van WInkle: No, I don’t think it cheapens at all.

Vittert: Okay. So. So even if it’s a solution in search of a problem, we should go forth.

Van WInkle: Well, like I said, that really wasn’t what the the bill was. Initially started out as it’s a provision within the bill. The intentions of my bill are to focus on protecting children, sexes, male and female.

Vittert: And that’s certainly that’s been in a number of legislatures. All right. We’ve shown a number of furries because people dressing up like this is a real thing. And it’s always you’re not hurting anybody and you’re an adult. Go, go do what you want. But if you come across any in North Dakota, if this happens in one of the schools, we’d love to know about it.