Viral hippo Moo Deng makes US presidential prediction

Moo Deng, the baby hippo that took social media by storm, has predicted former President Trump will defeat Vice President Harris and win the presidential election.

In a video shared by Thailand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo, two fruit cakes are placed in front of Moo Deng's pen. The 4-month-old pygmy hippo slowly meanders up to her fruit baskets. She happily bites into the one bearing Trump’s name.

Two-month-old baby hippo Moo Deng plays with a zookeeper in the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province, Thailand, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

When her mother was presented with the same choice, however, she chose the cake emblazoned with Harris’s name.

But Moo Deng also beat both Trump and Harris in a poll by NBC's “The Tonight Show,” walking away with 93 percent support as a write-in candidate.

A squirrel has also played a surprisingly large role in this year’s election.

Last week, a euthanized squirrel named P’Nut in New York became the latest animal to enter the political fray. Republicans have called the incident government overreach.

“Our government will let in 16,000 rapists, they will let in 13,000 murderers, they will let in 6,00,000 criminals across our border, but if someone has a pet squirrel without a permit they will go in there and kill the squirrel,” Donald Trump Jr. said at a rally over the weekend. “That is the Democrat party. That’s where they will go. That’s their overreach.”

Both P’Nut’s and Moo Deng’s ventures into the political world follows false claims earlier in the election cycle that immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.