‘P’Nut did not die in vain’: How a celebrity squirrel became a harbinger of Trump’s return

Trump's political comeback was marked with a mix of celebration and solemnity at the New York farm where P'Nut the squirrel was ripped from the arms of his adopted parents before being killed by agents of the state.

Mark and Dani Longo, the OnlyFans couple who run the 300-acre animal sanctuary in upstate New York that became an unlikely focal point during the closing days of the US election , are still mourning their loss.

But there is a strange solace too.

"I'm honoured that P'nut's name will now be etched in the history books," said thirty-four year old Mark Longo on his porch Wednesday morning as America woke up to a new president-elect.

"Obviously it sucks not to have my best friend still but P'Nut didn't die in vain."

P'nut and his lesser-known friend Fred the raccoon were confiscated and later euthanised after the Longo home was raided by state agents from the Democrat-run New York Department of Environmental Conservation on Oct 30.

In the closing days of the 2024 election, social media-star P'nut (who also went by Peanut) became a Republican mascot, a martyr to government overreach, a victim of civil liberties restrictions in a country that prizes freedom and inherent rebelliousness, and so much more.

On Wednesday Dani, 28, was opening dozens of Amazon delivery boxes — gifts from supporters, much of it animal feed — on the porch of the farmhouse where the married couple live. Outside are 70 horses, many of whom had been abused or saved from being put down, llamas, goats, seven miniature horses, two donkeys, geese and duck and a white dog.

To Republicans, the story of the seven-year old squirrel came to symbolize Republican warnings about continuing big government overreach in the event of a Kamala Harris win. In death, P'nut, often pictured in a cowboy hat, became more of a viral sensation than he had been even in life.

"I know Don is fired up about P'nut the squirrel," JD Vance, vice-president elect, said at a rally in North Carolina, on Sunday. "Don" of course was Donald Trump.

The Trump-Vance campaign said New York's Democrat governor Kathy Hochul had put "more effort into finding and eliminating a squirrel" than controlling illegal immigration.

Elon Musk posted "President Donald Trump will save the squirrels. RIP P'Nut", three days before the vote. Musk called the squirrel a Jedi martyr — more potent in death than in life — and he has hinted he plans to visit the Longos' farm in Pine City, New York, a small hamlet that borders Elmira, itself on the border of Pennsylvania — the swing state that ensured Trump's victory.

When a squirrel ran across the stage at Kamala Harris's concession speech on Wednesday night, the crowd screamed "Peanut!".

P'Nut and Fred were seized by New York authorities in a raid on Oct 30 after a local Chemung County judge, Richard Rich, a Democrat, signed off on a search warrant. Ten agents from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation raided the Longo home with their bedroom and closets turned over in the raid.

The seizure occurred due to "multiple reports from the public about the potentially unsafe housing of wildlife that could carry rabies and illegal keeping of wildlife as pets," the department said in a statement. Both P'Nut and Fred were euthanized, P'Nut allegedly after biting an agent.

"They said they came because they thought the animals had rabies but that's just stupid and everyone knows that," says Dani Longo, who emigrated to the US from Germany several years ago. She lived in Las Vegas and moved to upstate New York with her husband from Connecticut three years ago to open P'nut's Freedom Farm.

Dani doubts P'nut bit an agent. "They came in here with gloves. Were they vaccinated against rabies if that was their biggest concern? Everyone knows there's hardly a documented case of rabies in a squirrel. P'nut was deathly afraid of other animals so we never put him together with Fred. So it just doesn't make sense."

Almost as soon as P'nut and Fred were confiscated a more complex story emerged. Mark Longo is behind two social media presences: The Instagram account which points to a protected X account with the handle that points to an OnlyFans account , bio on the site features a photo of himself in tight red boxer briefs. "Peanut's dad, VERY kinky player", the caption reads. Dani, or Daniela, also has an OnlyFans account. She told The Telegraph the couple used to perform together but no longer. Nor are other partners ever brought in. "We're a traditional married couple," Dani says.

Was the raid truly about rabies? "If it was something else, I don't know," she says.

Between their OnlyFans and P'Nut's social-media fame, the couple could make as much as half their monthly $25,000 animal feed bills. Now, a GoFundMe page for the Longos in memory of P'nut has raised $209,960 as of Wednesday.

So, was the raid on Freedom Farm about something more? There's speculation that somebody was disapproving or jealous of the couple's OnlyFans income. The Longos said they bought their 350-acre spread near Elmira with the $800,000 that they made in one month posting their porn online. Then P'nut started making big money with his separate fan base.

The couple had received a phone call about six months earlier about P'nut. Rumours abound that a neighbour had complained, but now it seems that New York authorities may have received an anonymous complaint about P'nut.

"I can't pinpoint why they came after my family," Mark Longo says. Agents told him that because P'nut was seven he was no longer in a rehabilitative state so his rehabilitative licence "was useless" and he did not have a licence for wildlife rehabilitation, just animal rehabilitation. P'nut and Fred were considered wildlife.

"It's concerning that the state took anonymous complaints and mustered up a story to get a search warrant", he says,

At Anne's Pancakes, a local breakfast spot in neighbouring Elmira, residents were emphatically behind the squirrel — and the election result. "P'Nut is a hero, a symbol of the resistance. You don't just take somebody's rescue pets and kill 'em," said Peter Fleming.

"What kind of Satanic s- is that?" Standing with him, Jay Lee Williams said he doubted they were wild animals as the government claimed. "They sounded domesticated to me. Why do they have the authority to do that?"

A few hours earlier, before the election results came in, at a bar in Elmira, Macie Drake said she too doubted that an indoor squirrel had rabies. And there were bigger questions. "Why are they sending agents to a home when they could be dealing with bigger issues, like immigration and homelessness?" she asked.

'I'm just being friendly with a squirrel'

Jeremy Christian, 44, a union electrician, asked why the state had the authority to raid the Longo's home. "If I want to have a squirrel as a pet, shut the f- up." Democrats, he said, were "a bunch of paedophiles" in Washington DC.

"You're doing whatever you're doing and I'm just being friendly with a squirrel, raising it as my kid and you're gonna' run in my house for it? What are you going to do next? Raid my goldfish snacks? No. Stop it. I'm done with it.

"We call that an abuse of power. We don't want the government in our business. They're just trying to control people."

A woman who described herself as a schoolteacher said "people have lost their minds. Wild animals deserve to be wild. It's much ado about nothing."

Arlo Baker, a receptionist at the Chemung department of health, said she had received dozens of threatening calls about P'nut despite the department having nothing to do with animal management.

At Freedom Farm, Mark Longo was pondering the events of Oct 30 and remembering P'nut as loving, curious and occasionally grumpy.

"Why did we need 10 officials to conduct a five-hour raid? My wife told them where the raccoon was immediately. They knew Fred was in the closet. If he was such a danger, why didn't they just take him out? Why did you ransack my closets? and not the closets in the rest of the house? Because I have a page that is not their cup of tea?

"There's a big picture here and it's not about two small animals. It's about individual freedoms. I wasn't served due process, and my constitutional rights were violated for a raccoon and a squirrel."