Sen. JD Vance (R) repeatedly justified on Sunday spreading the widely debunked racist lie that Haitian immigrants are stealing local pets for food in Springfield, Ohio ― at one point admitting that he consciously decided to “create stories” about the unsubstantiated issue so that American media pays more attention to it.
The Republican vice presidential candidate faced aggressive fact-checking while appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” related to fearmongering by the senator and former President Donald Trump over the city’s increased Haitian population.
“Clearly these rumors are out there because constituents are seeing it with their own eyes, and some of them are talking about it,” Vance told NBC’s Kristen Welker, repeating his claim that the so-called evidence to support the conspiracy theory comes from 911 calls he says he’s received from Springfield residents who are presumably not immigrants. He has also suggested that Springfield’s immigrants are spreading disease and contributing to rising crime ― unsubstantiated claims that historically have contributed to the dehumanization of immigrants.
On Sunday, CNN’s Dana Bash corrected Vance by saying the Clark County sheriff and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources scoured through 11 months of 911 calls and only found two instances where residents alleged Haitians were stealing geese from parks. Neither instance was found to be substantiated, though the vice presidential candidate continued to amplify the claim.
In fact, local officials have touted industrial Springfield as a city undergoing revitalization thanks to the roughly 20,000 mostly legal Haitian immigrants who have settled there over the past few years and contributed to the economy. Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine even pledged $2.5 million to the city to help increase available resources so that Springfield can better accommodate the population surge, and police quickly debunked the racist rumors.
Vance admitted on CNN that he has not visited Springfield to investigate the conspiracy since allegedly receiving calls from worried residents, and at one point revealed that he is concocting narratives about the dangerous rumor so that the media focuses more on it.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do, Dana,” he told Bash. “Because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.”
When Bash asked Vance whether he is admitting that the conspiracy about Haitians is false, he tried to clarify with a more confusing response.
“I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it,” the senator said before falsely claiming all immigrants in Springfield are undocumented. “But yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering created by Kamala Harris’ policies.”
The reality is that after Trump, Vance and their Republican allies perpetuated the racist lie, Springfield officials and residents ― including Haitian immigrants ― have voiced feeling unsafe. Trump said on Friday that he would launch mass deportations of Haitians to Venezuela as president. The city’s Haitian population is, clearly, not from Venezuela.
Multiple Springfield schools as well as the City Hall building were recently evacuated due to bomb threats, and private liberal arts Wittenberg University canceled all events on Sunday due to what school officials said was “an email that threatened a potential shooting on-campus.”
Following the bomb threats, Vance posted on social media telling his followers to not “let biased media shame you into not discussing this slow moving humanitarian crisis in a small Ohio town.” When confronted Sunday with the reports of potential violence, the vice presidential candidate repeatedly and angrily lashed at Bash for accusing him of being at least partly responsible for the threats facing Springfield before he condemned any such harm.
Since Thursday, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said that the lies being spread by Trump and Vance are hurting the community. Rue said he has not yet heard “directly” from Vance about the allegations.
Politicians like Vance should understand “the weight of their words and how they could harm a community like ours,” he told Bash on Sunday.
On Friday, the woman behind an early Facebook post that spread the baseless claim about Haitian immigrants admitted she actually had no firsthand knowledge of any such incident and is now remorseful of the fallout.
“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Springfield resident Erika Lee told NBC News of her now-deleted post, which media watchdog Newsguard found had been one of the first circulating social media posts related to the conspiracy.
“I feel for the Haitian community,” she said, proclaiming she’s not a racist and that she belongs to the LGBTQ and mixed-race communities. “If I was in the Haitians’ position, I’d be terrified too, worried that somebody’s going to come after me because they think I’m hurting something that they love and that, again, that’s not what I was trying to do.”
President Joe Biden condemned the conspiracy during a dinner with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
“It’s wrong. It’s got to stop,” he said. “Any president should reject hatred in America, not incite it.”