(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Republican running mate Senator JD Vance (R-OH) amplified the bizarre and controversial rumor that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets in the Ohio city of Springfield despite the fact that city officials had already debunked the claim.
City Manager Bryan Heck recounted to the Wall Street Journal how he received a startling call on September 9 from a staffer of Vance: “He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’”
His response was unequivocal: “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true.”
However, Vance had already shared the false claim with his 1.9 million followers on X. Regardless of the facts, the post remained up, and by the next morning, the narrative had escalated, pushed by the Trump campaign in an email to supporters as an attack on Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’s immigration record. Former President Donald Trump also then repeated the claim on the national debate stage: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs…they’re eating the cats of the people that live there.”