Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance on Saturday defended his comments to CNN’s Dana Bash earlier this week about creating stories to generate media attention surrounding immigration issues in Springfield, Ohio – without addressing false claims he promoted about Haitian immigrants eating local pets.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” last weekend, Vance told Bash, “The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. 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.”
As CNN has reported, there are no credible reports of Haitian migrants eating pets, and the false claim fueled by Trump and Vance, along with their allies, has led to a wave of racist harassment against the community.
Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who has endorsed Trump and Vance, wrote an op-ed published Friday, expressing sadness that Vance and Trump “continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage legal migrants.” In the New York Times op-ed, DeWine also stressed that the Haitian immigrants in the city are there legally.
While Vance on Saturday didn’t address the false claim on migrants eating pets, he argued that DeWine is “just wrong” about Haitian migrants being in the country legally.
However, he continued to tout DeWine’s support.