JD Vance nearly spilled the beans. In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday, the Republican vice presidential candidate nearly admitted that rumors of Haitian migrants eating cats in Springfield, Ohio, were completely made up – but then backtracked and said the rumors were true.
“If I have to make up stories to actually get the American media to pay attention to the suffering of the American people, then I will do that,” Vance said. When Bash asked him to clarify whether he made up the story, Vance did an about-face and claimed he had heard “firsthand accounts” from his constituents. “I say we make up a story, which means we make the American media focus on it,” Vance continued. “I did not cause 20,000 illegal immigrants to come to Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris' policies. That's what her policies did, but yes, we created the actual focus.”
Right-wing influencers and content creators have capitalized on their posts about Springfield, while politicians like Vance have used the rumors to make a broader political point. Vance's goal is to draw attention to Springfield — and continue to portray the city and its residents as victims of a supposedly open border. The goal is not only to demonize Haitian migrants, but also to create a narrative of a community under siege, which is in line with an increasingly popular right-wing conspiracy theory that the Democratic elite is trying to “replace” white Americans with migrants of color. Elon Musk — no stranger to the “great replacement” theory — points to a graphic claiming Haitian migrants are settling in conservative states, suggesting that Democrats are “overseeing massive voter importation to turn swing states permanently blue and turn America into a one-party state.”
A day before his appearance on CNN, Vance claimed that despite media claims that the Haitian rumors were baseless, the story had “value.” That alleged value came from a post by far-right activist Christopher Rufo, who works at the Manhattan Institute. Rufo had received a video that he said showed African migrants grilling cats in Dayton, Ohio. The video has been disputed, with several people noting that the animal on the grill appears to have six legs and is more likely to be three chickens than a mutated cat.
“To be clear, this single incident does not confirm every detail of Trump's statement,” Rufo wrote. “But it does disprove the general narrative of the establishment media and their 'fact-checkers' who insisted that this never happened and that any assumption otherwise is somehow an expression of racism. However, it only takes a single exception to disprove a hypothesis, and the logical next step for any honest broker is to ask whether it happens more often and elsewhere.”
Vance, Rufo and their allies are saying two things at once: The racist rumors about Haitian migrants in Springfield may be untrue, but the fact that Springfield is being overrun by Haitian migrants is irrefutable; and the rumors Are true because Vance's constituents said so. This is not the first time Vance has tried to show it both ways. Vance had previously claimed the rumor was based on calls he had received from constituents before acknowledging the possibility “that all of these rumors could turn out to be false” and focusing on what he described as real History that the Springfield media ignores.
However, as we have previously explained, the supposedly “true” story Vance is spreading about Haitian migrants in Springfield is also false. During the CNN interview, Vance said Harris “allowed 20,000 Haitian migrants to be dropped off in a small Ohio town,” implying that Springfield’s growing Haitian community is the result of a coordinated campaign by Harris and President Joe Biden. Even the term “migrants” implies that the Haitians who recently moved to Springfield did so shortly after crossing the border. In fact, according to reports from publications including The New York Times, They mostly moved to Springfield from other states, including Florida and Georgia – and were lured there by word of mouth, not a federal recruitment program. In a recent episode of Vox'S Today, explainsI discussed how these more insidious rumors fuel the larger product swap conspiracy theory.
And as Bash pointed out, all of this puts residents of Springfield — Vance's constituents — at risk. Government buildings have gone viral since the rumor about Haitian migrants in Springfield and there has been a spate of bomb threats. Most recently, two Springfield elementary schools were evacuated on Monday following threats, and two local colleges switched to virtual learning on Monday for the same reason, CNN reports. ReutersThe FBI is investigating the threats. The city has canceled its annual CultureFest, scheduled for September 27 and 28, to “avoid potential risks to visitors, employees, vendors and volunteers.”
It is worth noting that all this started with the posts of a handful of right-wing influencers on X – which were not only boosted by the platform’s algorithm And CEO, but also Vance and former President Donald Trump amplified this on the debate stage. Rather than remaining confined to a small, vitriolic corner of the internet, the racist memes about Haitians have spilled out of the far-right echo chamber and are putting real people in danger.