It was early last week when Sen. JD Vance turned to social media to tout a conspiracy theory that was ugly, false and racist in equal measure. The Republican senator specifically argued online that there were “reports” that “showed” Haitian immigrants abducting and eating household pets in Springfield, Ohio.
We now know, of course, that these offensive claims were ridiculously untrue, but new reporting from The Wall Street Journal appears to shed new light on how Vance amplified the lie.
City Manager Bryan Heck fielded an unusual question at City Hall on the morning of Sept. 9, from a staff member of Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance. The staffer called to ask if there was any truth to bizarre rumors about Haitian immigrants and pets in Springfield. “He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” recalled Heck. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”
Before we proceed, let’s pause to acknowledge an important problem: Vance and his team didn’t pursue matters in the proper order. The GOP senator lent his support to the racist conspiracy theory, then a member of his team set out to determine whether Vance was telling the truth.
Ordinarily, responsible officials — especially those seeking national office — try to learn facts first, not second.
Nevertheless, the local city manager told Team Vance the truth, at which point the senator, Donald Trump and their 2024 operation decided to repeat the lie anyway, even during a nationally televised presidential debate.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” this past weekend, Vance defended himself by claiming, “[A]ll that I have done is surface the complaints of my constituents.” Except, the Wall Street Journal reporting puts this in a new light: The Republican vice presidential nominee amplified falsehoods, set out to learn the truth, discovered that the claims were baseless and then continued to echo the lie.
Wait, it gets worse. Vance could’ve helped put out the fire he helped start. He also could’ve shifted his attention elsewhere and allowed the fire to burn out. But as recently as this week, a spokesperson for the senator provided the Wall Street Journal with a police report in which a Springfield resident had claimed her pet might have been taken by Haitian neighbors. The WSJ’s article added: But when a reporter went to Anna Kilgore’s house Tuesday evening, she said her cat Miss Sassy, which went missing in late August, had actually returned a few days later — found safe in her own basement. Kilgore, wearing a Trump shirt and hat, said she apologized to her Haitian neighbors with the help of her daughter and a mobile-phone translation app.
This is amazing for a few reasons, including the fact that eight days after Vance’s initial tweet, in the midst of the senator’s own scandal, his office is still, even now, actively trying to pretend that his lie had merit. What’s more, this anecdote pointed to a local woman who made a false claim, realized she’d made a mistake, and then apologized to her neighbors. Or put another way, she showed the kind of decency and maturity that Vance and Trump have so far refused to even consider.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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