DISCLAIMER: This article was first published on September 16, 2024.
J.D. Vance’s “If I have to create stories…” has now joined Kellyanne Conway’s “Alternative Facts” in the annals of Trumpist obfuscation.
That new coinage emerged Sunday morning when the Republican vice presidential nominee appeared on CNN’s State of the Union, where CNN’s Dana Bash interviewed him. The subject was Vance and Trump’s continued pushing of a particularly cruel hoax involving Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats. The hoax has led to multiple threats that have caused schools, hospitals and other buildings to close in Springfield, Ohio.
Over the CNN chyron, “Vance Defends Baseless Claim About Haitian Immigrants,” Vance, who represents Ohio in the Senate, claimed that over a dozen constituents have “brought these concerns to me,” ten of which are “verifiable and confirmable.”
wow — Dana Bash with a brutal fact-check of JD Vance after Vance smears *legal* Haitian immigrants in Springfield with debunked claims. Vance responds by calling what she said “disgusting” as Bash looks shocked at him making it personal. pic.twitter.com/gbjDRjS2nF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 15, 2024
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“I have two options, Dana,” Vance continued. “I can ignore them, which is what the American community has done for years to this community, or I can actually talk about what people are telling me.”
Bash pushed back, noting that the county sheriff and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources reviewed 11 months of 911 calls and “they only identified two instances of people alleging Haitians were taking geese out of parks. They found zero evidence to substantiate those claims.
“You’re not just a bystander. You’re the senator from Ohio,” Bash continued. “So instead of saying things that are are wrong and actually causing the hospitals, the schools, the government buildings to be evacuated because of bomb threats, because of the cats and dogs thing, why not actually be constructive in helping to better integrate them into the community?”
Vance, to his credit, did condemn the threats to schools and hospitals.
A few days earlier the senator had, even after acknowleding the lack of evidence for the “eating cats and dogs” part, encouraged his fans to “keep the cat memes flowing.”
In short, don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots.
Keep the cat memes flowing.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 10, 2024
In the Bash interview, Vance once again defended pushing that smear despite knowing it wasn’t true.
“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes,” Vance said on CNN. “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, because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.”
“You just said this is a story that you created,” Bash said, while Vance once again attributed the cats-and-dogs story to “firsthand accounts from my constituents.”
The woman behind the original Facebook post alleging the eating of cats in Springfield has recanted her claims. Also, the 20,000 number, of Haitians in Springfield, has been exaggerated, most are there legally, and they began arriving in that part of Ohio before the Biden-Harris Administration was in office.
Featured image via screengrab.
