The Ohio Republican and vice-presidential candidate repeated the assertion during an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, just days after former President Donald Trump amplified it nationally during a televised presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Vance said the claims were based on “firsthand accounts from my constituents” and that American media had ignored his attempts to discuss the “problems in Springfield for months.”
“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes,” he said. “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.”
When Bash asked Vance to clarify his remark about having to “create stories,” Vance doubled down.
“Dana, it comes from first-hand accounts of my constituents,” Vance said. “I say that we’re ‘creating a story,’ meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”
Vance then sought to tie Harris to the influx of migrants into the city, echoing recent comments in which he said “people who shouldn’t be in this country” were eating pets.
Attacking Harris and Biden on immigration issues has been a cornerstone of Trump’s campaign strategy. But this particular line of attack has been met with skepticism.
Springfield’s mayor, city manager, police chief, and Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine have all said that there haven’t been any credible reports of immigrants taking or eating local pets.
“There’s a lot of garbage on the internet and this is a piece of garbage that was simply not true, there’s no evidence of this at all,” DeWine told ABC News on Sunday.
“Let me tell you what we do know: what we know is that the Haitians that are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work,” he added.
In a statement to Business Insider, a spokeswoman for Vance accused the media of “dishonestly twisting Senator Vance’s words” on the matter.
“Senator Vance will always do what the liberal media and Kamala Harris refuse to do, which is unapologetically listen to the concerns of his constituents,” she said.
After his testy exchange with Bash, the senator elaborated on X. “I didn’t invent constituents complaining about this,” Vance wrote. “We did help create the media focus on their complaints.”
