Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, appeared to backtrack Tuesday on an outlandish false claim that he had promoted a day earlier saying that Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio, were abducting and eating their neighbors’ pets.

In a social media post Tuesday morning, Vance said his office had “received many inquiries” about the false claims, but added that “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

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Local Officials Found No Evidence

Local officials have found no evidence, credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed by Haitian residents, and a spokesperson for Vance did not provide evidence to support the claim on Monday.

But even as he acknowledged the possibility that the rumors were false, Vance encouraged his supporters to continue spreading them.

“Don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots. Keep the cat memes flowing,” Vance said, referencing a particularly gruesome false claim that came from a viral social media post.

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The Trump campaign also promoted the claim in a news release Monday attacking Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration, saying, “It’s coming to your city next.”

Vance, as Ohio’s junior senator, has in recent months attacked Springfield’s growing Haitian population, a group whose members are living and working in the United States legally. Job opportunities in Springfield have attracted thousands of Haitians since the pandemic, with city officials estimating that as many as 20,000 have arrived. By most accounts, the immigrant community has helped revitalize the town, though it has put pressure on housing, schools and hospitals. (Springfield had roughly 58,000 people as of the last census in 2020.)

Resentment has also brewed among some residents over the immigrants’ presence, and those emotions have bubbled over since an immigrant driver was involved in a fatal school bus crash last year. Vance has latched onto the complaints of community members and has denounced the Haitians as being in the United States illegally, “draining social services” and “generally causing chaos.”

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Vance repeated some of those criticisms in his post Tuesday morning.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Chris Cameron/Ariana Drehsler
c. 2024 The New York Times Company