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Donald Trump’s running mate said he makes stuff up during a CNN interview.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, admitted during a CNN interview on Sunday that some of his more sensational claims were designed to draw media attention, even if they weren’t grounded in fact.
Speaking with Dana Bash on State of the Union, Vance doubled down on a widely debunked conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, stealing pets for food and deflected when asked to apologize for invoking the name of a deceased 11-year-old boy to further his anti-immigration agenda.
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When Bash pressed Vance on his promotion of the false claim that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating cats and dogs, Vance defended his actions by suggesting that bringing attention to his constituents’ concerns justified the spread of unverified information.
“My constituents have brought approximately a dozen separate concerns to me. Ten of them are verifiable and confirmable, and a couple of them I talk about because my constituents are telling me firsthand that they’re seeing these things,” Vance said. He also dismissed local officials’ findings that there was no evidence to support the claims, saying, “They’ve said they don’t have all the evidence.”
Despite Bash pointing out that law enforcement and local authorities had investigated and found no credible basis for the rumors, Vance continued to insist that the media had ignored the issue until he and former President Donald Trump began to address it publicly. At one point in the interview, Vance revealed his strategy.
“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,” Vance said.
The conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were stealing and eating pets was first introduced by Trump during the September 10 presidential debate. Trump claimed that immigrants were “eating the dogs and cats” of residents, despite local officials consistently debunking the rumors and noting that no evidence supported the claims. However, Vance continued to promote the lie in his interview with Bash and previous interviews.
In a separate interview last week with Kaitlan Collins on The Source, Vance acknowledged that sensationalizing stories was a deliberate tactic. “If we have to meme about it to get the media to care, we’re going to keep on doing it,” he told Collins.
During the State of the Union interview, Vance was also asked about his use of 11-year-old Aiden Clark’s name in his anti-immigrant rhetoric. Aiden, who tragically died in a bus accident involving a Haitian immigrant, had been mentioned by Vance and other Republican figures as a symbol of the dangers posed by immigrants. However, Aiden’s family publicly condemned the politicization of their son’s death.
Last week, the Trump campaign posted on social media about Aiden, including his photo and that of Hermanio Joseph, the Haitian immigrant who was driving the minivan that collided with Aiden’s school bus in August 2023. The post stirred national attention, using the tragedy to further the Trump-Vance ticket’s anti-immigration platform.
On Tuesday, Vance escalated the rhetoric in a post on X (formerly Twitter), writing that “a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant,” although local officials and Aiden’s family had long maintained the incident was an accident. Aiden’s father, Nathan Clark, publicly denounced the exploitation of his son’s death during a Springfield City Commission meeting that same week, calling Trump and Vance “morally bankrupt politicians.”
Alongside his wife, Danielle, Clark said, “My son was not murdered. He was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti.”
He added, “They have spoken my son’s name and used his death for political gain. This needs to stop now.” Clark called the exploitation of his son’s death “reprehensible” and demanded an apology from Vance and Trump.
When Bash asked Vance if he would apologize to the Clark family, Vance refused to offer a direct apology.
“First of all, my heart goes out to the Clark family,” Vance said. “But I’m still going to keep on talking about what the migrants have done to Springfield, Ohio, and what Kamala Harris’s open border has done to Springfield.”
Vance’s continued promotion of false and inflammatory claims has had severe consequences. Springfield officials have reported bomb threats tied to the spread of the baseless pet-eating conspiracy, and tensions in the town have escalated as a result of the rhetoric.
During the interview, Bash highlighted the connection between Vance’s statements and the growing hostility toward immigrant communities, particularly Haitians.
Vance responded by condemning the threats but did not take responsibility for his role in spreading the false narrative.
