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U.S. Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance defended his claim Sunday that Haitian migrants in his home state of Ohio are abducting and killing neighbors' cats and dogs for food, even as the state's Republican governor and local officials said there is no evidence the animal cruelty is occurring.
"My constituents are telling me firsthand that they're seeing these things," an unapologetic Vance told CNN anchor Dana Bash during a contentious interview on the network's "State of the Union" show.
Vance blamed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president, for the alleged attacks on the pets in Springfield, Ohio, saying that she allowed 20,000 Haitian migrants to move there, overwhelming city services and hospitals.
"Kamala Harris opened the border," Vance said, although most of the Haitians are not undocumented migrants and instead were admitted to the U.S. under a federal program granting them temporary protected status to work. Vance denied any responsibility for several recent threats against Springfield, blaming them on "psychopaths" and "losers."
Springfield's mayor and a local sheriff have said they have no evidence to back up Vance's claims that residents' pets have been killed for food.
On Sunday, the state's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, also rejected Vance's contention.
"These discussions about Haitians eating dogs and cats and other things need to stop," DeWine told ABC's "This Week" show. "What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work (and)... they are very good workers."
Appearing on CNN just after Vance, Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro of the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, who once was touted as a possible Harris vice-presidential running mate, accused Vance of reckless rhetoric.
"When they go out and they lie about this stuff, they put their fellow Americans at risk," he said. "JD Vance should be ashamed of himself. ... This is dangerous stuff."
Vance's claims about the attacks on cats and dogs gained new prominence last Tuesday when Republican former President Donald Trump brought it up in his debate with Harris as he sought to portray Harris as lax on controlling the U.S. border to keep undocumented migrants from entering the country. Immigration is a prominent concern for many voters heading to the November 5 national election.
ABC News debate moderator David Muir fact-checked Trump, telling debate watchers that Springfield's city manager had assured the network that the alleged attacks on peoples' pets had not occurred. Trump later in the week claimed that some of the migrants were stealing geese from a city pond to kill and eat.
But a man captured on a video carrying two dead geese across a street said he had merely picked them up to dispose of them after they had been hit by a passing car.
Vance, in the CNN interview, pressed his case that Americans have "suffered terribly under the (immigration) policies of Kamala Harris." He contended that CNN and other national media are "letting Kamala Harris coast" and not forcing her to account for her performance over the 3½ years she has been vice president.
At the debate, Harris defended immigration control efforts by her and President Joe Biden, saying that Trump had urged congressional Republican lawmakers several months ago to defeat a bipartisan effort to impose new restrictions so that he could run on the issue ahead of the election.
After the proposal was scuttled in Congress, Biden signed an executive order that imposed new regulations at the U.S.-Mexican border that has greatly cut the influx of migrants.
As part of his campaign, Trump says that if he wins the White House, he will institute a mass deportation of millions of migrants, starting in Springfield and Aurora, Colorado, where Venezuelans have moved.
"As president I will immediately end the migrant invasion of America," Trump said Saturday on his social media account.