J.D. Vance to CNN: The Media Has to Uncover Themselves if It’s True When People Say Their Pets Are Being Abducted by Immigrants

COLLINS: “Well, I think there are some women voters who would have liked for him to answer that question. The other thing that he brought up, which I was kind of surprised by, I guess I would say, is he brought up this misleading, false claim that you yourself have talked about in recent days about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, abducting people‘s pets and eating them, which officials there have said is not true. You yourself acknowledged it may be false on Twitter. You still told people to to keep spreading it. But Trump just amplified it to tens of millions of people who were watching. Why push something that‘s not true?”
Vance: “Well, first of all, city officials have not said it‘s not true. They‘ve said they don‘t have all the evidence.”
COLLINS: “They said they have no evidence.”
Vance: “We‘ve heard from a number of constituents on the ground. Kaitlan, who, both firsthand and secondhand reports, saying this stuff is happening. So they very clearly, meaning the people on the ground dealing with this, think that it is happening. And I think that it‘s important for journalists to actually get on the ground and uncover this stuff for themselves. When you have a lot of people saying, ‘My pets are being abducted,’ or ‘Geese at the city pond are being abducted and slaughtered right in front of us,’ this is crazy stuff. And again, whether those exact rumors turn out to be mostly true, somewhat true, whatever the case may be, Kaitlan, this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants coming in. Health care costs are up, housing costs are up, communicable diseases like HIV and TB have skyrocketed in this small Ohio town. This is what Kamala Harris‘ border policies have done. And I think it‘s interesting, Kaitlan, that the media didn‘t care about the carnage wrought by these policies until we turned it into a meme about cats. And that speaks to the media‘s failure to care about what‘s going on in these communities. If we have to meme about it to get the media to care, we‘re going to keep on doing it because the media should care about what‘s going on.”
COLLINS: “I saw you say that. I think the media does care about it. I just read a very lengthy report in The New York Times on it. ‘PBS Newshour’ did a whole story on it. Bu can I ask you — “
Vance: “Caused by us talking about it and bringing it up. Nobody cared about this until we raised this issue.”
COLLINS: “You talked about — senator, you talked about that your office has gotten a lot of reports. I mean, if someone calls your office and says they saw Bigfoot, that doesn‘t mean they saw Bigfoot. I mean, you have a sense of responsibility as a running mate, and he certainly does as as the candidate, to not promote false information, right?”
Vance: “Kaitlan, it‘s a totally fair point, but nobody‘s calling my office and saying that they saw Bigfoot. What they‘re calling and saying is, ‘We‘re seeing migrants kidnap our dogs and cats, and city officials aren‘t doing anything about it.’ Now, again, I have a responsibility as a United States senator, I think the media has a responsibility as an institution that cares about truth, to actually take people seriously when they say their lives have been ruined by this migrant crisis. And again, if every single thing that the media says about this story is false, the verifiable facts are that this community has had their lives destroyed by 20,000 migrants coming in and uprooting life.”
COLLINS: “Again, officials said no credible evidence of the claim, but Senator J.D. Vance, thank you for joining us with your debate reaction.”
Vance: “Thanks, Kaitlan.”
COLLINS: “Jake, back to you.”