Trump Reportedly Has Super-Helpful Plans to Visit Springfield, Ohio, the City He and JD Vance Continue to Spread Baseless Lies About Re: Haitian Migrants Eating Pets

Donald Trump reportedly plans to visit Springfield, Ohio, the Midwestern city that’s become the subject of his and running mate JD Vance’s false claims regarding Haitian migrants stealing people’s pets and eating them. Trump’s plans were revealed Sunday by NBC News, and if you think it’s a good idea for the former president to show up in Springfield at a TBD date, you probably also believed Trump when he declared at last week’s presidential debate, “They’re eating the dogs…they’re eating the cats.”

To be clear, it would surely be helpful for Trump to go to Springfield and say the words: “There is absolutely no truth to the baseless claims that migrants here are consuming people’s pets, and anyone saying otherwise is simply trying to stoke division and hate. These claims have been thoroughly debunked and must stop now.” But obviously that’s not going to happen.

One reason that’s clearly not going to happen is that Trump is Trump, and he is incapable of uttering a coherent thought. Another, as The Bulwark notes, is that the Trump campaign is not actually bothered by the fact that it’s “been widely condemned for spreading the urban legend of Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio,” because it allows Team Trump to avoid discussing things like abortion. These people want to keep these repugnant lies about Haitian migrants going, which Vance effectively admitted over the weekend when he said he was happy to “create stories.”

In an interview on Sunday, the Ohio senator told CNN’s Dana Bash: “The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. 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 gonna do.”

After Bash noted that it sounded a lot like Vance was saying he’d made these stories up, he insisted: “It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it. I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’s policies. Her policies did that. But yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris’s policies.”

Officials in Ohio—including the mayor of Springfield and the governor of the state—say there is absolutely no evidence to support Vance and Trump’s claims, which have led to a spate of bomb threats against schools, hospitals, and other institutions. (Speaking to Bash, Vance said it was “disgusting” for the media to suggest any of his comments had led to those threats, which may be the richest thing anyone has said on TV this year.) On Sunday, a bomb threat caused officials at Clark State College in Springfield to close the campus and hold classes virtually this week. A day prior, bomb threats targeted a trio of medical facilities and Wittenberg University, a small private college in Springfield. In an alert, the college said Sunday activities were canceled over a threat that “targeted Haitian members of our community.” On Friday, two elementary schools were evacuated, while a middle school was closed.

Speaking to ABC News on Friday, Springfield mayor Rob Rue said: “This is a very concerning time for our citizens, and frankly, a lot of people are tired of just, you know, the things that have been spread about our community that are just negative and not true. We need help, not hate.” Without mentioning Trump and Vance by name, he stressed that “anybody on the national stage that takes a microphone needs to understand what they could do to communities like Springfield with their words. They’re not helping. They’re hurting communities like ours with their words.” In an interview with NBC News, conducted before Trump’s plans to visit Springfield were reported, Rue said that if the ex-president were to visit the city, “that could be difficult, a very difficult visit.” Asked what he’d say to Trump if given the chance, the mayor responded: “We need help and not hate. And we need calm voices.”