JD Vance and NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor Battle Over Senator’s Debunked Claim that Haitian Immigrants Have Eaten Pets: ‘Let Me Answer!’

Screenshot via @Yamiche on Twitter/X

NBC News Washington correspondent Yamiche Alcindor caught up with Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) after the ABC News presidential debate to ask him why he keeps pushing the debunked claim that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets. And he still pushed it.

While in the spin room following the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, Alcindor asked Vance — Trump’s running mate — why he continued to promote a story that has been proven false. His answer, in short, was that the people claiming the story was false were wrong. Alcindor got his full response on video and posted it to Twitter/X:

Alcindor: Senator Vance, what do you say to Haitian-Americans and Haitian immigrants who say spreading false claims about them put their lives at risk?

Vance: Well, I don’t think that… [laughs]. No one has spread false claims. What they’ve said is that a small migrant community — 20,000, so it’s big for the city of Springfield, but it’s small compared to all Haitians in the United States of America — that that small migrant community has caused a lot of problems. It’s led to higher rates of communicable diseases. That’s a verifiable fact. It’s led to animals disappearing. Many of my constituents have said that has been happening. It’s led to higher home prices. That is a verifiable fact. So this influx has led to a lot of poverty in Springfield–

Alcindor: But you say that immigrants have eaten animals, and city officials have said that that’s not true.

Vance: City officials have said that’s not true. That’s not actually accurate.

Alcindor: Springfield’s city manager said there’s no evidence that immigrants are eating animals. And you have been saying — and Donald Trump just said on stage — that they are eating animals.

After a brief argument over who was interrupting each other, Vance persisted, then blamed Harris for the problem that has been disproven:

The city manager said there’s no verifiable evidence. A lot of residents on the ground have said that there is. That just means the city manager, I think, isn’t fully in touch with what’s going on on the ground there. I’ve heard from many of my own constituents who have seen these things with their own eyes, who have seen these abductions with their own eyes, who have seen geese being taken out of local parks and slaughtered in front of their eyes. What do I think is a bigger problem? Insulting 20,000 people or the fact that my constituents can’t live a good life because Kamala Harris opened the border? I think it’s Kamala Harris needs to do her job.

The claim that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating house pets and other animals in Springfield, Ohio, which went viral on social media, has been repeatedly debunked as false. Trump went on a rant about the claim during the debate, and Vance defended it.