President-elect Donald Trump may have won Time magazine’s Person of the Year, but his rhetoric about Haitians eating pets won PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year.
The PolitiFact winner, chosen by readers of its website, was the claim spread by Mr. Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance that Haitian migrants were eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.
“Underlying 2024’s most outrageous political lie was a truth — some might even argue a confession — voiced by an accomplice: To get media attention, then-vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance acknowledged, sometimes, ‘I have to create stories,’” PolitiFact reported.
“And so, with a brazen disregard for facts, Donald Trump and his running mate repeatedly peddled a created story that in Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants were eating pet dogs and cats.”
The claim started with social media posts before the election. Then, despite local government and law enforcement saying the claims were false, Mr. Trump mentioned it on the presidential debate stage in September.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” he said during the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
Mr. Vance, an Ohio senator, also played a role in spreading the rumor. In an X post the morning of the debate, he wrote that his office “has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants.
“It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”
Haitian migrants are in Springfield under the temporary protected status program, which lets them live and work in states for a period.
The Trump-Vance comments spread across social media and caused Springfield to experience threats of violence.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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