Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) called on Democrats to tone down their rhetoric a day after proudly admitting he spread a bogus story about immigrants “so that the American media” covers the plights of American citizens.
In recent days, Vance has propagated the rumor that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio are abducting and eating people’s pets. The baseless claim was even repeated by his running mate, former President Donald Trump during Tuesday’s presidential debate.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said. “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.”
Afterward, Springfield municipal buildings – including schools – have received at least 33 bomb threats, according to Ohio’s Republican governor.
On Sunday, Vance justified the lying.
“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes,” he said. “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 going to do…”
On Monday, Vance gave a speech in Atlanta in front of the Georgia Faith & Freedom Coalition where he addressed the arrest of a man with a rifle near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf course. According to the Secret Service, the man – who was taken into custody – did not “have line of sight” on the former president. The incident comes on the heels of an assassination attempt on Trump in July by a registered Republican.
Republicans have blamed both incidents on Democrats for calling Trump a threat to democracy after he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“I do think that we should take this opportunity to call for a reduction in the ridiculous and inflammatory political rhetoric coming from too many corners of our politics,” Vance said to applause. “Look, we can disagree with one another. We can debate with one another. But we cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist and if he’s elected it will be the end of American democracy.”
The senator’s comments struck a hypocritical note, as Trump has repeatedly denounced his political opponents – including Vice President Kamala Harris – as “fascists.”
Vance then referenced comments made by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who last year said Trump “is not only unfit, he is destructive to our democracy and he has to be eliminated.”
Goldman apologized the next day, stating that he “mistakenly used the wrong word.”
“If you tell the American people that this person is the end of democracy, if you tell the American people that this person needs to be eliminated, most of them, thank God, are going to ignore you,” Vance added. “But some crazy person is going to take matters into their own hands and actually listen to the crazy rhetoric that you’re putting out there.”
After losing the 2020 election, Trump falsely claimed the contest was rigged and told his supporters that if he did not return to the White House, America as they knew it was over.
“And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump told rally-goers in Washington, D.C. shortly before a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“And I know it’s popular on a lot of corners of the left to say, ‘We have a both-sides problem,'” the senator continued. “I’m not going to say we’re always perfect. I’m not going to say that conservatives always get things exactly right. But you know the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I’d say that’s pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out.”
Watch above via C-SPAN.
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