Washington, DC — Today on Capitol Hill, House Republicans are again teeing up a vote on the SAVE Act – another attempt to normalize the Big Lie 2.0 with their baseless messaging push around the false narrative of widespread voter fraud by “illegal” voters. This bigoted lie is being used to justify purges of eligible U.S. voters, intimidate those trying to help people register, create new bureaucratic and financial barriers to voting and lay the groundwork for contesting the results if Republicans don’t win.
The other Big Lie is that Republicans are portraying immigrants as an existential threat to America. In the latest in a long line of singling out and disparaging various ethnic and religious groups, the Trump campaign is going all-in on their dehumanizing lies about Haitian-Americans in Springfield, OH. As The Wall Street Journal reports in a must-read piece, “How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True,” the ruthless and relentless lies that have become central to Trump and Vance’s messaging continues despite the campaign and candidates knowing they were lies all along. As Vance told CNN’s Dana Bash – out loud and on television – this weekend, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention…then that’s what I’m going to do, Dana.”
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“The Trump/Vance campaign pushed racist lies they knew were false that put Americans at risk as part of their cynical and dangerous bid for power. The lies that make immigrants the villain, are not about addressing the challenges of the issue, but are part of their strategy to stoke political violence and undermine our democracy.
From knowingly perpetuating dehumanizing lies about Haitians in Springfield Ohio to the baseless lies they continue to tell about ineligible voters voting, the Trump campaign and their GOP allies are all-in on a dangerous strategy that they know is false. But they keep doing it because they hope it will help animate their base and distract voters. Their approach stokes division, makes inflammatory threats, and courts political violence. They seek to intimidate and suppress the rights and freedoms of eligible American voters, seek to undermine trust in our elections and deliberately lay the groundwork for another January 6th style assault on fair election results that are the foundation of our democracy.”
According to The Wall Street Journal article “How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True,”:
“City Manager Bryan Heck fielded an unusual question at City Hall on the morning of Sept. 9, from a staff member of Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance. The staffer called to ask if there was any truth to bizarre rumors about Haitian immigrants and pets in Springfield.
‘He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’ recalled Heck. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”
By then, Vance had already posted about the rumors to his 1.9 million followers on X. Yet he kept the post up, and repeated an even more insistent version of the claim the next morning.
…Then the Trump campaign blasted those rumors to the world—and kept pushing them even after they were exposed as lies. The Trump campaign continues to run hard at the controversy. Trump last Friday said he planned ‘large deportations’ from Springfield—whose Haitian community is overwhelmingly in the country legally. Trump campaign surrogate Vivek Ramaswamy plans to host a town hall in Springfield this Thursday. Vance said on Tuesday that Trump would like to visit Springfield, too, at some point.
Attempts to contain the damage in Springfield were quickly overwhelmed despite city leaders’ racing from meeting to meeting trying to stem the tide. The Ohio state police were called in to protect local children as they returned to school. A security tower with cameras was erected outside City Hall. Thirty-six bomb threats had been logged as of Tuesday evening.”
Additional Resources
- New America’s Voice Substack on The Big Lie 2.0
- Read this Univision op-ed from Vanessa Cárdenas, “How Trump’s relentless anti-immigrant focus is tied to his threats to democracy” (Spanish version here)
- Listen to this press briefing with America’s Voice, the Brennan Center for Justice, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, UnidosUS, and Declaration for American Democracy to discuss the far-right disinformation campaign around non-citizen voting
