During his post-debate spin room interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Ohio Senator and GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance made the point that the Regime Media had zero interest in what was going on in Ohio until cat memes began popping up on social media. It took less than 24 hours for Vance to be proven right, with NBC and CBS rushing to firefight the stories coming out of Springfield, Ohio.
Watch as the NBC Nightly News opens their report on Springfield by trying to cram in as many instances of “baseless” as possible:
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
9/11/24
6:40 PM
LESTER HOLT: One of the most inflammatory comments of last night's debate was a baseless claim by former President Trump about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Yamiche Alcindor traveled there for us tonight.
(CROSSTALK)
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Tonight, growing fallout over one of the most talked about moments of the debate.
TRUMP: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats.
ALCINDOR: Former President Trump spreading unfounded claims that members of the growing Haitian population in Springfield, Ohio, are abusing pets. City officials say there's no evidence of that. Mr. Trump's running mate, Senator JD Vance, first spread the baseless accusations on social media earlier this week. When I questioned him about it in the debate spin room, he doubled down.
What do you say to Haitian Americans and Haitian immigrants who say spreading false claims about them put their lives at risk?
JD VANCE: Well, I don't think that -- no one has spread false claims. What they've said is that a small migrant community caused a lot of problems.
ALCINDOR: The Springfield city manager said there's no evidence that immigrants are eating animals.
VANCE: That just means the city manager, I think, isn't fully in touch with what's going on the ground there.
We heard a similar tone from a similar report aired on CBS as their “Eye on America” entry:
LILIA LUCIANO: And last night former President Donald Trump poured fuel on local grievances with a baseless conspiracy theory.
DONALD TRUMP: The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They are eating -- they are eating the pets of the people that live there.
LUCIANO: The claims are false. But the pain in the community has been real for a while.
The thing is: none of these reports ever showed an on-air interaction with a city official. None of these reports ever mentioned or displayed the various public meetings where these concerns were originally aired by local residents. Both NBC and CBS simply expect their viewers to accept at face value that these claims are without merit.
Each of these reports, filed by Yamiche Alcindor and Lilia Luciano, respectively, then pivot away from the various crises affecting Springfield as a direct result of Biden-Harris immigration policies. That is why this is such a firefight.
There was no incentive for Regime Media to report on what is happening at Springfield until there appeared a way for the story to be made into a Trump-negative story. And the media didn’t get that incentive until Trump uttered “dogs and cats” at the presidential debate. The media wouldn’t have found out about Springfield except for the emergence of memes of cats and ducks urging Trump to save them.
By jumping so quickly into the Springfield story, JD Vance was proven right.
Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective network evening newscasts on Wednesday, September 11th, 2024:
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
9/11/24
6:40 PM
LESTER HOLT: One of the most inflammatory comments of last night's debate was a baseless claim by former President Trump about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Yamiche Alcindor traveled there for us tonight.
(CROSSTALK)
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Tonight, growing fallout over one of the most talked about moments of the debate.
TRUMP: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats.
ALCINDOR: Former President Trump spreading unfounded claims that members of the growing Haitian population in Springfield, Ohio, are abusing pets. City officials say there's no evidence of that. Mr. Trump's running mate, Senator JD Vance, first spread the baseless accusations on social media earlier this week. When I questioned him about it in the debate spin room, he doubled down.
What do you say to Haitian Americans and Haitian immigrants who say spreading false claims about them put their lives at risk?
JD VANCE: Well, I don't think that -- no one has spread false claims. What they've said is that a small migrant community caused a lot of problems.
ALCINDOR: The Springfield city manager said there's no evidence that immigrants are eating animals.
VANCE: That just means the city manager, I think, isn't fully in touch with what's going on on the ground there.
ALCINDOR: City officials say the rumors may have begun with an unrelated case in another part of Ohio where a U.S. citizen was arrested for a gruesome incident involving a cat. On the ground in Springfield, we found deep tensions.
VILAS DORSEVIL: It's just amid discrimination and xenophobia and bigotry and racism.
ALCINDOR: Vilas Dorsevil runs a community center for Haitians.
DORSEVIL:They just believe that their words have no impact and it's not true. So immigrants in Springfield, especially Haitians, they also are concerned for their lives and the lives of their kids.
ALCINDOR: In the last few years, officials say as many as 15,000 Haitians legally in the U.S. have moved to the city, which had about 60,000 residents before. City leaders had advertised newly created manufacturing jobs and Springfield's affordability, but some like Bill Moynihan said the city suffered from the change.
BILL MOYNIHAN: Oh it's been disastrous.
ALCINDOR: What's your response to Haitian immigrants who say they're coming here to revitalize Springfield?
MOYNIHAN: That's not what's happening for Springfield. I mean, it might happen for them. It might happen for the landlords that are enriching themselves, the city manager who is trying to pad his budget.
ALCINDOR: In a city meeting last night, the parents of 11-year-old Aiden Clark spoke. Aiden was killed in a school bus crash last year after a jury found a Haitian immigrant guilty of vehicular homicide, tensions escalated.
NATHAN CLARK: I said to Aiden that I would try to make a difference in his honor. This is it.
ALCINDOR: Tonight they're urging politicians and others to stop using their son's death to spread hate.
CLARK: You know that one of the worst feelings in the world is to not be able to protect your child? Even worse, we can't even protect his memory when he’s gone. Please stop the hate.
ALCINDOR: Yamiche Alcindor, Springfield, Ohio.
CBS EVENING NEWS
CBS EVENING NEWS
9/11/24
6:55 PM
LILIA LUCIANO: At this community center, Haitian immigrants get food, clothes, and help finding work.
CASEY ROLLINS: They're here and they’re our responsibility.
LUCIANO: Casey Rollins, who runs the St. Vincent de Paul Society, says the supplies are an open-armed welcome from this community for asylum-seekers, especially from Haiti, fleeing violence and starvation from a country in collapse.
ROLLINS: Work. They want work. They always want work.
LUCIANO: They want work.
ROLLINS: They work three jobs, they work- they just never stop working.
LUCIANO: But when it comes to immigration, Springfield has become tense since last August, when a minivan driven by a Haitian immigrant without a valid license collided head-on with a school bus, killing 11-year-old Aiden Clark.
RESIDENT: We’re not taking anymore. That are driving erratically around town.
RESIDENT: I wonder who is bussing them in? Who’s responsible for that, and who can stop them from coming?
LUCIANO: And last night former President Donald Trump poured fuel on local grievances with a baseless conspiracy theory.
DONALD TRUMP: The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They are eating -- they are eating the pets of the people that live there.
LUCIANO: The claims are false. But the pain in the community has been real for a while.
MIGRANT: So i might say I’m a little bit worried, afraid too, because life, you are the one to be protect first your life. And when a thing happen like that, that make me very afraid.
MIGRANT: We try every single day to make us better. And when you make us better, the neighborhood going to be better, the city going to be better.
LUCIANO: Springfield was once a manufacturing hub. Since 2000, jobs have dropped by nearly half. And while Haitian immigrants, most of whom have Temporary Protected Status and work permits, have been blamed for stealing jobs...
ALEX MULLER: There are more than enough jobs.
LUCIANO: …business owners like job recruiter Alex Muller see their presence as vital.
06:57:57
MULLER: They have been very welcoming. They have been very kind, and they are very grateful to have the opportunity to provide for themselves and their families.
LUCIANO: It’s a complicated issue that can be divided along political lines.
NATHAN CLARK: The last thing we have to have the worst day of our lives violently and constantly shoved in our faces.
LUCIANO: Nathan Clark understands that more than anyone.
CLARK: Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible.
LUCIANO: It was his son who was killed a year ago when the bus crashed.
CLARK: My son Aiden Clark, was not murdered. He was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti. This tragedy is felt all over this community. The state, and even the nation. But don't spin this towards hate.
LUCIANO: In campaign talk, there's often no room for nuance, but to understand immigration in this town and this country, nuance is essential. For Eye on America, Lilia Luciano, Springfield, Ohio.
