JD Vance Says Springfield Row Reveals Why He Flipped Script On Trump

Republican VP hopeful J.D. Vance has claimed that “what we’re seeing in Springfield” explains what caused him “to change my tune about President Trump from 2016 to 2020” in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

In a 2016 text message to a friend Vance, now an Ohio senator and Trump’s running mate, questioned whether the then GOP presidential nominee was “a cynical a****** like [Richard] Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad” or “America’s Hitler.”

Springfield, Ohio, shot to national prominence over the past week in response to discredited reports that migrants had been eating people’s cats and geese in the city. On Thursday Springfield’s city hall was evacuated after receiving a bomb threat which its Mayor Rob Rue said was accompanied with “hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.”

In his X post Vance wrote: “If you were to ask what caused me to change my tune about President Trump from 2016 to 2020, I could give you a few reasons. But what we’re seeing in Springfield really drives it home.

“But it’s not just what’s happening, it’s the way our leadership responds to it. Confronted with many of their citizens begging for relief, our broken elites offer only scorn.”

He continued: “‘It is racist,’ they tell us, to get angry at being unable to afford a home, or to complain about being unable to drive a car safely down the streets paved by your neighbors, or to call 911 because strangers are slaughtering geese in a public park. They have ignored this town’s problems for years. Now, they pay attention–not to focus their considerable wealth and power on helping their fellow citizens.”

According to city officials since 2020 between 15,000 and 20,000 Haitians moved to Springfield, which initially had a population of just 60,000. These migrants arrived legally, many under the Immigration Parole Program.

Earlier this week claims that migrants in Springfield had been killing and eating residents pets went viral on social media, and were referenced on Tuesday by Trump during his presidential debate with Kamala Harris in Philadelphia. However Springfield police and city officials said they hadn’t received any credible reports about pets being stolen and eaten in the city.

A post also went viral on X purportedly showing a migrant carrying two dead wild geese in Springfield, with commentators suggesting he had killed and planned to eat them. However speaking to TMZ the Ohio Division of Wildlife said the geese were actually picked up around 45 minutes from Springfield after being involved in a car accident, and there is no evidence the man involved was a migrant.

In his statement Vance went on to claim Harris “is a threat to democracy” because she would “import new voters than persuade the ones who are already here.”

He added: “It is Kamala Harris who would rather ignore the citizens of Springfield than undo the policies that hurt them. It is Kamala Harris who would rather censor her fellow Americans than listen to them.”

The latest analysis of recent opinion polls conducted by election website FiveThirtyEight put Harris ahead of Trump by 2.8 points, with 48.2 percent of the vote against 45.4 percent. However due to the Electoral College system Trump could lose the popular vote and still win the election overall in November, as he did in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.

Newsweek contacted Vance and Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign for comment on Saturday by email outside of regular office hours.