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Less than 30 minutes into the presidential debate, former president Donald Trump brought up a viral racist lie about Haitian migrants<\/a> in Springfield, Ohio \u2014 and repeated it after fact-checkers asserted that it wasn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIn Springfield, they\u2019re eating the dogs \u2014 the people that came in \u2014 they\u2019re eating the cats, they\u2019re eating the pets of the people that live there,\u201d Trump said in response to a question about why he asked Republican legislators to vote against a bipartisan border security bill<\/a>. After Trump finished his tirade, ABC News moderator David Muir clarified that Springfield\u2019s city manager told ABC reports of migrants eating pets were false \u2014 but Trump repeated the lie. \u201cPeople on television are saying, \u2018My dog was taken and being used for food,\u2019\u201d Trump interjected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Trump\u2019s resistance to fact-checking shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise by this point. In fact, his campaign has fully leaned into the claim, which took off on right-wing social media over the weekend has since been mainstreamed by the likes of Elon Musk and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n On Tuesday, vice presidential candidate JD Vance claimed<\/a> his office had \u201creceived many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield\u201d regarding their pets being eaten, contradicting statements from Springfield police and city officials that they had received no such complaints. Though Vance acknowledged<\/a> the possibility that \u201call these rumors will turn out to be false,\u201d he nonetheless encouraged supporters to continue spreading them. \u201cIn short, don\u2019t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots,\u201d Vance posted on X<\/a>. \u201cKeep the cat memes flowing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the days since the Springfield rumor went viral, Trump\u2019s supporters and campaign surrogates have embraced\u00a0it, posting AI-generated images<\/a> depicting Trump as a champion of America\u2019s pets. The Republican Party of Arizona unveiled a dozen billboards in the Phoenix area referencing the meme, urging Arizonans to \u201ceat less kittens\u201d and vote Republican.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n These memes have become a visual shorthand for Trump and his supporters\u2019 belief in the white supremacist great replacement theory<\/a>. And rather than acknowledging the falsehood at the heart of the rumor about Haitians in Springfield, Trump\u2019s supporters have suggested that the media\u2019s focus on fact-checking the viral lie obscures the \u201creplacement\u201d of Americans in Springfield with Haitian migrants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Trump, the Republican Party\u2019s standard-bearer, isn\u2019t bothering to obfuscate the baseless claims by tying them to locals\u2019 broader concerns about immigrants. Instead, he\u2019s going for the baldest version of the lie.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n