Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday that her “heart breaks” for the people of Springfield, Ohio, as they deal with bomb threats and school evacuations — all because of racist lies spread by Donald Trump and other Republicans about immigrants eating people’s pets.
“It’s a crying shame,” Harris said of the situation. “I mean, my heart breaks for this community.”
The vice president, who made her comments during an interview at a National Association of Black Journalists event, noted that Springfield elementary schools were evacuated on the same day that the children would have their class photo taken.
“It was school picture day. Do you remember what that was like? Going to school on picture day? Dressed up? All set? Knowing the night before what they were going to wear?” Harris said. “It had to be cleared out. Kids. Kids.”
Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), have both stoked racist fear-mongering about Haitian immigrants in this small Ohio community, where life has been turned upside down in recent weeks.
Trump has vowed that if he wins in November, he will begin his plans for mass deportations of immigrants in Springfield, where the Haitian population is largely legal. He has feigned ignorance of the bomb threats he helped instigate: “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats. I know it was taken over by illegal immigrants, and that’s a terrible thing that happened,” he said Saturday.
Vance, who grew up an hour south of Springfield and represents the community in the Senate, has admitted there is no basis for the lies he spreads about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets. But he has still encouraged his supporters to continue spreading offensive cat memes that have gone viral amid the lies about Springfield immigrants.
Harris said their recklessness reminded her of something she learned long ago as a public servant: the weight her words carried.
“I learned early in my career that the meaning of my words could affect whether someone was free or in prison,” she said, referring to her time as a prosecutor and later as California’s attorney general.
“When you’re given this big microphone, there’s a deep responsibility that comes with it — that’s an extension of what can’t be lost at this point: this concept of public trust,” Harris said. “It means you’re invested with trust, to be responsible in the way you use your words, let alone how you behave.”
Without naming him, Harris said Trump has failed to show he cares about immigrants or even gain the public’s trust with his anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“We have to say that you cannot rely on the seal of the president of the United States, and you cannot engage in this hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country, and to have people point fingers at each other,” she said.
The Democratic presidential candidate echoed her campaign’s core message by adding that it’s time to “Turn the page” on the era of Trump’s ugly lies and attacks, and remember that “the vast majority of Americans” have far more in common than divides them.
“This is exhausting, and it’s damaging, and it’s hateful and it’s rooted in age-old issues that we should have no tolerance for,” Harris said. “Let’s turn the page and chart a new path forward and say you can’t have the microphone anymore.”
At another point during Tuesday’s interview, Harris was asked whether she has confidence in the Secret Service’s ability to protect her as Trump faces a second assassination attempt.
“I do,” she said, before turning the conversation back to Springfield.
“But I mean, you can go back to Ohio. Not everybody has Secret Service,” Harris said. “There are far too many people in our country that don’t feel safe right now.”
