Vance and Trump leverage racist hoax to distract from bad policy

Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance’s insistence on pushing a racist lie about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, has succeeded in centering the Republican campaign in the news media. 

The Bulwark’s Jonathan Last described the tactic as a way of reinserting Trump as the “main character” in the election cycle, pulling media attention away from the enthusiasm and successes of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg described a similar idea on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this past Sunday, calling the right’s racist fabrications “part of the strategy from a campaign that wants to talk about anything but their actual record and their actual agenda."

“Obviously, [Trump and Vance] don't want to be talking about the particulars of the Trump-Vance health care plan, because they don't have one. They have this so-called 'concept of a plan' that they keep saying is around the corner,” Buttigieg said. “He's been saying that, I think, for nine years. So they need to get us talking about something else. The crazier the better. And they go for something that is so outrageous that you actually can't ignore it.”