Trump’s fish stories about cats, dogs and Haitians

The Journal last week published a front-page story with an arresting headline: “Told Pet-Eating Was Untrue, Trump Team Spread It Anyway." According to the story, the day before the debate, Springfield’s city manager told a staff member of JD Vance’s campaign team that internet claims about pet-eating were “baseless." The same day, the Journal reports, Mr. Vance tweeted about the rumors to his nearly two million followers. The next evening in the debate, Mr. Trump spread these rumors across the globe.

Challenged to verify or withdraw their claims about immigrants eating pets, neither Republican candidate has done so—although in a tweet on Sept. 10, Mr. Vance conceded: “It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false." At a Sept. 17 event in Eau Claire, Wis., he acknowledged that he hadn’t checked the rumors on which he had built his stories. But he apparently didn’t see it as his duty to verify the claims before amplifying them to a mass audience. Asked by a reporter at the Wisconsin event whether he has a responsibility to fact-check claims before sharing them, Mr. Vance said that “the media has a responsibility to fact-check."

As it happens, the media did its job. To back its claims, the Vance campaign offered the Journal a police report in which a Springfield resident alleged that her missing cat might have been abducted by Haitian neighbors. The complainant’s pet turned up a few days later—in her own basement.

But the damage had already been done. Mr. Vance surely knows that once a falsehood goes public, it’s too late to withdraw it. And if it bolsters pre-existing beliefs, it will persist indefinitely, no matter how thoroughly it’s debunked. It would seem that Mr. Vance is unconcerned about pandering to prejudice and degrading public discourse.

Some politicians set a better example. Springfield Mayor Rob Rue, a registered Republican, told the Journal that although he’d “told those at the national level that they are speaking these things that are untrue," the rumors have been “repeated and doubled down on," inflicting serious damage on his community. City Hall, state motor-vehicle offices and several schools received bomb threats after the presidential debate. Parents kept their children home from school until police had investigated the threats.

Enter Mike DeWine, Ohio’s popular two-term Republican governor, who calls himself “a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance." Mr. DeWine refused to leave baseless rumors unchallenged. In an op-ed for the New York Times, he drew on his own experience to rebut them.

Mr. DeWine was born in Springfield. He and his wife have lived their entire lives within 10 miles of the city. For decades, he recounts, Springfield was a thriving center of commerce and manufacturing—until it was hit by a wave of deindustrialization in the 1980s and 1990s and well-paid middle-class jobs dwindled.

Now, Mr. DeWine reports, the city is enjoying a resurgence, thanks in part to the dramatic influx of Haitians in recent years. They did not sneak in to commit crimes and collect welfare, he insists: “They are there legally. They are there to work." Prior to writing the op-ed, Mr. DeWine interviewed employers who testified to the Haitians’ work ethic and said they’re indispensable.

Mr. DeWine acknowledges that this surge of migrants has created some problems, including strain on healthcare systems, the housing market and schools. The state is helping the city meet these challenges. Volunteers have also offered to help Haitian children learn English and Haitian families navigate the healthcare system. Mr. DeWine rightly calls this “the Lord’s work."

The governor wrote that he is “saddened" by how Messrs. Trump and Vance “continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield." This rhetoric has consequences, he adds: It “hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there."

Mr. DeWine and I disagree about most matters of public policy. But we agree on this: Concern for others matters. Taking responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions matters. So does telling the truth. The conduct of Donald Trump and JD Vance betrays indifference to—if not contempt for—these values.

In 1954, Joseph Welch, a lawyer defending the U.S. Army against Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s charges of communist infiltration, showed he’d had enough of Mr. McCarthy’s baseless accusations. “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty and your recklessness," Mr. Welch said. “Have you no sense of decency?" It was the right question 70 years ago, and it’s the right question today.