Vance's zero-shame strategy

• That didn't stop Vance from repeatedly promoting the smears, which exploded onto national headlines a day later when Trump claimed on the debate stage that immigrants were "eating the pets" in Springfield.
• A week later, Vance continues to double and triple down on the debunked claims — casting it as a strategy to force the national media to cover the growing pains associated with the influx of Haitian migrants.

What they're saying: "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do," Vance told CNN on Sunday.

The big picture: At virtually every turn, people in positions to corroborate the pet-eating accounts have instead debunked them.

1. Erika Lee, a Springfield resident whose Facebook post about a neighbor's missing cat sparked some of the earliest rumors, told Newsguard that she heard it from "an acquaintance of a friend" who heard it from "a source."

• Lee deleted the post and expressed regret to NBC News about the national firestorm that had ensued, including threats to the Haitian community.
• "If I was in the Haitians' position, I'd be terrified, too," Lee said, saying it was never her intent to demonize the immigrant community.

2. Springfield city manager Bryan Heck told the Wall Street Journal that a Vance staffer reached out to him on Sept. 9 to conduct a fact-check.

• "He asked point-blank, 'Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?'" Heck said.
• "I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless."

3. Vance's office provided the Journal on Tuesday with an August police report in which Springfield resident Anna Kilgore claimed her cat may have been taken by her Haitian neighbors.

• But when a Journal reporter visited Kilgore's home, she said her cat had been found in her basement a few days later — and that she had apologized to her Haitian neighbors.

The other side: "Senator Vance has received countless messages from residents of Springfield on the disastrous effects Kamala Harris's immigration policies have created for their hometown: a shortage of affordable housing, stressed public resources, declining public safety, and spikes in communicable disease," a Vance spokesperson said.

• "It's shameful that the media is ignoring these real concerns while purposely twisting Senator Vance's words."

The latest: Vance has not apologized for the pet rumors. In recent days, he has lashed out at the media for reporting on the wave of bomb threats that forced Springfield schools to close this week.

• At a rally on Tuesday, Vance said that "every single one of those bomb threats was a hoax" — and accused the American media of "laundering foreign disinformation," claiming that all of the threats came from overseas.
• But Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, whom Vance cited, told PBS Newshour that some of the threats came from inside the U.S., and that the GOP ticket's rhetoric about Haitian immigrants has been "very hurtful."