Ohio Sen. JD Vance was in Michigan on Tuesday to lay the blame for political violence in the United States at the feet of Democrats and the press while defending himself and former President Donald Trump from criticisms that they heightened political tensions with their rhetoric.

The remarks came two days after a suspected gunman was arrested in Florida after what the FBI said was an apparent attempted assassination of Trump and as a small city in Ohio has been plagued with bomb threats amid false claims from Republicans about the Haitian immigrant community there.

“I think that it's time to say to the Democrats, to the media, to everybody that has been attacking this man and trying to censor this man [Trump] for going on 10 years: cut it out or you're gonna get somebody killed,” Vance told the crowd at an events center in Sparta, Mich. 

“Don't lecture Donald Trump about softening his rhetoric after two people tried to kill him. It's ridiculous,” he later added. “Tell Kamala Harris, tell Joe Biden. Tell all of her surrogates who are saying things like Donald Trump needs to be eliminated.”

(In November 2023, New York Rep. Dan Goldman said in an MSNBC interview that Trump “is not only unfit, he is destructive to our democracy, and he has to be, he has to be eliminated.” He apologized the next day for his “poor choice of words” and said, “I certainly wish no harm to him.” His comments were resurfaced by right-wing figures online in the aftermath of both attempted assassinations against Trump.)

Vance defended himself and Trump from accusations that their false claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, spreading disease and eating pets helped trigger a series of more than 30 bomb and shooting threats targeting schools, hospitals and government buildings in the area. The false claims spread by Trump and Vance were roundly denounced as meritless and damaging by officials in Ohio, including the state's Republican governor and Springfield’s mayor.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said on Monday “many of the threats are coming in from overseas,” which Vance and others have latched onto as proof their rhetoric is not causing the threats to the community in Springfield. DeWine’s office has declined to identify where they believe the threats are coming from, and Vance did not say on Tuesday if he had any knowledge of where investigators believe they originate.

“Do I think that… a person in Russia or China or Iran or Ukraine is calling in a bomb threat because they're motivated by Donald Trump's rhetoric? No, I think they're motivated by what foreign disinformation operations are always motivated by, which is sowing discord,” Vance told Spectrum News before boarding his plane after the rally. “What is the argument? The argument is that because Donald Trump or because I or because a resident of Springfield called attention to the problems in this town, these bomb threats are now falling on residents.”

“Well, the implication is you're not allowed to talk about these issues because the psychopath calls in a bomb threat. We don't believe in a heckler's veto, and we certainly don't believe that foreign disinformation operatives should be able to silence an American president or the residents of Springfield, Ohio,” Vance continued.

On Sunday, DeWine called the claims by Vance and Trump about the Haitian immigrant community in his state “garbage,” credited them for the arrival of hate groups and Ku Klux Klan literature in Springfield, and described the false rumors as “unfortunate” and “hurtful.” The Republican mayor of Springfield, Rob Rue, told a local TV station on Monday that he and his family have been subjected to death threats. Last week, he directly blamed Vance and Trump for the wave of threats.

“All these federal politicians that have negatively spun our city, they need to know they’re hurting our city, and it was their words that did it,” Rue said. 

State and local police officials have also said they have no evidence of house pets or local geese being eaten.

When asked what information he was basing his claims about Haitian immigrants eating house pets off of, Vance continued to claim he was hearing from “people who are telling us that they’re seeing these things.” His Senate office and the Trump campaign have yet to provide evidence to back up their claims.

“Now, of course, the residents could be lying to me, but I've seen no evidence that they're lying to me, so I choose to continue to try to believe them, to try to talk to them, and to try to hear their concerns,” Vance told Spectrum News. “I'm not going to call these residents liars when they come to me and give me evidence of this stuff.”

He went on to claim a Springfield resident “spoke with a media person on the record” on Tuesday morning “talking about some of these pet stories,” but said, “I won’t tell you who it is.”

“Maybe they’re all wrong,” Vance said on the tarmac.

Haitians living in Springfield have reported feeling unsafe and unwelcome since Trump and Vance began spreading the rumors last week. The Haitian Times reported residents have had their cars vandalized, home windows broken and children bullied. 

Jims Denis, a Springfield resident and business owner who relocated to the area five years ago, stated during a virtual town hall organized by the Haitian Times that Haitians no longer feel secure in Springfield. Originally scheduled in-person, the conversation was moved online amid threats, the newspaper said.

"We used to just go for a walk in the neighborhood, but we cannot do that anymore. And then my wife is thinking about moving out of the city," Denis added.

Sitting down with a panel of reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris implored Vance, Trump and their fellow Republicans to stop demonizing the Haitian immigrant population in Springfield, saying they were “spewing lies that are grounded in tropes that are age-old.”

“As attorney general…of California, fifth largest economy in the world, I was acutely aware that my words could move markets. When you are bestowed with a microphone that is that big, there is a profound responsibility that comes with that,” Harris said. “We've got to say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country.”

But Vance continued only to blame his political rivals, claiming no responsibility for himself or his party amid heightened levels of political rhetoric and violence. Before he took the stage in Michigan, Vance wrote on social media that “people on your team tried to kill Donald Trump twice” in response to criticism from former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, an anti-Trump Republican supporting Harris. 

Harris and President Joe Biden have both denounced the second apparent attempt to kill Trump in the last two months, and both Democrats said they spoke on the phone with Trump in the days since, offering their condemnations and support. The would-be assassin who shot Trump in the ear, killed a man and wounded two others at a July rally in Butler, Pa., was a registered Republican and the FBI has yet to publicly identify his motive. He was killed by a Secret Service sniper moments after opening fire.

Investigators have also yet to publicly confirm the motives of a man taken into custody and charged with gun crimes in connection to the incident on Sunday that led the Secret Service to open fire after spotting a rifle poking out from the bushes at Trump’s Palm Beach golf course as the former president golfed.

According to The Associated Press, writings and social media posts by the man, 58-year-old Ryan Routh, show a scattered political perspective that involved showing support at various points for Trump, Republican former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, independent Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders, and the former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. 

Vance was adamant that not only was the rhetoric of Harris and her allies inflammatory, it was also intentionally trying to trigger violence. That argument is one Trump made on Monday, telling Fox News Digital “their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out.”

“They want to throw him in prison, they want to kick him off social media. They want to do everything that they can to silence Donald Trump, and they send that signal with every action that they take,” Vance said on Tuesday at the Michigan rally. “Well, if you're trying to silence Donald Trump and you're sending the message 'we have to do everything that we can to silence Donald Trump,' a crazy person is eventually going to take that message to heart.”

“Don't try to censor your political opponents, because censorship will eventually lead to political violence,” he added.

Vance conceded the heated political rhetoric is not all one-sided coming from Democrats and aimed at Republicans, but “what is one-sided is that our guy is the one who keeps getting shot at.”

“If, God forbid, people have taken an attempt on Kamala Harris's life, I would be looking in the mirror and saying, ‘how could we do a lot better?’” Vance said. 

Threats are all too common for sitting presidents and vice presidents, with a man being arrested in Virginia last month for making death threats against Harris, Biden and others. Two weeks later, a Tennessee man was charged with making threats to assassinate Biden, Harris and former President Barack Obama. In August 2023, the FBI shot and killed a man in Utah as they tried to arrest him for making violent threats aimed at Biden and the New York City district attorney prosecuting Trump. Biden was set to arrive in nearby Salt Lake City the same day for a campaign event.

Trump himself faces federal prosecution accusing him of seeking to subvert the 2020 election, which culminated in a crowd of his supporters marching on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a bid to disrupt the certification of his loss to Biden in 2020. In their indictment, federal prosecutors cited his speech telling the crowd to “fight like hell” and accuse him of attempting “to exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol” to push lawmakers to delay the certification.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case and denied wrongdoing.