Gov. DeWine urges Trump and Vance to end 'very hurtful' comments about Haitian migrants

Springfield, Ohio, remains on edge as Donald Trump and JD Vance continue spreading racist lies about Haitian migrants. Throughout the turmoil, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has called for calm, sent additional law enforcement resources and condemned hate. Amna Nawaz spoke with DeWine about the threats Springfield is dealing with.

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Amna Nawaz: Well, throughout all of the turmoil in Springfield, Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine has called for calm. He sent additional law enforcement resources and condemned hate.

He joins me now.

Governor DeWine, welcome back to the “News Hour.” Thanks for being with us.

Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH): Good to be with you. Thank you very much.

Amna Nawaz: So I want to put to you something that Senator Vance said earlier at a rally today. He quoted you, saying that you had said every single one of the bomb threats that Springfield, Ohio, has seen was a hoax and all of the bomb threats came from foreign countries.

Just for clarification, is that accurate?

Gov. Mike DeWine: Some of the bomb threats came from foreign countries. Others came from in the United States.

And all of them have been hoaxes. That’s correct. None of them have panned out. We have obviously checked each one out. But they have been very disruptive. Schools have had to close. We put in our Highway Patrol to the schools, so they can be open today.

And I was glad to see a lot of students were back when Fran and I visited there today.

Amna Nawaz: So, when you say that they’re hoaxes, that means there haven’t actually been bombings. They have been threats.

But as you just heard from my colleague’s conversation with the Springfield city manager, he said you have to respond to every one as if it could be real. So if the intention is to sow fear, is it working?

Gov. Mike DeWine: Well, Fran and I were in schools today. We talked to kindergartners, first graders, second graders, and the teachers.

And what the teachers said is, the kids are doing well today, but, yesterday, they had a tough day. That’s how the teachers describe it. So if the kids are having a tough day, you can imagine that parents have had a tough day. It’s been very disruptive.

We have seen Wittenberg close, our university. We have seen our Clark State community college have to close. So, yes, this has been very, very disruptive and very concerning. And our message has been we’re going to supply the help. Our schools need to stay open. And we want parents to be able to feel good about sending their children to school.

So, we have put 36 members of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, our special unit, literally in the schools. They go in the morning in the schools. They make sure there’s no bombs, there’s nothing. We just want to be able to assure the parents that it is safe.

And if I was a parent, I would be concerned as well with all these different threats and all this all this rancor and all this hate.

Amna Nawaz: To that point, Governor, former President Trump and Senator Vance have been leaning into dehumanizing and racist tropes about people in need who are legally in your state, saying that they’re stealing jobs and that they’re stealing homes, and accusing them without evidence of barbaric behavior.

Is that language fueling these threats?

Gov. Mike DeWine: Well, the immigration issue and the border issue obviously is fair game. We can certainly do better on the border than we’re doing. We could do a lot better.

But if you want to talk about these individuals, these Haitians who are in our cities, our city, look, they’re legal. They came here because they want to work. They have been hired by our local businessmen and women, and when we talked to them the other morning, they told us these are great workers. They come to work. They want to work.

In fact, they want to work overtime. They’re being paid just what, obviously, what anybody else would be paid. So they have been a boost to the economy. Springfield in Ohio is really coming back. And Springfield has seen a lot of new industry come in, and there weren’t enough workers.

This is what the companies told us. After the pandemic, when everything started moving forward, there was not enough workers, and so they started filling them in with these Haitians.

So those comments are — about eating dogs and things, they’re very hurtful. They’re very hurtful for these men and women who work very, very hard. They’re obviously very hurtful for their children.

Amna Nawaz: They’re hurtful, but are they also fueling these threats?

Gov. Mike DeWine: Well, look, as the mayor said today, Mayor Rue, he said before this, we had Haitians here for three years, four years, and we did not have any of these.

Now, look, the people who are making these threats are the bad people. They’re the wrong people. We’re having some come from overseas. We have people who want to mess with the United States. We have some coming within the United States from people who are sick or who think that, for some reason, this is funny.

The original…

(Crosstalk)

Amna Nawaz: But, Governor, if I may, to that point — I apologize. I know our time is limited.

Gov. Mike DeWine: Yes.

Amna Nawaz: If these comments that are baseless that are being made by former President Trump and Senator Vance, if they were not being made, would those threats stop?

Gov. Mike DeWine: Well, I don’t know. I can’t predict what would happen, but the statements are wrong. I have said they were wrong. The mayor has said they were wrong. And, frankly, they need to stop.

Amna Nawaz: As you saw, my colleague William Brangham reported that there has been a real strain on city resources with the arrival of so many people in need.

Can I just ask. As governor to those people, what kind of support can you offer from the state level? And what’s your message to those members of the Haitian community there who live in your state and are now incredibly scared?

Gov. Mike DeWine: Our message is, you are welcome. We welcome legal immigrants to come to Ohio who want to work, who want to raise their families, who want to be part of our community.

I said that in my last inaugural speech. And I will repeat it again. This is the way we feel. So, my message to them is, you’re very welcome in the community.

Look, there’s no doubt — and everybody will say this — that having 15,000 new people in the community over the last three or four years has stretched services. So we were spending time today with my health director focusing on how we can continue to give the city and the local community more help in regard to primary care. We have a real strain on primary care.

So no one should say that there hasn’t been a strain. There’s been a strain on the school. But we’re working hard. We’re working hard every day and the local officials are working hard, the mayor is working hard, the school superintendent to make this work and to move forward.

Springfield’s got a great future.

Amna Nawaz: That is Ohio Governor Mike DeWine joining us tonight.

Governor, thank you for your time. Always good to see you.

Gov. Mike DeWine: Thank you.