(upbeat music) (graphic pops) - Hello, and welcome to "The Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

A bit more than a week since the Harris-Trump debate.

And the question is, what impact, if any, did it have here in Ohio and across the country?

Obviously, we'll have a discussion about Springfield, Ohio as part of that.

Joining us in the studio are Dr. Nicole Kalaf-Hughes and Dr. David Jackson from Bowling Green State University, and from Columbus, the host of "The State of Ohio," Karen Kasler.

Thank you all for being here.

Karen, you're at the center of this being in Columbus.

Everybody's weighed in at the state level, different places, the governor has weighed in, which once again finds him sort of in opposition to other major members of his party.

But talk about Springfield, Ohio, what's going on there now, what we've heard, how the governor's reacted, how other people have doubled down on the story.

Just kind of give us that big overview of where we are now.

And of course, obviously there's been a lot of threats of violence now in places around Springfield and the rest of the state.

- Well, DeWine's language has changed since the story first started catching fire last week.

He did a press conference last week where he really didn't address all the issues and the rumors, the false rumors that are coming out of Springfield.

And it should be set up front that there is no evidence that pets are being kidnapped and eaten by Haitian immigrants.

These immigrants, for the most part, are legal.

They're under temporary protected status, allowed to be in this country for several years to work.

And employers in the Springfield area say that they are working, that they're embracing them as good workers.

And there was one who even said they wish they had more of them.

But DeWine on the Sunday talk shows, he was on ABC's this week where he said that there is no evidence that this is happening, that it's ridiculous, that he wishes that Republicans wouldn't get away from talking about this, and talk about the serious issues involving a surge of immigrants into a smaller size community.

That's a strain on healthcare and education and housing.

But he also said that even though these false rumors are coming from former President Trump who brought that up during the debate last week, and his vice presidential candidate Senator JD Vance, Ohio's Senator, Ohio's Republican senator, he said he's still supporting them.

Then Vance himself was on CNN talking about the same thing being asked about these rumors, which he said at one point that he was basing his sharing of these rumors on firsthand accounts that he'd gotten from constituents.

But he also said that if he had to create stories that brought media attention to what's happening in Springfield with the strain on these systems, then he would continue to do so, which is a pretty staggering statement to hear him make.

- [Steve] Yeah, when you think about that, because, and the quote was something like, because I watched the Dana Bash interview on CNN.

And his quote was, "If I have to create stories so the American media actually pay attention to the suffering of the American people, that's what I'm going to do.

So I will make up a story to get your attention.

None of it may be true, but I'll make up the story.

So you'll pay attention to a story I think you should be paying attention to."

Dr. Hughes, I mean, that's an interesting statement for any politician to make.

I'm telling you now, I'm going to lie to you to get your attention.

I'm gonna lie to you to get your attention, something totally outrageous to get your attention, so you'll listen to something else I have to say.

- [Nicole] Yeah, that was a choice.

And essentially what it's gonna boil down to is the people who either are on the margins in terms of who they're voting for, and they're not sure, or the people who know that they're not gonna vote for the Republican ticket are gonna be appalled.

And the people who are gonna vote for the Republican ticket no matter what are going to ignore it and move on.

There's no factual basis, as Karen said, to any of these.

Republican local politicians in Springfield, Governor DeWine have come out and said that there's no basis for this.

And it's part of a very long history of kind of an ingroup-outgroup panic that we've used for politics in the United States.

And this is just a new take on a very, very, very old story.

- Yeah, no, the one thing too, and Karen, all of you can jump in here, the fact is too, that besides all of that, the usual political blah, blah, blah, bruhaha, whatever, shocking politicians make up stories, okay, is the fact that this has now resulted in a lot of threats of violence, not just in the Springfield community, but now it's overlapping to other places who just happen to have the name Springfield, even though they're nowhere near that portion of Southwestern or South Central Ohio.

So it's language that has a lot of reach that maybe wasn't intended, but when you have people threatening now because they're upset because there are Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, that seems somewhat, not the, again, not the level we would expect from a vice presidential candidate to stir that kind of rhetoric up and create danger for average people in those communities.

- [Karen] Well, particularly not- - [Nicole] Well, especially- - Oh, go ahead, Karen.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- [Karen] Well, especially since this started with a Facebook post that was amplified by some far-right conservative commentators, including I think some who were associated with the group that was just indicted by the Department of Justice for being under Russian control.

And then it was elevated by JD Vance, who is the vice presidential candidate of a major political party, and other Republicans, sitting senators and representatives, and then of course shouted from the stage by the Republican presidential candidate.

There are real impacts on this, like you were just saying.

Schools and hospitals and institutions have had bomb threats.

Clark State College is online only this week because all activities were canceled.

Springfield has canceled culture fest.

I mean, these are real impacts.

And of course, the Haitians in the community say they're feeling this as well.

They're worried about the impact in their business and the businesses that they run, and also they're worried about their own safety.

- Yeah, and I think too, you know, and we look at that, Vance, Moreno, everybody who is running for office in Ohio, and the Republicans seem to have embraced this as, again, an effort to draw attention and point out what they believe are the bad policies of the Harris-Biden administration.

But the impact at the local level is totally different.

And David, the Senate race isn't, because Merino jumped right on this too, which is interesting given that, you know, his family is an immigrant family several generations removed.

But still, it just seems like this is an issue that blew way, way out of proportion, maybe beyond what even JD Vance or former President Trump thought was gonna be the impact.

- Yeah, philosophically, there's something interesting going on with this in that there's often justification for these, you know, falsehoods and lies, sort of acknowledging that the stories themselves are not true, but it's okay that they're not true because they point to an important issue.

And that embrace of moral relativism from a political party that traditionally, you know, has relied on a belief, you know, and fixed, unchanging absolute truths has been one of the really dramatic changes that has happened, you know, since Donald Trump came down the escalator in 2015.

And I'm not here to judge whether that's a good thing or a bad thing for that particular political party, but it's extremely noticeable now that that form of relativism has been embraced by a party that used to not believe in that sort of thing.

- When we come back, we can talk more about that, because it flows then too in the fact that now election integrity has become an issue.

And same thing there.

People will say, well, there's no evidence of any widespread fraud and, you know, violations, that sort of thing.

And yet I know, Karen, when you were talking to the Republican party, Sherrod, we'll come back in a moment to talk about that, he was all over that.

Well, you know, there's a lot of people that believe there's problems with the elections.

Well, that's an artifact of the last few years as well.

So, back in just a moment with Dr. Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, Dr. David Jackson, and Karen Kasler here on "The Journal."

Thanks for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Karen Kasler, host of "The State of Ohio," Dr. David Jackson, Dr. Nicole Kalaf-Hughes from Bowling Green State University.

Karen, when we opened the show, we talked about the fact you've got governor, Republican Governor Mike DeWine, you've got the Republican mayor of Springfield, Ohio saying, "Look, there's no truth to these stories," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But on the other hand, you've got other people in their party doubling down on this story.

And it's interesting because one of 'em is saying absolutely, no proof, no evidence, no whatever.

And they said, "Well, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened."

So talk about how you deal with that.

If you're somebody from the state of Ohio trying to sell the state to the world, to the rest of the country, come here, Ohio's a great place.

When you've got people saying, oh no, people are eating cats in Springfield, Ohio.

That means I wanna move my business there.

I'm telling you, that's where I'm going.

If I'm debating whether to move to Springfield, Ohio and open up shop, or Springfield, Illinois, that would make the choice pretty clear to me if I believe any of that.

But how do you, if you're Mike DeWine, how do you prove it didn't happen?

- Yeah, and that's the problem.

I don't know how you prove something didn't happen.

And so the challenge has been out there to prove it did happen.

And there are some folks who are in the Springfield area who've been putting out videos.

These are folks who were backed by right-wing organizations and commentators, and they're far right themselves, that are putting out videos that are either old or misleading.

The video that has been most widely circulated is from a woman in Canton that happened well before all this talk began.

But it makes it very difficult to disprove that something is happening.

And that's why you keep hearing the sentences, there is no evidence of this, because how do you get evidence of something that is not happening?

- [Steve] And I guess in that, but it's an interesting function, and I think Dr. Hughes, you mentioned that too, that this is sort of a new twist on an old story, kind of, the background of this a little bit.

- [Nicole] Yeah, I think if we're looking, we see, if you look at US history, and not just in the US, but that's what we we're talking about, people are very eager to blame all problems on whatever the outgroup is of the day.

And so in this instance, they've decided that the outgroups are Haitian migrants to Springfield, who as Karen said, are here on temporary protected status.

They can live here, they can work here, they can go to school here, they can raise their families here, right?

They're here with complete documentation.

But that doesn't matter.

And the rumors get out, and these take on a life of their own.

And there's no way to prove them wrong, because you can't prove a negative.

It's not, right, the whole definition of science is that you have to be able to falsify it.

And you can't falsify something that did not happen because you can't prove a negative.

And so that's been kind of a strategy of members of like far-right organizations and more right-wing media is you say, "Well, I'm not saying this is fact, but I'm gonna ask this very vague question."

And that starts these rumors.

And this is just kind of one example of it.

And it pits the local people of Springfield kind of against these national political figures, their own senator, someone who they probably voted for, who was essentially shutting down their government, and the Republican governor of Ohio who's trying to say, like, "No, no, no, everything is fine here.

Please still bring your businesses to Ohio."

- [Steve] Yeah, there are issues, there are, you know, forces at work on the healthcare system there, et cetera, which will be true of any influx of 15,000 people into a city the size of Springfield.

But yeah, it's being played for a lot higher stakes is what the problem is here.

- [Nicole] Well, and a lot of the things, and like the legitimate problems that exist when you have an influx of any one are not things that the government can necessarily control instantly.

So in terms of hiring public health care workers or hiring school teachers, that's gonna actually require the citizens of the area to pass a levy to increase the size of the school system.

For the cost of real estate, that's up to the landlords.

And the nature of the market is that if there is a higher demand for housing, landlords are gonna raise their rent because they can.

It doesn't have anything to do with who came in.

- [Steve] It's just the- - [Nicole] It's just the nature of the- - [Steve] The number of people that are there.

- [Nicole] Of the market.

- [Steve] The supply and demand kind of thing.

- [Nicole] And so they're gonna look to make more money.

They're not in the business of giving out apartments for a low rate.

And so as cities grow, this is just kind of the cost of growth faced by everyone in Ohio cities that are doing well.

- [David] And I'm reminded too, back in, you know, 2008, which, you know, a day is a lifetime in politics.

So 2008 is, you know- - [Steve] Ancient history.

- [David] Multi-millennia ago, where a person in an audience at a John McCain town hall brought up to John McCain an accusation that Barack Obama was what, secretly a Muslim and not a good person.

And John McCain stopped the woman politely in her tracks and said, "He's a good man.

We happen to fundamentally disagree about things," and go from there.

So in 16 years, we've gone from a politics that at least occasionally, let's not, you know, romanticize the past too much, contain these moments of basic decency, to a politics where the ends justify the means is the only operative philosophy in some ways happening.

And it's troubling.

- Yeah, well, and you're right, because that is one of those sort of benchmark moments of that campaign.

Because John McCain could have said, "Yeah, you know, there are questions about what's going on there," but he didn't do that.

These days, you're right, probably an elected official from either party would go, "Well, you know, that's a good question.

I've got concerns too.

Not really saying I agree with it, but, you know, it's an interesting question," which gives it life then.

- [David] Right, if your opponent is, you know, the worst people that ever existed in your view, there can be no limitations to what it takes to defeat them.

Then we sort of lose track of the fact that how campaigns work can affect how governing works.

Which then, if you've demonized your opponents as, you know, pet-eating, you know, satanist, or whatever the hell's going on here, how are you supposed to make a compromise with them when you're governing?

Because then the people that believe the nonsense you've told them will look at you and say- - [Steve] How can you work with them?

- [David] How can you work with those people?

- [Steve] Yeah, exactly.

Well, and Karen, you know, the thing with Governor DeWine, go ahead and I'm not gonna give, go ahead and talk, I'm sorry, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, go ahead.

- No, I was just gonna add that certainly some critics might bring up that there were memes and jokes and everything about JD Vance having interest in couches, you know, and saying, well, this is just the same kind of misinformation.

It's not, because couches aren't part of foreign policy and public policy, and nobody's threatening a couch because of some of the things that were said.

This is a deeply racist rumor that goes back, it has its roots in, you know, many, many years of stories like this.

And people are truly impacted by these.

It's not a joke.

This is a serious issue.

- Yeah, and I guess that's, and as we were talking about earlier, that's the thing.

This has had real impact in everyday people's lives.

Not just the Haitians that are in Springfield or any place else in the country.

It's impacting the ability of government to function, schools to function, cultural events to function, driver's license bureaus getting threats.

Because they may have issued driver's license to some of the Haitians.

And yet I think as you said, David, none of that matters to the people at the level that have started this thing.

Their theory is, well, hey, it accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.

Sorry what happened to you guys down in Springfield.

You're sort of like a pawn in the game, kind of is what it amounts to, which is interesting, given, as I was gonna say to Karen, it sort of points out the battle that Mike DeWine has fought all his governorship is that he's been out of step a lot with the people who are in the legislature and his other elected officials at the state level, whether it's the Secretary of State, or the Attorney General, or name a cabinet, name an elected official.

He seems to be out of step with his own party.

I keep wondering, how did he ever get elected governor, given the way they treat him on a regular basis?

- Well, he got elected in a landslide in 2022.

So certainly he has popularity with voters.

But yeah, he's had some issues, a lot of struggles over COVID policy, and some other things that have come up.

But it's really, the Republican super majority is very Trump-supporting.

And when DeWine has had some issues on whether he supports everything Trump does, it can come into conflict sometimes.

- Yeah, when we come back, we'll step away from Springfield and Ohio and talk a little about the debate in terms of what impact it might have on the races here in Ohio, the US Senate race, and so on.

Back in just a moment here on "The Journal" with Dr. Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, Dr. David Jackson, and the host of "The State of Ohio," Karen Kasler, back in just a moment.

You're with us on "The Journal."

We're talking about the debate and all of the things that flowed from that.

Springfield, Ohio aside, Dr. Jackson, did anything that happened at the debate have any impact on the US Senate race in Ohio between Bernie Moreno and the incumbent Sherrod Brown?

Did anything happen there that causes any kind of ripple in that right now, or not?

- [David] Well, I mean, the situation is that, based on the most recent sets of polls, Ohio seems to be around, let's say an 8% pro-Trump state, you know?

52-44 kind of number.

Sherrod Brown seems to be up by, you know, a couple of points in most polls.

So that means that there are people who will be voting for Donald Trump and voting for Sherrod Brown.

And so the situation that the Brown campaign is in, and we saw this back when Sherrod Brown jumped on the bandwagon saying that Joe Biden should, you know, remove himself from the top of the ticket.

The Brown campaign faces a situation of needing the national ticket not to be too big of a drag for it.

So had the debate performance been another one similar to the one that, you know, led to Biden quitting, it could have had, you know, a problematic effect for Sherrod Brown's chances in Ohio.

But it seems to have had the opposite effect.

It seems to have really energized Democrats.

It seems to have really gotten people excited.

I mean, yesterday there were pictures online of massive lines giving out Harris-Walz signs in Lakewood, you know, hundreds of signs.

All the local parties are posting about, you know, delivering and distributing, you know, 700 here, 1,000 signs there.

Anecdotally, you can see, I feel like more signs for the national ticket this time than previously.

That doesn't mean that Harris and Walz are gonna carry Ohio, but it means they might not be creating the drag on people like Marcy Kaptur in the Ninth District or Sherrod Brown statewide.

- [Steve] Yeah, no, and you mentioned the Ninth District, because obviously that's one of those swing districts.

Marcy Kaptur's been there for quite some time.

For the district has been, you know, redesigned multiple times and has been redesigned again with the effort to make it more balanced, which of course, it was one of the few Democratic districts that was pretty strong over the years.

Anything there other than, I mean, any of the issues that came out of that, that are gonna be played, that are gonna make a difference in a congressional race like the Ninth District?

Because Derek Merrin's leaning on immigration.

You know, she's been there for 40 years, and she's voted for open borders, and da da da da da da da da, on and on about that.

Does the immigration issue, however it played out of the debate in some really incredibly strange and dangerous way, is that gonna have an impact in the Ninth District?

I mean, we don't know, but should it, or would it?

I mean, is there a reason why it should have an impact?

- [Nicole] For immigration, I don't think it's going to pick up anyone new.

I don't think there's going to be, the Ninth District was designed to now be a more Republican district that could get a Republican member of Congress.

Marcy Kaptur is a longest serving female member of Congress.

She's been in there for a very long time.

And she does have some level of broad support that you don't see necessarily of like the national ticket.

But I think for speaking specifically about immigration, I think it's not going to attract anyone new.

I don't think you're gonna pick up someone who is gonna be, I'm gonna vote from Marcy Kaptur.

I'm gonna do this because of these policy reasons or things she's brought back to the district, who's going to be swayed so significantly by the rhetoric on immigration.

Particularly because some of that rhetoric is soured now in these rumors about Springfield.

Not to bring us back there, but right, it's not necessarily a clear story about how electing Derek Merrin is going to do anything beyond perpetuate more of what's happening.

And so I think it's gonna solidify the base, probably, but it's not going to pick up someone who is going to otherwise vote for Marcy Kaptur.

- [Steve] Okay, all right.

Karen, and then we'll shift gears a little bit, one of the things that's come out too is the fact that, and I know when you had the Republican party chair on, he brought up again the fact that, well, a lot of people are concerned about election integrity in Ohio, which is interesting when you've got the Secretary of State saying, "We're the gold standard of election integrity."

Although the Secretary of State's doing a few things that imply that things aren't all that gold standard-ish.

So in Columbus, I mean, that's interesting too, because you've got people saying we've got problems.

But the Secretary is saying, well, no, we're really good at what we do, but I'm gonna change some things because we're not as good as we thought we were about doing.

So is that another, like, how do you prove a negative kind of thing?

Is that what this is all about too?

- Well, the folks who are pushing further changes to Ohio election laws say that there's always room for improvement, no system is perfect, and they're proposing some things.

There's a bill that may come up during the lame-duck session after the election that would really change some things.

Allow for hand-counting ballots if voters want that, could delay the processing of absentee ballots until after the polls closed, which would delay results.

I mean, there's a lot of things that are in the works potentially that could really change the system.

But what I think is interesting here is that Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, has now criticized county prosecutors to whom he's referred several cases of non-citizens registering to vote or voting, saying that those cases need to be acted on.

And the prosecutors have pushed back saying there's not enough here to prosecute the case on.

And the Attorney General Dave Yost has even said, "I can't get involved with this."

So this idea that there is widespread voter fraud is just not true.

And anybody who is claiming that this is overturning elections or allowing elections to be, quote, "stolen," that's just not the case.

- [Steve] Well, and it's interesting, it's just another case of we've created a story to draw attention to what we think is a problem.

We wanna make a problem or make it seem like there's a problem.

- [David] Well, and it looks bad too.

I mean, in the sense that if you've ever played, you know, pickup basketball where there's no referees and you have to call your own fouls.

Everybody knows that guy or gal that they play with who waits to see if the shot goes in before they call a foul.

And that's what this looks like.

This looks like that petty, selfish, you know, thing.

But it has bigger consequences than calling fouls and rec league basketball, because it can call into question the validity of the most important way in which citizens in a republic express their views and control of the government, you know, elections, so.

- [Steve] Well, and again, here's the reflection on Ohio.

Wow, they must have really bad elections in Ohio.

There's all these new rules and all these things they're trying to do.

And yeah, and so it's interesting.

Yeah, we're in our own way, sort of like, you know, trampling on our own, you know, accolades, and going, well, yes, we have good elections, but they're not that good.

And so again, if you're trying to sell the state as a place to move to and enjoy a good life, and everything's nice here, and we're doing everything we can to make it good for citizens, all of this is like, not exactly the best public relations thing in the world.

I know that shouldn't be the important reason if there are issues.

But again, if there are issues, why are we making it seem like there are, but that's just how it is.

- [Nicole] But the more you talk about it, the greater the perceived problem is.

And so, and that's, right, you create a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, and then people think that the problem exists.

And so if you convince people that slower vote counting automatically equals fraud, which it doesn't.

Every state does it differently.

Every state has different timing rules for when they can start counting.

But if some state takes a little bit longer because of their own specific rules, people are going to then be like, "Oh, well, I heard that that meant fraud," even though it doesn't, even though it's following their state constitutions in the letter of the law.

- [Steve] Well, we'll leave it at that point right here.

And obviously we're gonna get together again before the elections and do that.

We thought maybe we'd have another debate, but that doesn't look like that's gonna happen.

So we'll see how that plays out.

But we'll talk more as we get closer to November 5th.

Thank you, again, Dr. Nicole Hughes, Dr. David Jackson, Karen Kasler, host of "The State of Ohio."

You can check us out at wbgu.org.

And of course, you can watch us every week on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Good night, and good luck.

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