What Donald Trump Has Said About Ohio, Sourced

Ohio

Ohio sent JD Vance to the Senate and then to the vice presidency. This is the lie he and Trump told about one of its towns, what their signature bill does to Ohioans’ health care, and how the senators Ohio elected voted. Sourced, much of it from Ohio Republicans.

What he said about your state

The lie he told about an Ohio town, from the debate stage

They're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there.

Presidential debate, watched by 67 million people · September 2024

It was false, and the Haitians of Springfield are in the country legally. His running mate, Ohio's own JD Vance, admitted the tactic: "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." Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, called the claims "disappointing" and "harmful" and defended the town's Haitian workers. Springfield then endured at least 33 bomb threats that closed its schools and City Hall.

Sources: PolitiFact · DeWine and the bomb threats (NBC News)

What his trade promises did to Ohio jobs

The Ohio factory that closed and shipped its work overseas, on his watch

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Eastlake, Ohio · closed June 30, 2026 · 150 jobs

Trump promised his tariffs would bring manufacturing back to America. Here a company that had built instruments in the United States since 1875 went the other way, saying it could not compete with Asia and moving production offshore. Even a conservative outlet flagged the contradiction: as he used tariffs to push manufacturing back home, the country's largest band-instrument maker was heading in the opposite direction.

Sources: The contradiction, from a conservative outlet (The Center Square) · The closure and the company's stated reason (Fox 8) · The company's own announcement (Conn Selmer)

What his bill does to your health care, and who voted for it

What your senior senator told you about the cuts

Nobody is going to lose their Medicaid coverage in our state.

Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) · August 2025

More than three million Ohioans are on Medicaid. Trump's "big, beautiful bill," which Husted voted for, cuts the program by roughly $1 trillion nationally. Independent analysts estimate the law will cost Ohio about $5.6 billion in rural Medicaid funding and put at least nine of the state's hospitals at risk of closing, and a panel of Ohio economists was nearly unanimous that the cuts would hurt the state's economy.

Sources: Husted's claim vs. the numbers (Ohio Capital Journal) · Nine Ohio hospitals at risk (Public Citizen report)

How both of your senators voted

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Sen. Bernie Moreno and Sen. Jon Husted

Moreno and Husted both voted for the bill and tout a $1.3 billion rural-hospital fund, a fraction of the roughly $5.6 billion the state stands to lose. And during the 2024 campaign, fact-checkers documented Moreno amplifying the same false pet-eating narrative about Springfield's Haitians that had already triggered the bomb threats.

Sources: Both senators voted for it (Ohio Capital Journal) · Moreno pushed the pets narrative (PolitiFact, via WLRN)