Yet the lies continue unabated, with reports that some in the devastated areas now refuse FEMA assistance because of them. The lies didn’t start with the hurricane. CBS reporter Scott Pelley recently explained why Donald Trump withdrew from the 50-year-old tradition of presidential candidate interviews on the network.

Pelley observed: “The campaign offered shifting explanations. First it complained that we would fact-check the interview. We fact-check every story. Later, Trump said he needed an apology for his interview in 2020. Trump claims correspondent Lesley Stahl said in that interview that Hunter Biden’s controversial laptop came from Russia. She never said that.”

To refuse an interview because it is fact-checked is to admit to lying.

When responding to criticism for falsely claiming that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating the pets of local white citizens, vice presidential candidate JD Vance responded, “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 because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.”

To “create stories” like that is simply a cool euphemism for lying.

The lies about the Haitians led to bomb threats in Springfield that forced the closing of several schools and other public buildings. Haitians in the town still do not feel safe. Republican leaders in Springfield and across the state of Ohio implored the candidates to cease and desist with the lies about Haitians. They have not.