Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, for amplifying false rumors that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

Harris urged her opponents on the Republican presidential ticket to be more careful with their words on the national stage during an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia on Tuesday.

“It’s a crying shame,” Harris said during the nearly 45-minute interview. “My heart breaks for this community.”

Harris said the baseless rumor put a whole region in fear. She added that she learned early on in her career as an attorney that the words she uses could “impact whether somebody was free or in prison.”

“When you have that microphone in front of you, you really ought to understand at a very deep level how much your words have meaning,” Harris said.

Trump during last week’s presidential debate referred to the false claim, which officials in the city have called untrue. Since then, threatening calls and bomb threats have rocked Springfield, and public schools and municipal buildings have been forced to evacuate.

University and college campuses in the area also moved to remote instruction and canceled activities after receiving violent threats.

Vance, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, has repeated the rumor multiple times in recent weeks. During an interview on Sunday, the Ohio senator said he did not regret spreading those rumors, saying “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.”

Haitian people living in Springfield told the USA TODAY Network's Ohio Bureau that they just want to go about their lives, living and working even as they face a political spotlight.