Washington: Vice president Kamala Harris has lashed out at Donald Trump for “spewing lies” about immigrants eating pets, which has led to dozens of bomb threats forcing schools and buildings in a small US city to be evacuated or placed on lockdown.

One week after her first presidential debate against Trump, the Democratic candidate gave her lengthiest views yet on the former president’s bizarre rant about Haitian immigrants kidnapping and eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.

Since Trump fuelled those conspiracy theories on the debate stage last week, some government buildings have temporarily closed, a number of classes have been conducted virtually after schools and colleges were evacuated, and a cultural festival has been postponed.

Tensions have risen to such an extent that Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine announced this week that he would send three dozen state troopers to provide added security to schools as a precaution after a “series of unfounded bomb threats”. Thirty-three threats were made, he said, but all have been hoaxes and many have come from overseas.

The beefed-up security came after members of the far-right group the Proud Boys descended on Springfield amid reports that the Klu Klux Klan had been distributing recruitment leaflets across the region.

Asked about Springfield during a panel interview on Tuesday, Harris took aim at Trump for “spewing lies that are grounded in tropes that are age-old.”

“When you are bestowed with a microphone that big, there is a profound responsibility that comes with that… especially when you have been, and seek to be again, President of the United States of America,” Harris said.

“It’s a crying shame, literally, what’s happening to those families, those children,” she added, referencing one evacuation that took place on what was meant to be school photo day.

“You say you care about law enforcement? Well, law enforcement is being put into this because of these serious threats that are being issued against a community that was living a productive, good life before this happened.”

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The vice president made her comments during a panel interview at the National Association of Black Journalists - the same group that Trump was addressing last month when he questioned Harris’ racial identity.

The interview came as both candidates returned to the campaign trail for the first time since the apparent attempted assassination of Donald Trump on Sunday (Monday AEST) - the second one in as many months.

Harris revealed she called Trump on Tuesday (Washington time), “to see if he was okay, and I told him what I said publicly: there is no place for political violence in our country.”

Trump, however, has blamed Joe Biden and Harris for the latest incident, saying that their rhetoric - which casts him as a threat to democracy - was inciting people who wanted to kill him.

“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out,” he told Fox News.

His running mate, J.D. Vance also weighed in, telling a Faith and Freedom Coalition event that ’the big difference ]between conservatives and liberals is that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump.”

Vance added that this was “pretty strong evidence” that Democrats need to tone down their rhetoric, more so than Republicans.

Trump was unharmed in Sunday’s incident, and the suspect, Ryan Routh, 58, did not get a line of sight on the former president or fire a shot, the Secret Service says.

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But questions remain about his motive, how he knew Trump would be on the golf course that day, and whether the Secret Service - which has come under scrutiny since Trump’s first near-death experience in Pennsylvania in July - did enough to protect him.

Agents did not search the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club before the former president began his round on Sunday.

Nonetheless, Trump has defended their work, saying during a “spaces” forum on X that “they did a fantastic job.” He also joked that he “would have loved to have sank that last putt, but we decided let’s get out of it.”