Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) has expressed his regret at the way in which he felt he got swept up — as Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate — in combating a racist lie that was peddled by Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2024 election.

“They sucked me in” on the debunked rumor that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating the pets of local residents, Walz told New Yorker editor David Remnick on the latest episode of “The New Yorker Radio Hour” podcast.

“I was just horrified and angry when they were demonizing folks in Springfield, Ohio, and there I was talking for almost a week about immigration, right where they wanted us to be,” Walz remembered.

The lie — which reached a pinnacle with Trump’s false debate claim about “they’re eating the cats” and dogs — “bothered me on a real human basis,” Walz added.

“On that one I was pretty fired up, you know, pushing back, it wasn’t fair, we need to do this. It just struck me,” he said. But Trump “was right, for whatever reason,” Walz lamented, “that more people were OK with saying that than they were against.”

Listen to the full episode here: