Conservative editor backtracks after seeming to use n word regarding Haitian migrants

SiriusXM conservative talk show host Megyn Kelly magazine editor National Review Rich Lowry

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; Gage Skidmore/Flickr (cropped) via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 2.0

Rich Lowry seemed to have used the racial slur in place of the term "migrants" while speaking to Megyn Kelly on her SiriusXM show. He's now claimed he didn't.

The editor inchief of the conservative magazine National Review, Rich Lowry, appears to have used a racial slur during a conversation on The Megyn Kelly Show, in which the two pundits were discussing the rampant falsehoods about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Lowry dropped the slur in place of the word "migrants," quickly correcting himself after.

"Police have gone through 11 months of recordings of calls and they've only found two Springfield residents calling to complain about Haitian [n word]s," he said, seemingly correcting afterward by adding, "migrants."

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Kelly did not react to Lowry's apparent slip-up, nor did she address it when he finished speaking. Instead, the two defended Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, who spread the claims despite admitting they are false, praising his "alternative facts."

Vance doubled down on debunked claims about Haitian immigrants abducting pets to eat them and falsely linked the migrant community to rising rates of HIV and tuberculosis in an interview last week with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. He later admitted the rumors were false but defended spreading them in a Sunday interview with Dana Bash on CNN.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, Dana, then that’s what I’m going to do because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast," Vance said.

The conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were stealing and eating pets went viral after former President Donald Trump spread the false claims during last Tuesday's presidential debate. Trump insisted that immigrants were “eating the dogs and cats” of residents, despite local officials consistently debunking the rumors and noting that no evidence supported the claims.

After backlash, Lowry claimed on Twitter/X that he misspoke, insisting that he "began to mispronounce the word 'migrants' and caught myself halfway through."