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Former President Donald Trump amplified a debunked claim Tuesday night during his first presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris that Haitian immigrants have abducted and eaten people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio, apparently endorsing a falsehood that has been shot down by city officials.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame,” Trump said.
As Trump made the claim, Harris laughed, threw her head back, and asked, “What? This is unbelievable.”
Trump’s remarks about the falsehood — which has been promoted by his campaign and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance — thrust the claim further into public view. There is no evidence to backup the claim, and a spokesperson for the City of Springfield said in a statement that officials had received “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
In response to Trump’s comments, ABC News anchor David Muir, one of the debate’s co-moderators, noted that Springfield’s city manager had debunked the claim about migrants eating local pets. Trump dismissed that account, saying that he had heard the rumor on TV.
“Well I’ve seen people on television,” Trump said. “The people on television say, ‘My dog was taken and used for food.’ ”
Trump has long sought to cast immigrants — both undocumented and those living legally in the U.S. — as a danger to public safety and a burden on basic resources like housing and health care. In announcing his first presidential run in 2015, he warned of “murderers” and “rapists” who had come from “all over the planet.”
His campaign has sought to resurrect that playbook. On Monday, his campaign blasted out a news release echoing the false claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield had abducted and eaten local wildlife and even residents’ pets.
Vance, meanwhile, has attacked the growing Haitian population in the Ohio city for months. On Tuesday, the Ohio senator repeated the claim once again that people’s pets had been taken, though he acknowledged that such claims could ultimately turn out to be untrue.
“In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants.,” Vance wrote on the social media site X. “It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-10 22:41:00
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