Former president Donald Trump on Tuesday doubled down on a false and dehumanizing claim \u2014 pushed by his running mate and some Republicans \u2014 that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, who came into the country during the Biden-Harris administration are injuring and eating Americans\u2019 pets.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Springfield, they\u2019re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they\u2019re eating the cats. They\u2019re eating \u2014 they\u2019re eating the pets of the people that live there,\u201d Trump said at the ABC News debate between him and Vice President Kamala Harris. \u201cAnd this is what\u2019s happening in our country. And it\u2019s a shame.\u201d<\/p>\n
When moderator David Muir pushed back, saying that the city manager of Springfield has said there were no credible reports of such claims, Trump refused to concede.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen people on television \u2026 the people on television claimed my dog was taken and used for food,\u201d Trump said, interrupting Muir. \u201cSo maybe he said that, and maybe that\u2019s a good thing to say for a city manager.\u201d<\/p>\n
The escalation of the baseless and bizarre assertion came a day after Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Trump\u2019s running mate, shared a post on X in which he cited unnamed \u201creports\u201d claiming that people in the town west of Columbus \u201chave had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn\u2019t be in this country.\u201d Before the debate Tuesday, Trump also posted on his social media platform AI-generated images of himself with various animals, seemingly a reference to the Springfield claim.<\/p>\n
Vance, who has long claimed that immigrants are draining resources in towns such as Springfield, was promoting the baseless suggestion in what appeared to be an effort to attack Harris. Police in Springfield told local news outlets that there are no reports of pets being stolen or eaten in the city.<\/p>\n
Asked Tuesday about the unsubstantiated reports Vance had pushed, White House national security spokesman John Kirby called it \u201cdangerous\u201d misinformation.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause there will be people that believe it, no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is. And they might act on that kind of misinformation, and act on it in a way where somebody can get hurt, so it needs to stop,\u201d Kirby said.<\/p>\n
Vance\u2019s sentiment Monday attacking Harris and demonizing immigrants in Springfield was quickly echoed by the Trump campaign and other Republicans in Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.). In a news release, the Trump campaign said residents of Springfield have \u201cbeen left in terror as migrants overtake the once-quiet city\u201d and that migrants were \u201cdumped\u201d \u201cunvetted\u201d in the city because of the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n
While Vance and the Trump campaign appeared to suggest that Haitian immigrants in Springfield arrived illegally and without proper vetting, the growing population of Haitian immigrants there live and work in the United States legally, according to an FAQ put together by the city of Springfield. Per the document, Haitian immigrants in Springfield arrived under the Immigration Parole Program and were allowed to apply for temporary protected status, an authorization that gives them the ability to work legally in the United States. To receive such status, immigrants must maintain a clean crime record.<\/p>\n
In a statement Monday to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for Vance said the senator received a \u201chigh volume of calls and emails over the past several weeks from concerned citizens in Springfield,\u201d which prompted his tweet attacking Harris and citing the unverified reports about immigrants.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany residents have contacted Senator Vance to share their concerns over crime and traffic accidents, and to express that they no longer feel safe in their own homes,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cJD takes his constituents\u2019 concerns seriously,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n
The baseless notion that immigrants are hurting animals in Springfield appears to come from a viral Facebook post first shared in a Springfield Facebook group in which a user claimed that their neighbor\u2019s daughter\u2019s friend had found her lost cat hanging from a branch at a home where a Haitian neighbor lives.<\/p>\n
The user then claimed, without evidence, that \u201cRangers & police\u201d had told them that Haitian neighbors had also been hanging ducks and geese for butchering. Per the Springfield News-Sun, Springfield Police said Monday that they are aware of the social media posts but that there was no evidence of such claims and that the issue is \u201cnot something that\u2019s on our radar right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the police statement did not stop Republicans from amplifying Vance and the Trump campaign\u2019s messaging against Harris and immigrants. The Trump campaign, in its news release, cited a Daily Mail story covering the Facebook user\u2019s baseless claims. And in a post shared on X the Trump War Room said Trump, if elected, \u201cwill deport migrants who eat pets. Kamala Harris will send them to your town next. Make your choice, America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz on X shared an image of two cats hugging each other with overlaid text reading: \u201cPlease vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don\u2019t eat us.\u201d Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Tex.) shared a video on X that contained AI-generated footage of Trump kissing a duck and knitting next to a cat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot allow our pets to become a hot lunch for Kamala\u2019s newcomers,\u201d Hunt said in his post. \u201cThis November, you can do your part. Protect the Animals. Vote Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former president Donald Trump on Tuesday doubled down on a false and dehumanizing claim \u2014 pushed by his running mate and some Republicans \u2014 that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, who came into the country during the Biden-Harris administration are injuring and eating Americans\u2019 pets. \u201cIn Springfield, they\u2019re eating the dogs. The people that came in, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}