At first glance, new billboards in Arizona look like Chick-fil-A\u2019s iconic \u201cEat Mor Chikin\u201d promos. But instead of cows, the billboards erected Tuesday feature four cats dressed in cow costumes.<\/p>\n
\u201cEAT LESS KITTENS,\u201d the billboards say. \u201cVote Republican!\u201d<\/p>\n
Arizona\u2019s Republican Party announced Tuesday that it had designed about a dozen of the billboards in the Phoenix area in response to false claims shared by some top Republicans that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating Americans\u2019 pets. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who plans to visit Arizona on Thursday, amplified those claims at an ABC News debate on Tuesday, despite police telling local news outlets that there was no evidence of anyone eating pets.<\/p>\n
In a news release, the Arizona GOP said the billboards are \u201ca humorous, but sobering reminder of the stakes involved in the fight for secure borders and safe communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur newest billboard highlights just how horrific things have become under the failed policies of \u2018Border Czar\u2019 Kamala Harris,\u201d Arizona GOP Chair Gina Swoboda said in a statement, referring to the vice president and Democratic presidential nominee\u2019s role in the Biden administration working with three Central American countries to reduce unauthorized migration. \u201cTrump is committed to securing our borders and ensuring that what we\u2019ve seen elsewhere does not become the norm in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rumors of immigrants hurting animals in Springfield, a city about 40 miles west of Columbus, appear to have started from a post first shared in a city Facebook group. A user claimed a friend of their neighbor\u2019s daughter had found her lost cat hanging from a branch at a home where a Haitian lives.<\/p>\n
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Trump\u2019s running mate, shared a post on X on Monday in which he cited unnamed \u201creports\u201d claiming that people in Springfield \u201chave had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn\u2019t be in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday called Vance\u2019s claim \u201cdangerous\u201d misinformation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be people that believe it, no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is,\u201d Kirby said at a news briefing.<\/p>\n
At Tuesday\u2019s debate, Trump said immigrants in Springfield are \u201ceating the dogs,\u201d \u201ceating the cats\u201d and \u201ceating the pets of the people that live there.\u201d With her microphone turned off, Vice President Kamala Harris laughed and said: \u201cWhat? This is unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
When moderator David Muir said Springfield\u2019s city manager had stated that there were no credible reports of immigrants eating pets, Trump doubled down on his statement.<\/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
Haitian immigrants are a growing population in Springfield, where they generally live and work legally, according to an FAQ on the city\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
But the top Republicans\u2019 claims had already inspired the Arizona GOP\u2019s billboard campaign, which the party used to make broader statements against illegal immigration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to sit idly by while our communities are overrun by tens of thousands of \u2018newcomers\u2019 imported by Kamala Harris who have no interest in assimilating into our culture and have no regard for the laws of the United States,\u201d Swoboda said in a statement.<\/p>\n
A Chick-fil-A spokesman told The Washington Post that the restaurant chain wasn\u2019t aware of the Arizona GOP\u2019s billboards before Tuesday. He declined to comment on the design.<\/p>\n
Yolanda Bejarano, chair of Arizona\u2019s Democratic Party, accused the state\u2019s GOP of committing \u201cracist stunts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe AZGOP\u2019s weird AI-looking billboard is xenophobic and entirely unserious,\u201d Bejarano said in a statement to The Post. \u201cWhile the AZGOP focuses on online dog whistles, we are talking to voters about the issues they care about most.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robert Graham, who served as the Arizona GOP\u2019s chair in the mid-2010s, said creating billboards based on rumors \u2014 and not directly addressing issues important to voters \u2014 was a \u201cwaste of money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAmericans right now are faced with making a decision: Who they want to elect into office, and especially the presidential office,\u201d Graham told The Post. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to have to filter through cutesy [messages] because they don\u2019t have time for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Arizona GOP did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday but wrote on Facebook: \u201cThe media and Democrats are more concerned with billboards than with the deadly reality of the border crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
The party was muddled in controversy at the start of this year after a leaked recording revealed that chairman Jeff DeWit dissuaded Kari Lake from running for the state\u2019s Senate seat in 2024, prompting DeWit\u2019s resignation. The Arizona GOP has seen significant election losses in recent years; neither of the state\u2019s two senators are Republican, nor are Arizona\u2019s governor, secretary of state or attorney general.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
At first glance, new billboards in Arizona look like Chick-fil-A\u2019s iconic \u201cEat Mor Chikin\u201d promos. But instead of cows, the billboards erected Tuesday feature four cats dressed in cow costumes. \u201cEAT LESS KITTENS,\u201d the billboards say. \u201cVote Republican!\u201d Arizona\u2019s Republican Party announced Tuesday that it had designed about a dozen of the billboards in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9424,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9423","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\/9423","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=9423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}