Trump pushes baseless declare about immigrants 'consuming the pets'

Former President Donald Trump, throughout Tuesday’s presidential debate, pushed the baseless declare about Haitian immigrants in Ohio consuming canine and different pets.

“They’re consuming the canine, the folks that got here in, they’re consuming the cats,” Trump mentioned throughout a solution to a query about immigration. “They’re consuming the pets of the folks that dwell there, and that is what’s occurring in our nation, and it is a disgrace.”

Trump’s reply was among the many most extraordinary of the primary half-hour of the talk: a former U.S. president spreading an web rumor — one labeled by a few of his critics as racist — in entrance of an viewers of tens of millions of Individuals. The remark illustrated the speedy unfold of misinformation in right now’s media ecosystem.

David Muir, the ABC Information anchor co-moderating the talk, instantly fact-checked Trump’s claims, saying that the town supervisor in Springfield, Ohio, informed the community there had been no credible reports of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the metropolis’s immigrant neighborhood.

Baseless rumors have spread on social media for days claiming that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and consuming pets. A lot of the rumors contain Springfield, which has numerous Haitian immigrants, however police there launched an announcement Monday flattening the tales and saying they hadn’t seen any documented examples. 

“There have been no credible experiences or particular claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by people inside the immigrant neighborhood,” the police mentioned in an announcement. 

Republicans together with Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, have pointed to the claims as proof that immigrants are inflicting chaos. Vance, although, hedged in a statement on X earlier Tuesday, saying, “It’s attainable, after all, that each one of those rumors will grow to be false.” 

The claims about pets have been based mostly partially on imprecise social media posts, together with one fourth-hand story posted in a Fb group dedicated to native crime, in addition to statements at public meetings, the place residents spoke about violence towards animals with out offering proof.

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue repeated Tuesday that the town had no documented circumstances of immigrants consuming pets. 

“Rumors like these are taking away from the true points akin to housing issues, assets wanted for our colleges and our overwhelmed well being care system,” he mentioned at a gathering of the town fee. 

Rue mentioned that one alleged case of somebody attacking a cat — falsely attributed to a Haitian immigrant in Springfield — truly occurred 160 miles away in Canton, Ohio. And the defendant there charged with animal cruelty has no recognized connection to Haiti, based on The Canton Repository newspaper. 

The subject of immigration took middle stage at Tuesday’s metropolis fee assembly in Springfield. On the assembly, resident Nathan Clark, whose 11-year-old son was killed final yr when a minivan pushed by a Haitian immigrant struck his faculty bus, denounced Republican politicians who he mentioned have been utilizing his deceased son Aiden as “a political device” to gasoline anti-immigrant hatred.

Immigration is a potent subject within the presidential face. In an NBC Information ballot in April, 22% of voters put immigration and the border as an important difficulty going through the nation, second solely to inflation and the price of residing at 23%. 

John Kirby, the White Home’s nationwide safety spokesperson, denounced the claims about Haitians in Ohio as a harmful conspiracy principle that might encourage anti-immigrant violence. 

“There will likely be folks that imagine it regardless of how ludicrous and silly it’s, they usually may act on that form of info and act on it in a manner the place anyone may get damage,” Kirby informed reporters Tuesday.