At a town hall on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump doubled down on the assertion that immigrants are eating pets in Ohio — even though the claims have been widely debunked.
At a town hall hosted by Spanish-language TV Univision, a Mexican-born Latino Republican voter from Arizona, a battleground state, asked Trump in Spanish if he really believes immigrants eat pets.
“I was just saying what was reported…and I’m addressing other things as well that aren’t supposed to be. All I do is report,” Trump replied during the event in Miami, sharing no sources other than the claim that it was reported on. Newspapers.
“I’ve been there, I’ll be there and we’ll take a look.”
In recent weeks, the former president amplified the false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing residents’ pets and seizing wildlife from local parks to kill and eat them as food.
And in September, when he faced Vice President Kamala Harris in a presidential debate, he first promoted this narrative, claiming without evidence: “In Springfield, they’re eating dogs. The people who come in, they’re eating cats.” They’re eating — they’re eating animals. People who live there,” he said at the time, and his remarks immediately went viral and led to bomb threats against the city.
Trump, under pressure from the moderator, said he saw people on television saying that “their dog was eaten by the people who went there.”
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Local officials and statewide leaders in Ohio, including Republicans, have made clear on numerous occasions that there is no credibility to such claims.
Trump, who has not yet traveled to Springfield, had previously said he would do so Conduct mass deportations Of Haitian immigrants from Ohio City, although the vast majority are in the United States legally.
But on Wednesday, he dodged and dismissed questions about his plans for immigrants.
When an undecided voter asked who would pick America’s fruits if Trump carried out his plan to fire the undocumented workers currently doing the job en masse, he avoided the question.
Instead, he accused new immigrants to the country of stealing jobs from Hispanics and African Americans, and described migrants crossing the US border with Mexico as “hundreds of thousands of murderers, drug traffickers and terrorists.”
“Wonderful people should come to our country,” he said. “I want them more than you do.”
Trump has previously said that Haitian immigrants, although in the United States legally under temporary protected status, are “illegals to me,” saying he would revoke their status and deport them if he wins another term in November.
Trump is trying to make inroads with America’s Latino population, and polls show he is gaining ground in the diverse voting bloc, many of whom live in crucial swing states like Arizona and Nevada. However, polls show Harris still has an advantage with Latino voters, who have traditionally supported Democrats in the past.
Harris led Trump by eight percentage points – 47 percent to 39 percent – among Hispanic voters. Reuters/Ipsos poll Conducted from September 11 to October 7. Harris held her Latino town hall last week in Nevada, a battleground state with a large Hispanic population.
Now, the Trump campaign is hoping to win more Latino votes, especially men, against the backdrop of economic discontent.
Trump has previously used derogatory terms to describe immigrants in the United States illegally, calling them “animals” when talking about alleged criminal acts, and saying they “poison the blood of our country,” a phrase that has drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing Nazism. Rhetoric.
Another town hall participant, a Florida-based Republican, said he wanted to give Trump a chance to “reclaim his voice” given his concerns about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and former Trump administration officials turning against the former president.
Thousands of Trump supporters rushed to the Capitol in Washington, D.C. that day in an attempt to stop the official certification of his election defeat, causing millions of dollars in damage. Four people died on the day of the attack, and one Capitol Police officer who fought rioters died the next day.
Trump gave a lengthy response in which he described January 6 as “Love’s Day” and said that former administration officials who turned against him were angry about their firing.
“I hope one day we get your vote,” Trump said as he concluded his speech. “Looks like I probably won’t, but that’s okay too.”
— With files from Reuters
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