Biden Denounces Trump for Attacking Haitian Immigrants With False Pet-Eating Stories
Joe Biden lashed out at Donald Trump, though not by name, on Friday, for giving voice to the false rumor that dogs and cats are being eaten by Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
“I want to, today, take a moment to say something like—so many Americans, like Karine, as you pointed out, a proud Haitian American—a community that’s under attack in our country right now. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place in America,” Biden said during an event at the White House celebrating Black excellence. “This has to stop, what he’s doing. It has to stop!” The president’s comments came shortly after remarks by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who referenced being Haitian American. Speaking as “the first Black, openly queer White House press secretary and, I’ve got to add, a proud Haitian American,” Jean-Pierre said of Biden: “I can tell you that representation matters to him. Our voices matter to him. Our perspectives matter to him and our success and our community matters to him.”
Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have been promoting a debunked claim that Haitian American immigrants in Ohio have abducted and eaten people’s pets. During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Trump declared: “A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating—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.”
Earlier in the week, Vance spread the claim on X, writing, “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” In an interview following the debate, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed the Ohio senator about the false claims, asking him, “why push something that’s not true?” Vance doubled down, responding, “First of all, city officials have not said it’s not true, they’ve said they don’t have all the evidence.… We’ve heard from a number of constituents on the ground, Kaitlan, who—both firsthand and secondhand reports—saying this stuff is happening, so they very clearly…think that it is happening. And I think that it’s important for journalists to actually get on the ground and uncover this for themselves when you have a lot of people saying, ‘my pets are being abducted’ or ‘geese at the city pond are being abducted and slaughtered right in front of us.’”
As The Washington Post notes, “Members of the Haitian community in Springfield were granted temporary protected status in the United States after fleeing profound unrest and violence in their home country.” Since Trump, Vance, and others have spread the pets story, the rhetoric has escalated, and numerous buildings in Springfield—including its City Hall and an elementary school—were evacuated Thursday due to a bomb threat that included “hateful language” about the city’s immigrant population.
California is so awful that he…owns property there
The wheels are absolutely not falling off the operation
Elsewhere!
Harris campaign turns to former Obama advisers to help in White House bid
The Washington Post • Read More
The Battlegrounds Where Harris-vs.-Trump Polling Error Is Likeliest
New York • Read More
Florida school district must return LGBTQ books to libraries after settlement
NBC News • Read More
Trump Says He Won’t Sell Shares Tied to Truth Social
NYT • Read More
Harris Visits Red Areas of Pennsylvania, Hoping to Cut Into Trump’s Edge
NYT • Read More
Martha Stewart Just Quietly Made a Rare Presidential Endorsement
Daily Beast • Read More
Too much? Many Americans feel the need to limit their political news, AP-NORC/USAFacts poll finds
AP • Read More
Ig Nobel Prize winners include research into butt breathing, coin flips
UPI • Read More
-
Disaster? What Disaster? In Trumpworld the Debate Was a Win
-
The Richest Man in Germany Is Worth $44 Billion. The Source of His Family Fortune? The Nazis Know.
-
Inside the Hive Breaks Down the Presidential Debate, the GOP’s Extreme Policies, and More
