XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   From: soetoro@excite.com   
      
   Donald Trump doubles down on debunked claim that immigrants are eating pets   
      
      
   By Michelle Butterfield   
   Posted October 17, 2024 12:25 pm   
      
   At a town hall on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump   
   doubled down on the assertion that immigrants are eating pets in Ohio —   
   despite those claims being widely debunked.   
      
   At a town hall hosted by Spanish-language TV Univision, an undecided   
   Mexican-born Latino Republican voter from Arizona, a battleground state,   
   asked Trump in Spanish whether he truly believed that immigrants were   
   eating pets.   
      
   “I was just saying what was reported… And eating other things too that   
   they’re not supposed to be. All I do is report,” Trump replied during the   
   event held in Miami, sharing no sources other than claiming it has been   
   reported in “newspapers.”   
      
   “I was there, I’m going to be there and we’re going to take a look.”   
      
   In recent weeks, the former president has amplified the false claim that   
   Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been stealing pets from   
   residents and capturing wildlife from local parks to kill and eat as food.   
      
   In September, when he squared off against Vice-President Kamala Harris for   
   the presidential debate, he first pushed the narrative, claiming without   
   evidence: “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,” he said at the time, his remarks instantly   
   going viral and leading to bomb threats being issued against the city.   
      
   Local officials and statewide leaders in Ohio, including Republicans, have   
   made it clear on numerous occasions that there is no credibility to such   
   claims.   
      
   Trump, who has not yet travelled to Springfield, has previously said he   
   would conduct mass deportations of Haitian immigrants from the Ohio city,   
   even though the vast majority of them are in the U.S. legally.   
      
   But, on Wednesday, he dodged and dismissed questions about his plans   
   concerning immigrants.   
      
   When one undecided voter asked who would do the job of harvesting America’s   
   fruit if Trump followed through with his plan to oust, en masse, the   
   undocumented workers who currently do the job, he sidestepped the question.   
      
   Instead, he accused newer immigrants to the country of stealing jobs from   
   Hispanic and African Americans and described migrants across the U.S.   
   border with Mexico as “hundreds of thousands of people that are murderers,   
   drug dealers and terrorists.”   
      
   “We have to have people that are great people come into our country,” he   
   said. “I want them in even more than you do.”   
      
   Trump has previously said that the Haitian migrants, despite being in the   
   U.S. legally under Temporary Protected Status, are “illegal immigrants as   
   far as I’m concerned,” saying he would revoke their status and deport them   
   if he wins another term in November.   
      
   Trump has previously used dehumanizing terminology to describe immigrants   
   in the U.S. illegally, calling them “animals” when talking about alleged   
   criminal acts, and saying they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” a   
   phrase that has drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing Nazi rhetoric.   
      
   Another town hall participant, a Florida-based Republican, said he wanted   
   to give Trump a chance to “win back his vote” given his concerns over the   
   Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and former Trump administration officials   
   turning against the former president.   
      
   Thousands of Trump supporters rushed the Capitol in Washington, D.C., that   
   day in a bid to stop formal 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 against the rioters died the next   
   day.   
      
   Trump gave a lengthy response in which he described Jan. 6 as a “day of   
   love” and said former administration officials who had turned against him   
   were angry about having been fired.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)