Trump defends lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets claiming he was just ‘saying what was reported’

Donald Trump has refused to admit he falsely accused Haitian immigrants of eating peoples’ pets as he doubled down on his statements during a Univision town hall Wednesday with undecided Latino voters.

The former president was asked by a Spanish-speaking audience member whether he actually believed what he said about migrants in Springfield, Ohio. Trump responded by saying that he was “just saying what was reported.”

“This was just reported. I was just saying what was reported, that’s been reported, and eating other things, too, that they’re not supposed to be,” Trump responded.

“But this is... all I do is report. I have not... I was there, I’m going to be there, and we’re going to take a look, and I’ll give you a full report when I do, but that’s been in the newspapers and reported pretty broadly,” he added.

During his first and only debate with Kamala Harris last month, Trump amplified a racist rumor that Springfield immigrants are abducting neighbors’ pets and eating them, adding to his stock of false and inflated statements and anti-immigrant rhetoric that has dominated his campaigns.

“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said at the time.

Pressed by debate moderators, he said he saw people on television who claimed that “their dog was eaten by the people that went there.”

Law enforcement and city officials in Springfield have firmly rejected the claims, which have appeared to fuel death threats as well as hoax bomb threats that temporarily closed schools and city buildings and forced hospitals into lockdown.

The source of the claim appears to be a Facebook post amplified by right-wing and conspiracy theory-driven social media accounts. Posts from Elon Musk and Trump’s running mate JD Vance were viewed millions of times.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican who supports Trump, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times defending Springfield’s immigrants, who are living there legally, and giving the city an economic boost amid a population decline and a depressed business outlook as the city’s labor force dried up, he said.

“As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield,” DeWine wrote. “This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there.”

Trump also falsely claimed that Springfield is a city of “52,000 people, and they’ve added almost 30,000 migrants into the city.”

Roughly 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants live in the county that houses Springfield, and 10,000 to 12,000 are from Haiti. Most are legally authorized to live and work in the US, according to state and local officials. Volatile periods of political and humanitarian crises and violence in Haiti have fueled immigration from the country.

The 2020 Census reported Springfield’s population at roughly 60,000 people, and a 2022 American Community Survey report estimated that approximately 2 percent of the city’s population was born outside the US.