Kamala Harris hit Donald Trump where it hurt early in the debate.
“I’m actually going to do something unusual. I’m going to invite you all to Donald Trump’s rallies,” Harris began. “People will start leaving his rallies early out of boredom and fatigue.”
David Muir, one of ABC’s two debate moderators, asked Trump about immigration, a favorite topic of his, but when Harris made a sarcastic remark about the size of Trump’s rallies, the former president couldn’t help but take the bait. First, Trump claimed, without evidence, that Harris paid people to attend his rallies. Clearly agitated, Trump launched into a rambling tirade about immigrants eating people’s pets, among other things.
“In Springfield, they’re eating dogs, and people who come in there are eating cats,” Trump said, “and they’re eating the pets of the people who live there.”
Trump’s claims that immigrants are killing and eating Americans’ pets appear to have been sparked by a viral video of a Springfield, Ohio, resident claiming at a town hall meeting that immigrants were killing ducks in a local park for food. The unfounded and inflammatory video was widely shared by right-wing accounts and quickly became a meme featuring an AI-generated image of Trump surrounded by cats and dogs, seemingly guarding them.
Notables in Trump circles quickly jumped on the meme. Vice presidential candidate JD Vance, who had previously spoken out about the influx of Haitians into Ohio, posted on X: “Reports now say pets have been kidnapped and eaten by people who should not be in this country. Where are the border agents?”
Later, in an email to supporters, the Trump campaign promised “the largest mass deportation operation in American history.”
The false claim spread quickly this week as Republicans sought to downplay racist attacks against immigrants. The Arizona Republican Party announced Tuesday that it had installed 12 billboards in the Phoenix area that mimic a Chick-fil-A ad featuring an image of a cat in a cow costume and the words, “Eat Less Kitten and Vote Republican!”
When Trump brought up the topic again during the debate, Muir was quick to fact-check it.
“The story came out of Springfield, Ohio, and ABC News reached out to the mayor there,” Muir said. “He told us there had been no credible reports of specific allegations that pets had been harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
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