A bomb threat in Springfield, Ohio, came after Trump repeated baseless rumor about immigrants ‘eating pets’

Joe Biden on Friday said the hostile attacks on Haitian immigrants in the US “[have] to stop” after Donald Trump repeated a false and derogatory claim about a Haitian community in Ohio.

“It is simply wrong that the proud Haitian community is under attack right now in this country,” Biden said. “There’s no place in America. This has to stop – what he’s doing. It has to stop,” the US president said at a White House event marking Black excellence.

The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, earlier on Friday said that the bomb threat made on Thursday that forced the evacuation of the city hall, two schools and other buildings was explicitly anti-immigrant and hostile to the city’s Haitian community, following Donald Trump’s stoking of a rightwing conspiracy theory that some residents’ pets are being eaten.

Rob Rue, the mayor, accused national Republicans who are amplifying wild rumors from a far-right provocateur that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are hunting and eating other people’s pets of “hurting our city”.

  • spaghetti_hitchens
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    322 months ago

    I actually think this is a dry run for Trump to see if he can “innocently” incite violence. If things don’t go his way in November, the call will be much more direct.

    • Coelacanth
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      142 months ago

      I think you’re giving Trump too much credit. This comment sums it up succinctly, but I sincerely believe Trump is not capable of thinking about the future. He only brought up the cats and dogs because he thought it was his best anti-immigrant fear-mongering line available at the time.

    • @WhiskyTangoFoxtrot
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      42 months ago

      If Trump loses in November then he’ll be in jail by the end of the month. That’s why his sentencing was delayed; so that Merchan won’t have to worry about the political consequences of jailing a Presidential candidate.

    • masterofn001
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      -62 months ago

      The only way to stop it is to put all white people in internment camps, I guess.