A day after former President Donald J. Trump, in a debate watched by millions, doubled down on his campaign’s debunked position that immigrants are eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio, a local official on Wednesday pushed back on the outlandish claim.
Bryan Heck, the city manager in Springfield, said in a taped statement that it was “disappointing” that the narrative about the city had been “skewed by misinformation circulating on social media and further amplified by political rhetoric in the current, highly charged presidential election cycle.”
Officials with the City of Springfield, which has had an influx of Haitian immigrants in recent years, have said that there are no credible reports of immigrants’ harming pets. Mr. Heck said the new residents have brought challenges but also benefits — helping local businesses and the city’s broader economy, and spurring housing development not seen in the city in decades. The new arrivals have also put pressure on the community’s schools and hospitals.
But on the debate stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, Mr. Trump spoke of immigrants in Springfield “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats” — claims rooted in viral social media posts.
“They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said.
The bizarre assertion has put a global spotlight on Springfield, a blue-collar city of some 60,000 people between Dayton and Columbus.
Even Germany’s Foreign Office on Wednesday, while pushing back on a claim that Mr. Trump had made about the country giving up on ambitious renewable energy efforts, mocked the pet-eating remarks.
“Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50% renewables. And we are shutting down — not building — coal & nuclear plants,” the office wrote in a statement on social media. It ended with: “PS: We also don’t eat cats and dogs.”
While Mr. Trump’s comments drew local frustration and global derision, his supporters leaned in. Various memes and images circulated on social media, some apparently created through artificial intelligence, presenting him as the candidate of house pets. Some depicted cats wearing MAGA hats.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Trump campaign supported the former president’s focus on Springfield but stopped short of explicitly defending the idea that immigrants had eaten cats and dogs.
“We hope the media will continue to cover the stories of the very real suffering and tragedies experienced by the people of Springfield, Ohio, which have been largely ignored by the liberal mainstream media until now,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said in the statement.
The mayor of Springfield, Rob Rue, did not respond to a request for an interview, and Mr. Heck did not respond to calls.
Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate, has in recent months championed the complaints of Springfield residents about the ballooning immigrant population. Those concerns bubbled over after an immigrant’s minivan crashed into a school bus a year ago, killing Aiden Clark, an 11-year-old boy.
The Trump campaign highlighted Aiden’s death on Monday, posting images on social media showing him and Hermanio Joseph, the Haitian immigrant who struck the bus.
Just before the debate, the boy’s father, Nathan Clark, spoke out against Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance at a Springfield City Commission meeting, calling the politicians “morally bankrupt.”
“They have spoken my son’s name,” Mr. Clark said, “and used his death for political gain.”
The false claims by the Trump campaign have tapped into racist stereotypes directed at immigrants. (Mr. Trump, who was once said to have used a disparaging epithet to describe Haiti, did not single out Haitian immigrants on the debate stage.)
Vice President Kamala Harris, whose microphone was muted as Mr. Trump made the claim about Springfield on the debate stage, appeared to mouth, “Oh, come on — this is unbelievable.”
“Talk about extreme,” she said when it was her turn to speak.
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