‘We will take on the impact’ of cats eating food so that immigration remains in the news

DONALD TRUMP’S campaign is not upset about being widely condemned for spreading the urban legend of Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.

If the national media talks about immigration, they reason, they are winning.

The mastermind behind the cynical and xenophobic strategy, Trump’s running mate JD Vance, acknowledged in interviews on Sunday’s show that he used the unfounded rumors about pet consumption to force a conversation about the downsides of Vice President Kamala Harris’ immigration policies.

“If I have to create stories to get the American media to actually pay attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance told CNN’s Dana Bash. State of the Union“Because you are letting Kamala Harris run completely wild.”

When Bash pointed out that Vance had admitted to “making up the story,” the Ohio Republican insisted he based his remarks on “firsthand accounts from my constituents.” But he then betrayed the true purpose of his comments: He wanted the media to focus on immigration.

“It was not me who created the arrival of 20,000 illegal immigrants to Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’ policies. It was her policies that did it,” he said, omitting the fact that the Haitians are there legally. “But yes, we created the real spotlight that allowed the American media to talk about the history and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris’ policies.”

The exchange between Vance and Bash, repeated in a less tense manner in interviews with NBC Meet the Press and CBS Confronting the nationunderscored the balancing act Vance is performing as Trump’s boss. substituteThe senator, like the former president, has done everything possible to keep the issue of immigration at the center of the campaign conversation. engaged Reporters and influencers have criticized the issue on X, though he has retracted his initial insistence that there were “reports” of Haitians eating domestic pets in Springfield. The 20,000 figure he has repeated seems exaggerated (the governor has cited 15,000 and the reality could be considerably lower than). Bash suggested that Trump and Vance’s rhetoric incited bomb threats and violence, but Vance called the insinuation “disgusting” and refused to tone down his approach. Delighting Conservatives on social media.

And now there is talk within the campaign about Trump’s visit to Springfield (in early 2023, Vance convinced the former president to Visit Eastern PalestineOhio, after a train derailment there).

Privately, Trump’s advisers believe that this is a clear advantage: The more there is talk about immigrants, the less there is talk about more difficult issues for them.

“We talk about abortion and we lose. We talk about immigration and we win,” said one Trump adviser.

But what about spreading an incendiary story for which there is no evidence?

“We will accept the blow to prove the most important point,” the adviser said.

A new national ABC/Ipsos survey The report released Sunday shows immigration is the most important issue for Trump, giving him a 10 percentage point lead. But immigration is overall the sixth most important issue for voters. The economy and inflation are the top two, with Trump leading Harris on both metrics by 7 percentage points. Her top issue is abortion, on which she has a 14-point lead over Trump.

Trump has fought The Republican senator from Florida has struggled to find solid footing on abortion, taking weeks to come to a stated position on a Florida initiative that would enshrine the right to the procedure in the state constitution (he opposes the measure). While immigration has been friendlier territory, he has also struggled at times to push the campaign’s preferred message on that front.

At Tuesday’s debate, Trump dropped a reference to the pet-eating slur by Haitians without sticking to previous plans to do so, emphasizing the context of mass migration in Springfield. The result was an exchange with ABC debate moderator David Muir, who interjected that the city manager said there were no “credible reports” of pet consumption.

Still, the Trump operation believes immigration is a particularly potent issue for white, working-class men in the Rust Belt, whom Vance was referring to. Chosen by Trump to help attract the nominationIn past campaigns, Trump turned off some Hispanic voters — a crucial voting bloc — with the way he talked about immigration, but there is relatively little risk of that happening by disparaging Haitians. Haitian-American leaders have called Trump and Vance’s attacks racist and xenophobic. Bash, during the CNN interview, noted that the immigrants were legally in the United States because they received Temporary Protected Status, an immigration designation that allows them to live and work in the country.

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The question facing the Trump campaign, though, is whether the pet-eating story will focus on immigration or on the Republican ticket, which will stoke fear with exaggerations and fabrications. Trump already has low credibility ratings, and Harris leads him by 17 points in terms of who is perceived as more honest and trustworthy, according to the ABC poll. Campaign aides have conceded that if the race becomes a referendum on personality, Harris could have the edge.

Even immigration hardliners like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) expressed reservations about all the cat-and-dog talk. On Sunday morning, she amplified A message from her boyfriend, conservative TV host Brian Glenn, who warned: “Don’t get distracted by ‘cats, dogs and geese’ right now. The real consequences of a broken border are the inevitable terrorist attack that will occur on American soil. Meanwhile, the ‘animal angle’ dominates mainstream media talking points.”

Since Tuesday’s debate, Springfield has faced bomb threats and reports of terrified immigrants. No one has verified a story about dogs or cats eating, and the Springfield woman who initially spread the rumor on social media He retracted and apologized.

On Sunday, Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, called the story “Internet garbage.” DeWine told ABC’s program: This week “The Haitians who have moved to Springfield came to work legally and are considered by businesses to be “very good workers. They are very happy to have them there and, frankly, it has helped the economy. Now, are there problems involved? Absolutely. When you go from a population of 58,000 people to 15,000, you are going to have some challenges and some problems. And we are addressing them.”

But Vance believes the full cost of that scale of migration is both a powerful political issue and one that has not been adequately addressed by the press. While he has repeatedly spoken out about rising housing costs and the spread of contagious diseases, he has also maintained that the pet-eater story is not “baseless.” He has cited calls from constituents and at least one instance in which someone called 911 in Springfield to report that four migrants had apparently taken geese from a local park pond. This weekend, Vance Outstanding an X-rated post by conservative activist Chris Rufo, in which a man from nearby Dayton, Ohio, allegedly filmed immigrants from Africa roasting cats.

Dayton is not Springfield. Haiti is not in Africa. And it was not clear from the footage whether cats were being roasted (they could have been). Chickens).

Fair or not, Vance said he will take locals’ concerns into account.

“My approach is to listen to my constituents,” Vance said on CNN. “Sometimes they say things that people don’t like, but they say things that people don’t like because their city has been overwhelmed and my job is to try to fight for them and protect them. Kamala Harris opened the border and now these people are suffering. That’s what I’m focused on.”