‘They’re Eating the Dogs!’ Trump Touts Pet-Eating Hoax at Debate.
If you’ve followed Donald Trump’s recent antics, you know the chances of us getting out of his first debate with Kamala Harris without hearing about “the late great Hannibal Lecter” and the debunked story about migrants stealing people’s pets and eating them were pretty low. But the way these two topics came up was still something to behold.
Surprisingly, it was Harris who brought up the Silence of the Lambs villain. She referenced two classic unhinged Trump bits — Lecter and “windmills cause cancer” — while asserting that his MAGA rallies are all about self-indulgent rambling rather than proposing policies that will actually help people.
VP Kamala Harris:
— Chris Strider (@stridinstrider) September 11, 2024
"You will see during the course of Trump‘s rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about how windmills cause cancer. What you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion & boredom." pic.twitter.com/Tcmal1kedp
Her attack seemed to rattle Trump. A few minutes later, as he was ranting about crowd size, we got a fresh example of the bizarre exclamations you can see at a Trump rally. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs!” the former president shouted, referring to a city in Ohio.
Trump continued, “The people that come in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
Trump continues to double down on anti-immigrant fear-mongering with the egregious claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Illinois are eating cats and dogs. There are no credible reports of immigrants harming pets, according to local officials. #PresidentialDebate pic.twitter.com/zwC9qArPic
— Stop AAPI Hate (@StopAAPIHate) September 11, 2024
Many viewers likely have no idea what Trump was talking about. But the too-online among us will recognize this as the right’s hot new racist hoax. On Monday, Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, took to X to spread a debunked claim about Haitian immigrants to Springfield, Ohio, kidnapping residents’ cats (not dogs) and eating them, as NPR explains:
Vance, who represents Ohio in the U.S. Senate, spread a debunked claim about Haitian migrants living in the city of Springfield, Ohio, on Monday, accusing them of abducting pets and eating them.
The claim, which local police say is baseless, was made by far-right activists, local Republicans and neo-Nazis before being picked up by Vance. A well-known advocate for the Haitian community says she received a wave of racist harassment in the aftermath of Vance’s post.
Vance made the claim as part of a political attack against Vice President Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. On the social media site X, Vance wrote, “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”
Debate moderator David Muir clearly came prepared for Trump to bring up false pet-eating claims. “ABC News did reach out to the city manager” in Springfield, Muir said. “He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Undeterred, Trump insisted that he’s “seen people on television” who say “my dog was taken and used for food.”
During the presidential debate, Donald Trump revived the debunked claim, falsely alleging that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were "eating dogs and cats." His statement prompted David Muir to step in with a fact-check.
— Lunionsuite ???????? (@LunionSuite) September 11, 2024
Trump insisted, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,… pic.twitter.com/ml0u7WBLSG
When invited to respond, Harris just said, “Talk about extreme!” and chuckled.
Trump has actually mostly moved on from the “late great Hannibal Lecter” since praising the fictional cannibal during his RNC acceptance speech. At its core, that riff is about vilifying migrants in the cadence of a joke, so perhaps the ridiculous dog-eating bit is a natural addition to his routine.