Politics
Trump and Vance still stoking fears of Haitians, as Ohio community faces bomb threats…
Donald Trump and his running mate on Friday continued to disparage Haitian migrants in an Ohio community, further fueling false claims the Republicans have promoted even as the city saw bomb threats and school evacuations and local officials called for a cooling of the anti-immigrant rhetoric. “We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio,” Trump
Donald Trump and his running mate on Friday continued to disparage Haitian migrants in an Ohio community, further fueling false claims the Republicans have promoted even as the city saw bomb threats and school evacuations and local officials called for a cooling of the anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio,” Trump said Friday during a news conference in California, adding that he could possibly hold a campaign event or town hall in the city and claiming the migrants are “destroying the way of life.”
Ohio authorities have said there are no credible or detailed reports to support the debunked allegations circulated this week by both Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, that Haitian immigrants are eating domestic pets and birds in the city’s public parks. Trump mentioned the claims during a debate Tuesday with his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, prompting her to laugh and call the GOP presidential nominee “extreme.”
After city agencies were targeted in a bomb threat, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue on Thursday called on politicians to tamp down the rhetoric.
“All these federal politicians that have negatively spun our city, they need to know they’re hurting our city, and it was their words that did it,” Rue said in an interview with WSYX.
A city spokesperson said an emailed threat claimed that bombs had been planted in the homes of Springfield’s mayor and other city officials. A second email claimed that bombs had been placed at locations including Springfield City Hall, a high school, a middle school, two elementary schools and the local office of the state motor vehicles bureau.
The buildings were evacuated, and authorities with explosive-detection dogs swept and cleared them, officials said.
On Friday, President Joe Biden said the Haitian community is “under attack” right now, and called for an end to Republicans’ comments.
“It’s simply wrong. There’s no place in America,” Biden said while speaking at a White House luncheon. “This has to stop, what he’s doing. It has to stop.”
Trump suggested Friday that local officials aren’t being truthful about the problem because of its severity. While he stated the “real threat” of immigration is happening at the Southern border, he said, “The people of Ohio are scared.”
In a post on X on Friday Vance stated, without evidence, that Springfield has experienced “a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime.”
“Don’t let biased media shame you into not discussing this slow-moving humanitarian crisis in a small Ohio town,” he said.
Vance repeated those claims in another X post later Friday, though he added: “Nothing justifies violence or the threat of violence levied against Springfield or its residents. We condemn both.”
Trump and his supporters have used the furor over migrants in the Ohio community to draw further attention to Trump’s signature campaign issue of immigration reform and blame Harris for an influx of migrants into the U.S. It’s a theme that Trump has used throughout his bids for public office.
The situation surrounding Springfield, a city of roughly 60,000 located west of Columbus, started with an online post that was fueled by right-wing actors on social media. Vance amplified the posts from his own X account.
“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” Vance posted Monday on X.
“Where is our border czar?” Vance asked, referring to a label that some used to reference Harris, whom Biden tapped to deal with some issues related to immigration in 2021.
In a later post, Vance said his office “has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who’ve said their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants,” adding, “It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”
Springfield has seen its Haitian population grow in recent years. It’s impossible to give an exact number, according to the citybut it estimates that Springfield’s entire county has an overall immigrant population of 15,000.
The city also says that Haitian immigrants are in the country legally under a federal program that allows them to remain in the country temporarily. Last month the Biden administration granted eligibility for temporary legal status to about 300,000 Haitians already in the United States because conditions in Haiti are considered unsafe for them to return. Haiti’s government has extended a state of emergency to the entire country due to endemic gang violence.
Following Vance’s initial post, the internet subsequently exploded with AI-generated imagery of Trump appearing to rescue dogs, cats and birds from harm, with Trump posting several of the memes to his own Truth Social account.
Trump repeated the claim during Tuesday’s debate.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said Tuesday. “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.”
Debate moderators pointed out that city officials have said the claims are not true.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine — whose family operates a charity in Haiti in honor of their late daughter, Becky, who died in a car accident — said this week he would add more law enforcement and health care resources to an aid package the state has already provided to Springfield. DeWine said the Haitians who have moved to Ohio are generally hard-working people who love their families and who are seeking to escape the violence in their home country for good jobs in the state.
On Wednesday, DeWine said that he believed the Springfield mayor’s assessment that the claims were unfounded, telling CBS News that the internet “can be quite crazy sometimes.”
There have been other responses, including from the father of an 11-year-old Ohio boy killed last year when a Haitian immigrant driver hit a school bus. At a Springfield City Council hearing on Tuesday, Nathan Clark implored Trump and other politicians to stop invoking his son’s name in the immigration debate.
Democrats have addressed the situation, with the Democratic National Committee pushing out a fundraising email on Wednesday with the subject line, “Chaos, cats, and conspiracy.”
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Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania, Chris Megerian in Washington, Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
WASILLA, Alaska — Three weeks out from Election Day, President Donald Trump took a helicopter to a plane to another helicopter to a motorcade to an ice hockey rink in Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Valley, traversing nearly 4,000 miles over more than eight hours to turn out his base here to help Republicans defend the Senate.
But Trump’s trek might not be enough to save Sen. Dan Sullivan, who’s running in a tougher-than-expected race against Democrat Mary Peltola in a state where the president’s approval rating is underwater and independents outnumber both Republicans and Democrats.
Alaska strategists and voters who spoke to Blue Light News acknowledged that Sullivan faces a difficult path to reelection, despite Trump’s time investment and the outside money pouring in.
“Very conservative MAGA voters can’t vote for you harder,” said Scott Kendall, a veteran political strategist who worked on two of Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaigns and was chief of staff to former Alaska Gov. Bill Walker. “Donald Trump’s support in this current climate is both a blessing and a curse.”
Even some Trump supporters at the Tuesday night rally admitted the outlook appeared bleak.
“I think Alaska’s turning blue,” said Matt Niessink, a 45-year-old general contractor from Wasilla. He said he had voted for Trump three times and planned to support Republicans this year.
What did he wish the president would do differently? “I wish he’d shut his mouth sometimes and not be such a pompous ass,” Niessink said.
The president was in Wasilla — population 10,556 — because the outlook is darkening for his party in a state he carried by 13 points just two years ago. In a midterm year defined by the cost of gas and groceries, the Last Frontier has been hit particularly hard, with the average price of diesel nearing $7 per gallon. In the Senate race, Peltola is flush with cash and leads Sullivan in most polls. MAGA Inc., the cash-rich Trump-aligned super PAC, is increasingly focusing on Alaska as one in a slate of states that can help Republicans hold the Senate.
Enter Trump, who has been spending the cycle’s crucial final weeks holding rallies in red states to juice support among his base, which tends to see depressed turnout in years when he’s not on the ballot.
“That was a lot of flying,” the president said at the top of his remarks. “In fact, they were thinking about canceling. They said, ‘Sir, you’re very busy, this is very tough.’” But, Trump continued, he refused to cancel for a state he won three times.
Echoing his comments at other red-state rallies, Trump asked the roaring crowd for “one big favor” — to “pretend that I’m on the ballot, because every time I’ve been on the ballot, we win.” He repeated his promise that Americans will receive $5,000 dividends if Republicans hold both chambers.
“What this is about is getting out the vote,” Sullivan told reporters before Trump’s speech. “A rising tide of enthusiasm lifts all the candidates.”
Unlike some other Republican candidates in tight races, Sullivan has shied away from distancing himself from the least popular aspects of Trump’s presidency.
Sullivan proclaimed on stage at the rally that “the conflict in the Middle East is temporary. The true forever war is the national Democrats’ war against Alaska oil and gas and our jobs.” And although a campaign aide released a statement condemning Trump’s move to import Russian diesel, Sullivan did not join four of his Republican Senate colleagues, including Murkowski, who called on Trump to reverse the decision.
Art Hackney, a veteran Republican strategist in Alaska, said that “most of the people who support” Sullivan “think that he should” break more with the president.
Hackney, who runs a pro-Sullivan super PAC called “We Stand with Dan,” attributed that choice to loyalty — but suggested the president’s demand of fealty, and treatment of frequent dissenter Murkowski, could also be part of Sullivan’s calculus.
“A lot of his longtime supporters and the people who are in the industries that would benefit from that wish he would be more blunt,” Hackney said. “But with what Murkowski has done, if Dan did something considered a disrespectful trigger or something, what do you think would happen? It could well have implications for things that affect Alaska’s economy.”
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Some top congressional Republicans have privately concluded that it is likely impossible for them to keep control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and they are now focused on limiting the scale of the defeat and salvaging the party’s Senate majority.
Five senior Republican lawmakers, all granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s dire position, told Blue Light News the House had all but slipped away.
One senior House Republican said the GOP’s goal at this point was to “save as many Republican seats as we can.” The president, this person said, was not helping.
“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” the lawmaker said. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”
A second Republican member of Congress said the movement of campaign advertising made plain which side was in control of the midterms. This lawmaker predicted Democrats would pick up about 10 seats, more than enough to take control of the chamber.
Even in newly redistricted red states like Florida and Texas, this person said, Republican candidates were “hanging on with their fingernails.”
Republicans have already fallen back from several contested House districts that they feel are no longer winnable, including those held by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey. Trump carried their districts just two years ago. The party last week gave up on an Omaha-based district held by retiring Rep. Don Bacon.
Trump officials and other top GOP operatives say more candidates may be cut off in the coming days, in order to shift advertising money to races where it can make more of a difference. Republican groups have already given up on multiple races where they once hoped to unseat Democratic lawmakers.
The Republican Party is under extreme pressure across the Midwest, where it is now spending heavily to defend Senate seats in once-reliably MAGA states like Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.
Bacon, a maverick often at odds with the White House, said there was no mystery in his party’s political tribulations.
“I’ve talked to some who are making these decisions: The biggest problem is the president’s polling numbers and unfavorables,” Bacon said.
White House officials insist they’re not giving up on either chamber of Congress. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said Trump remained “committed to maintaining Republican majorities in both the House and Senate.”
As he departed on Tuesday to campaign in Alaska for embattled GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, Trump professed optimism about the midterms but acknowledged that sitting presidents typically see their party lose seats in the off year.
“But I’m doing a tour right now and I’m doing rallies,” Trump added. “The level of enthusiasm for the Republican Party is way up.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson went even further, flatly declaring during a campaign stop in deep-red Texas that “the polling is wrong” in showing his party on the brink of a broad defeat.
Yet at a tactical level, the Republican Party’s moves to shift money away from defending the House and toward saving the Senate are clear enough. In recent days, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top super PAC for House Republicans, canceled advertising for key House candidates in Nebraska and Iowa and allowed the Senate Leadership Fund – a Republican group focused on the upper chamber – to swoop in and claim the airtime to support Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts and Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for Senate in Iowa.
“These are not the moves of a party that’s going to keep the House,” a third Republican lawmaker said.
In statements to Blue Light News, both CLF and the National Republican Congressional Committee said they had no intention of giving up on the fight for control of the House.
NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said districts are won “one by one,” and that the GOP has “the financial firepower and ground game needed to win.”
Chris Winkelman, president of CLF, said his group would keep moving money around to maximize the impact nationally.
The goal, he said, was to “keep the pressure on the most vulnerable Democrats and preserve a path to 218 seats.”
Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who lost his swing seat in Trump’s first midterm election eight years ago, said his former colleagues were clear-eyed about where the election seemed to be headed.
“The environment is about as tough as one could expect,” Curbelo said. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House — not in recent weeks, anyway.”
Megan Messerly, Lauren Fedor, Lisa Kashinsky and Myah Ward contributed to this report.
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff said Tuesday he will not run for president in 2028 and committed to serving a full six-year Senate term if reelected.
“I have zero interest in running for president. I’m not running for president. I’m running for reelection to the Senate,” Ossoff said during a Georgia Senate debate against Republican Rep. Mike Collins.
Asked by Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whether he would serve his full term if he wins in November, Ossoff replied: “Yes, I will.”
The remarks are Ossoff’s most forceful rejection yet of a potential 2028 presidential bid even as his name has repeatedly surfaced in national Democrats’ conversations about possible contenders for the party’s nomination. His public commitment to a full Senate term on Tuesday is the latest of his campaign’s many efforts to tamp down that speculation.
Ossoff gained national attention this year given his strong fundraising numbers, his consistent lead in public polling against Collins and his ability to generate viral moments on the campaign trail, particularly through his attacks on President Donald Trump. Democrats are bullish about Ossoff’s ability to hold onto his Senate seat — so much so that the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC said Tuesday it was removing its ad spending in Georgia for the week.
He’s also taken steps to boost the state Democratic party in Georgia, a perennial battleground that has been and will be key to winning the presidency. If November brings historic wins up and down the ballot, Ossoff will get some of the credit — and he’ll have confirmed his status as a leader in the swing state.
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