Donald Trump took his false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets to the next level Sunday as he raised questions about missing “geese” in Springfield, Ohio.
Appearing for a long interview with Howard Kurtz’s Media Buzz on Fox News, the former president was asked whether he would backtrack on the bizarre falsehoods.
But Trump decided to stand his ground.
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“Well I don’t know if it’s true or not true,” he said.
In some astonishment, Kurtz repeated the president’s words: “Eating the pets—you don’t know if it’s true or not true?”
“I read something,” Trump began to recall, likely referring to social media posts in which individuals admitted they didn’t have “proof” for such claims.
Kurtz gave the Republican presidential candidate ample opportunity to correct the record and admit that dogs weren’t being eaten by immigrants.
“It’s been debunked,” the host clarified.
Trump dug in deeper.
“Well what about the goose, the geese? What about the geese? What happened there? They’re all missing,” Trump said.
Trump’s revision of “they’re eating the dogs” was first blurted in a rally in Arizona last month. His claims were followed by online speculation surrounding an image of a man in Ohio appearing to carry two geese, but local officials said the picture was taken after the geese were killed in a car accident.
“Howie, Howard, I have no idea,” he continued. “I said something. The big problem is that you can’t put 30,000 people to a 50,000-person town or city and expect the city to survive or even do well. What they’ve done to Springfield, Ohio, is very very unfair.
“There are a lot of stories, and there are a lot of other stories that I’ve heard. I just haven’t said it. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. That’s a story that was reported and I said that. Why don’t you go after the newspaper that wrote it? Don’t blame me.”
Kurtz gave him yet another chance to come clean.
“I think it’s been debunked by local officials,” he said.
Appearing increasingly frustrated by the tough line of questioning, Trump clapped back at Kurtz.
“I don’t think it’s been debunked at all. I think nobody talks about it except you.”
The issue dominated the airwaves for several weeks after his debate with Kamala Harris. A group of Haitian immigrants based in California, the Haitian Bridge Alliance, filed charges against the former president and JD Vance for disrupting public services and making false alarms as a result of the claims.
