Donald Trump said he is going to Springfield, Ohio, in the next two weeks despite the mayor’s plea for him not to visit after his incendiary jibes about immigrants eating pets.
Doubling down on his remarks, Trump told a rally on Wednesday that he may not make it out of the beleaguered city alive.
“I’m going to go there in the next two weeks. I’m going to Springfield,” the GOP presidential nominee told supporters in Uniondale, New York.
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“You may never see me again, but that’s OK. Got to do what I got to do,” he added. “‘Whatever happened to Trump?’ ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.’”
Trump was speaking just one day after Springfield’s Republican Mayor Rob Rue said a Trump visit would be “an extreme strain on our resources.”
“So, it’d be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit,” he added.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine claimed that while a Trump visit would be “very welcomed” he added: “I have to state the reality, though, that resources are really, really stretched here.”
DeWine said there have been at least 33 bomb threats in Springfield since Trump’s remarks at the presidential debate with Kamala Harris when he claimed: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Although Trump didn’t identify the ethnicity of the immigrants he was referring to, both he and running mate JD Vance have targeted Haitian immigrants. The claims have been denounced as bogus by local officials, and a police report that Vance’s campaign cited in support of the outlandish theory turned out to be about a missing cat that was ultimately found in their owner’s basement.
DeWine said some of the bomb threats in Springfield came from “one particular country,” but he refused to say which one.
Trump also said he is going to Aurora, Colorado, another city he targeted over its Venezuelan community. In the debate, he repeated debunked rumors that a Venezuelan gang had taken over an apartment complex in the city.
The Trump campaign has not provided details about when he plans to visit Springfield and Aurora in the next two weeks.
