Ohio Lieutenant Governor Decides Now’s the Time for a Sick Joke

While the town of Springfield, Ohio, experiences bomb threats as the result of a false racist rumor claiming that Haitian immigrants are capturing and eating people’s pets, ducks, and geese, Ohio’s lieutenant governor is making jokes.

Jon Husted thought it was fit to post a photo of two geese on X Friday with the caption: “Most Americans agree that these migrants should be deported.”

The post came after three schools in the town were shut down earlier in the day due to threats they received, and one day after several government facilities in the town had to be evacuated over bomb threats. The threats have drawn the ire of town leaders, such as Mayor Rob Rue, who said Thursday, “Unfortunately, right now we have to focus on making sure this rhetoric is dispelled, that these rumors are just—they’re just not true.

“You know, Springfield is a beautiful place, and your pets are safe in Springfield,” Rue added, laughing slightly at the absurdity of having to say such a thing.

The fake rumor has its origin in unproven social media posts and was egged on by the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, whose members marched through the town and spoke at Town Council meetings. Right-wing politicians, including Trump and running mate J.D. Vance, have repeated it, giving it a wider audience and fueling the threats.

Trump’s mention of the rumor during the debate, while sounding comical on its face, is likely the biggest driving force behind the its staying in the right-wing discourse and riling up the people behind the threats. Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine isn’t helping either, refusing to denounce the remarks from Vance and other leading Republicans on Tuesday. Husted and the state’s leaders should be trying to shut the rumor down and make sure people in Springfield, particularly the Haitian population, feel safe, instead of fueling a hateful mob. Better yet, so should Trump and Vance.

It’s been a very bad, no-good week for Donald Trump, and between his poor performance during Tuesday night’s debate and his racist conspiracy theory about Haitian migrants coming back to bite him, the Republican presidential nominee appears to have lost some of his composure.

During a rambling and largely nonsensical presser in Los Angeles on Friday, Trump constantly tripped over himself, outright rejecting important questions from reporters while making absurd claims, such as the fact that the country was “perfect” in January 2021.

In one portion of his speech, Trump badly botched the name of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, by referring to her as “Comrade Howard” while shaking his head. He also referred to Harris as a “radical left Marxist Communist fascist,” an ideological combination that is technically impossible, and attacked her for her “woman-made destruction.”

But not everything Trump said was outlandish or wrong. In another section of his speech, Trump dropped an undeniable detail: Not all states have a Pacific Ocean.

Shortly after the speech ended, Trump had one final thought to share, which he posted in brief on Truth Social: “#.” At the time of publication, the post had more than 2,700 likes.

As MAGA allies raise concern over Laura Loomer’s outlandish and conspiratorial remarks, Donald Trump simply shrugged them off in a press conference Friday afternoon. 

“Laura’s a supporter. I don’t control Laura, Laura has to say what she wants, she’s a free spirit,” Trump told reporters, when asked about her recent comments. “I can’t tell Laura what to do, she’s a supporter.” He then added that he didn’t know why a reporter would be asking about Loomer at all.  

It seems as though Trump has decided to play dumb about the discourse happening in his party about Loomer’s racist comments about Kamala Harris and her continued insistence that 9/11 was an inside job. 

“She is a strong person, she’s got strong opinions, and I don’t know what she said,” Trump said, as reporters proceeded to push the former president about his “supporter.”

“She made racist remarks about your opponent. She also espoused conspiracy theories about 9/11. Do you disavow those remarks?” asked one reporter. 

“Well, I have to see what the remarks are. You’re telling me for the first time,” said an increasingly frustrated Trump. “I’ll go take a look and put out a statement later on,” he replied, dodging the question. His claims that he was unaware are hard to believe, in part because Representative Marjorie Green said on Thursday that she had contacted Trump directly about Loomer’s behavior. 

“What value do you feel that Laura Loomer brings to you?” asked another reporter. 

“She brings a spirit to us,” replied Trump. “We have very spirited people.”

Donald Trump’s racist conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants has taken root in Springfield, Ohio—but the MAGA leader doesn’t seem to care about the real-world implications of his violent rhetoric.

Fielding questions from reporters in Los Angeles on Friday, the Republican presidential nominee aggressively veered away from answering a question about a swath of school closures in Springfield that followed the proliferation of the far-right conspiracy accusing Haitian immigrants of eating their neighbors’ pets in the Midwestern city.

“No, no, no. The real threat is what’s happening at our border,” Trump said. “Because you have thousands of people being killed by illegal migrants coming in. And also dying. You have women dying as they come up, they’re coming up in large groups. We call it a caravan, I think I came up with that name but it’s really what it is—10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people—and you have large numbers of women being killed in those caravans coming up to this country.”

“And then when they get here, they can go into the country and they end up being sex slaves and everything else,” Trump continued. “Those are your real problems. Not the problem that you’re talking about.”

The city at the center of the conspiracy shut down three of its schools on Friday, reported ABC News. Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary were evacuated after receiving unspecified information from the Springfield Police Division, while Roosevelt Middle School was closed from the beginning of the school day due to similar threats, reported the Springfield News-Sun.

Springfield saw even more closures on Thursday, when several other schools and a significant portion of Springfield’s government facilities—including City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Ohio License Bureau, the Springfield Academy of Excellence, and Fulton Elementary School—were shut down due to bomb threats.

Multiple city officials and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine have stated that the conspiracy is false. But that hasn’t stopped the Republican presidential ticket from endangering an entire town’s worth of people.

Donald Trump still thinks highly of his Tuesday debate performance, and lashed out at a Fox News reporter Friday who suggested it didn’t go too well.

After a long, rambling speech by Trump, the reporter mentioned the former president’s recent admission that he doesn’t want another presidential debate, and noted that some of his Republican allies said that he “missed the mark” during the debate. Trump cut her off, and dismissed the characterization. 

“No, no, no, excuse me. Most of my Republican allies have said I was great. You’re just like a lot of other people at Fox. Why don’t you say, 94 percent of the Republicans said I did phenomenally in the debate,” Trump said. 

“Some said that I could have been tougher. I don’t know how I could have been tougher when I said he’s the worst president and she is the worst vice president in the history of our country,” Trump continued.

Trump is notoriously thin-skinned, and has a love-hate relationship with Fox. The morning after Tuesday’s debate, he vented on Fox & Friends and demanded Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham moderate a future debate. In the past, he’s complained that the network hasn’t been doing enough to help him, even though they’ve long been a conservative entity, and have spread even his most far-fetched election conspiracies. 

Is this another example of Trump’s ongoing cognitive decline? During Tuesday’s debate, the former president was easily baited and outwitted by Kamala Harris. He couldn’t stick to the game plan made by his advisers of tying today’s problems to the vice president, and he even  tried to combine right-wing talking points on transgender people, migrants, and criminals. On Afghanistan policy, he gave a word-salad answer. 

There are also his various mental lapses during the presidential campaign. He’s seemingly forgotten who he’s running against, made weird rants about subjects like bacon and wind power, and accidentally praised Harris and President Biden’s record at one point. Perhaps Fox needs to wait a few more days and treat the former president with kid gloves. They seem to be doing so already, editing out his criticism Friday when replaying his comments. Soon enough, he might even forget this exchange even happened.

Donald Trump inexplicably claimed Friday that in “Charlottesville—nothing was done wrong,” referring to his claim that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Unite the Right rally in 2021.

During a winding, weaving, and overall incoherent speech delivered at the Trump National Golf Course in Los Angeles, Trump was yet again complaining about the presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris when he made a massive slip-up.

The former president specifically, and at length, criticized debate moderator David Muir, who he called a “foolish fool.” Muir’s fact-checking of Trump’s lies had sent conservatives howling, and Trump too.

“I think he corrected me 11 times,” Trump whined. “Of the 11 times, I don’t think he had the right to correct me at all—didn’t correct her once.”

“Like on Project 2025, I have no idea about—it had nothing to do with me. He didn’t correct her, he knew that,” Trump muttered.

“Charlottesville—nothing was done wrong,” Trump said. “All you had to do was read my statement one more sentence, and you would have seen that.”

It seems here that Trump’s scattered speaking has incidentally invented a new defense for his “very fine people” quote, which Harris trotted out against him during the debate on Tuesday. Now, if his words are anything to go by (they’re not), we can all rest assured knowing that nothing bad happened at all.

It has been disputed whether “very fine people” was specifically referring to neo-Nazis or other rallygoers attending the event organized by neo-Nazis … who were … just … on the same side … as the neo-Nazis. Well, I feel much better, thank goodness we cleared that up.

In his attempt to clean up a quote he claims was misconstrued, Trump invented a new quote that is just as easily misconstrued. Is it possible that, for clarity’s sake, he could just stop speaking?

Republicans have found a new way to try to secure a swing state for Donald Trump: voter disenfranchisement.

On Thursday, the Republican National Committee and North Carolina’s Republican Party sued the states Board of Elections, or NCSBE, to limit acceptable forms of voter identification at the polls this November. The lawsuit argues that students at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill should not be allowed to use a digital form of ID in order to vote.

“The law does not allow the NCSBE to expand the circumstances of what is an acceptable student identification card, beyond a tangible, physical item, to something only found on a computer system,” the GOP argued in the lawsuit. They argued, without evidence, that allowing students and university staff to use their “Mobile UNC One Card” at in-person poll sites “could allow hundreds or thousands of ineligible voters” to cast their ballots. Additionally, they added—again without evidence—that the digital identification shouldn’t be accepted because  it “may be difficult for precinct official[s] to be able to see [the] screen.”

Republicans also filed a separate request for a judge to issue a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction preventing the use of the mobile ID.

While this may seem like a small story, young Americans are using digital wallets at greater rates. As a joke from earlier this year said, an easy way you can spot a millennial is if they’re carrying a physical wallet with them. And changing voter ID laws at the last minute is sure to have repercussions.

In July, Democratic North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper passed a law to allow voters to use mobile driver’s licenses starting in July 2025, which could now also face legal challenges down the line.

In 2020, Donald Trump won North Carolina by just under 75,000 votes. According to recent numbers, there are more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students who attend UNC-Chapel Hill and over 12,000 members of faculty and staff.

In North Carolina, in-person early voting begins October 17.

A neo-Nazi group is taking credit for creating and spreading the racist conspiracy that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

The leader of the group Blood Tribe, Christopher Pohlhaus, celebrated on his Telegram channel on Wednesday, after the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris the day before where Trump brought up the false rumor.

The neo-Nazi group “pushed Springfield into the public consciousness,” Pohlhaus, known as “Hammer” to his followers, wrote on Telegram, according to NBC News.

“The president is talking about it now,” one of Blood Tribe’s members wrote on Gab, a social network popular with the far right. “This is what real power looks like.”

While the exact origin of the rumor is unclear, it was at least amplified and spread by the neo-Nazi group. In late June, local Facebook groups in Ohio were posting about Haitian children chasing geese and ducks. In the next few weeks, darker rumors spread about the ducks and geese going missing and possibly being eaten by Haitian immigrants.

In August, Blood Tribe picked up on the rumors and started posting about them on Telegram and Gab. Members of the racist organization marched in Springfield in Ohio in early August and spoke at some of the town’s meetings.

From there, the false story was picked up by the right-wing End Wokeness account on X, which last week posted a screenshot from a Facebook post and a picture of a man holding some kind of bird walking down a street. The picture wasn’t from Springfield, though: It was taken in Columbus, Ohio, on July 28, and the photographer has apologized and admitted he doesn’t know the ethnicity of the man.

Still, a post on Reddit made the rumor go viral, with right-wing influencers soon creating A.I.-generated pictures of Trump protecting pets, specifically cats. Politicians from Ted Cruz to vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance picked up on it before Trump mentioned it in Tuesday night’s debate. Now the increased attention is causing problems in the town, leading to threats against town buildings and elementary schools, as well as a condemnation from the mayor. A family’s deceased son has been used as a political tool, much to their outrage. Republican leaders need to face the fact that this false story is not ammunition for their immigration policies but is rooted in racism and needs to stop.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Republican-run North Carolina state Supreme Court have majorly sabotaged the democratic process in the key battleground state. 

The court ruled 4–3 on Monday to remove Kennedy from the ballot in that state, requiring election officials to destroy nearly three million ballots that included Kennedy’s name and to redesign 2,348 ballot styles. 

“To protect this important right, the elections process should ensure that voters are presented with accurate information regarding the candidates running for an elected office,” wrote Republican Justice Trey Allen in his majority opinion. “Where a ballot contains misleading information or inaccurately lists the candidates, it risks interfering with the right to vote according to one’s conscience.”

Not only will this last-minute change delay the distribution of ballots, it will also cut into early voting for North Carolina residents in violation of state and possibly federal laws, according to Slate.  

State law requires early voting to begin on September 6, and federal law requires that absentee ballots be mailed overseas by September 21—a deadline election administrators are now unlikely to meet.

Allen alleged that the state board of elections had purposefully rushed to print ballots featuring Kennedy’s name, noting that they had not halted production the second he announced he was “suspending” his campaign. But in his speech announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race, Kennedy made no mention of dropping out in North Carolina and did not file for removal until five days later. 

Since “suspending” his campaign, Kennedy has sought to take his name off the ballots in states where his presence will hurt Donald Trump’s chances at winning but keep his name on the ballot where it will help him. Even in suspension, Kennedy is insistent on running a spoiler campaign against the Democrats. 

“We acknowledge that expediting the process of printing new ballots will require considerable time and effort by our election officials and significant expense to the State,” Allen wrote in his  opinion. “But that is a price the North Carolina Constitution expects us to incur to protect voters’ fundamental right to vote their conscience and have that vote count.”

The far-right’s pet-eating Haitian migrant conspiracy is having real-world ramifications for the town of Springfield, Ohio.

The epicenter of the conspiracy shut down three of its schools on Friday, reported ABC News. Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary were evacuated after receiving unspecified information from the Springfield Police Division, while Roosevelt Middle School was closed from the beginning of the school day due to similar threats, reported the Springfield News-Sun.

“The District is in the process of a controlled release to dismiss students to their parents,” the Springfield City School District said in a statement. “Additionally, Roosevelt Middle School was closed prior to the beginning of the school day in relation to the information received from the SPD.”

The educational gridlock comes one day after several other schools and a significant portion of Springfield’s government facilities—including City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Ohio License Bureau, the Springfield Academy of Excellence, and Fulton Elementary School—were shut down due to bomb threats.

Authorities have not directly tied Friday’s evacuations to the conspiracy, which accuses Haitian migrants who have settled in Springfield of stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets. The blatantly racist conspiracy has drawn national attention in recent weeks thanks to Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, both of whom have repeatedly elevated the evidenceless attack.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said during the presidential debate on Tuesday. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Meanwhile, Vance—who, again, represents Ohio—spent considerable time on the conspiracy this week. On Tuesday, the Republican shared that his office had received “many inquiries” from Springfield residents who were complaining about migrants eating their pets.

“It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false,” Vance said before continuing on his diatribe against Haitians.

Multiple city officials and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine have stated that the conspiracy is false. But that hasn’t stopped the Republican presidential ticket from endangering an entire town’s worth of people.