Watch: Ohio Attorney General Refuses to Disavow Racist Pet-Eating Lie

Ohio’s Republican attorney general was called out Monday by CNN for his handling of the false and racist rumor that Haitian immigrants are capturing and eating cats, dogs, ducks, and geese. And he didn’t handle it well.

CNN’s Brianna Keilar asked Dave Yost about his role in repeating and advancing the false story, noting that the mayor of Springfield, the town at the center of the rumors, debunked the story last week.

“Do you think the mayor is lying?” Keilar asked.

Yost didn’t address the question, instead defending his own social media posts and saying they’ve been about “real impacts” on Springfield, insisting that “my tweet was about the media’s disregard for citizen reports, citizen interaction with their government.”

Keilar pushed the Ohio attorney general about those reports, which Yost said were about “several videotaped comments that were made by citizens regarding a variety of things going on in Springfield.” While Yost admitted that these comments were not enough “to make a case,” he then tried to say that too many of Springfield’s children in schools didn’t speak English.

Keilar then asked Yost why he was pushing a false story about killing animals instead of discussing the strain on local communities “when you are supposed to be a very serious law enforcement individual.”

This upset Yost, who accused Keilar of “implying, of course, that you think I’m not [serious].”

Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican like Yost, defended Springfield’s Haitian population Sunday, telling ABC’s Martha Raddatz that “the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in. These Haitians came in to work for these companies.”

Yost seems to be paying no attention to local officials, instead taking cues from Ohio Senator and Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, who on Sunday argued that spreading the false and dangerous rumor is justified because it is bringing “attention to the suffering of the American people.” In reality, the rumor has led to violent threats against Springfield’s schools, government buildings, hospitals, and other gathering places, even leading to the cancellation of a local festival.

If Vance, Yost, and the rest of the GOP were serious about their concern for the strain on local communities like Springfield due to a population increase, they’d perhaps be offering practical, positive solutions instead of amplifying racist rumors that terrorize their own constituents.

While Donald Trump’s allies have tried to create the illusion of distance between the Republican presidential nominee and Laura Loomer, the alt-right conspiracy theorist has continued to cozy up to him, going so far as to brag over the weekend that Trump “likes” and “trusts” her.

“The media is full of shit. OK?” Loomer said on her podcast, ​​Loomer Unleashed, on Saturday. “These people are liars. They are con artists, and all they do is lie. They are running a coordinated smear campaign because I am effective. Donald Trump likes me. Donald Trump trusts me. OK?

“Obviously, he trusts me if I’m on his plane, and I don’t work for Donald Trump,” she continued. “They can’t imagine the fact that the president of the United States has people in his life who he considers to be friends. Is the president of the United States not allowed to have a friend? Oh my God. Is he not allowed to invite people onto his own private jet?”

But Loomer’s insistence that she’s an “effective” addition to Trump’s political fold might not jibe with some of his closest allies. Loomer has taken credit for urging Trump to utter the Haitian migrant conspiracy theory that has plagued his vice presidential pick, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, over the past week. The self-described “white advocate” also sparked backlash from even the depths of the MAGA movement, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator Lindsey Graham, after Loomer posted that Vice President Kamala Harris’s ascendency to the Oval Office would make the White House “smell like curry.”

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt insisted Saturday that Trump “does not agree with all of the comments” that Loomer has made. But any efforts to paint Loomer as an outsider have fallen flat.

Trump has been seen with Loomer several times over the last couple of weeks, with the pair getting eyebrow-raisingly close (Trump’s hand has been spotted in the small of Loomer’s back), while Melania Trump has largely remained out of the limelight. Loomer, a 9/11 denier, attended a 9/11 memorial service with Trump and also accompanied him to the presidential debate.

On Sunday, before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire celebrated the prospect of political violence against Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero,” the party wrote on X, before receiving swift backlash and deleting the post. Later that day, the party published a follow-up, announcing that it “deleted a tweet because we don’t want to break the terms of this website we agreed to” and claiming that libertarians are “the most oppressed minority.”

On Tuesday, the account released a lengthier additional follow-up, insisting that the original tweet did not call for Harris’s assassination but “merely acknowledg[ed] how some members would react to one.”

But the newest post somehow made things worse, referring to historical instances of violence that were supposedly “necessary to advance or protect freedom,” including the assassination of “past tyrants like Abraham Lincoln.” Further, it stated that “it’s good when authoritarians” (that is, “progressives, socialists, and democrats”) are made to “feel unsafe or uncomfortable,” which the account’s provocative posts “are frequently explicitly intended” to do.

On Sunday, Libertarian Party presidential candidate Chase Oliver condemned the post as “abhorrent.” The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire replied by calling him a homophobic slur.

On X, New York Times opinion writer and libertarian Jane Coaston criticized the provocative state party as repellent and noxious to its purported cause: “Like if the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire were a CIA plot to destroy the Libertarian Party writ large what would they be doing differently.”

Donald Trump’s campaign published a list Monday of people that it appears to blame for the recent assassination attempt against the former president. The list did not include the actual assassin, but rather a slate of statements from journalists and Democratic politicians.

“Make no mistake—this psycho was egged on by the rhetoric and lies that have flowed from Kamala Harris, Democrats, and their Fake News allies for years,” read the campaign’s statement.

Trump—who has been accused of interfering with the 2020 presidential election, called his political enemies “vermin,” promised to imprison his opponents, vowed to begin the largest deportations in the history of the United States, and spread racist lies about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs—is now accusing the other side of going too far by … pointing out that he did any of these things.

Statements from Harris appeared on the list three times, and President Joe Biden six times. The campaign wrote that Harris had repeatedly called Trump “a threat to our democracy and fundamental freedoms.”

The list also included statements from politicians such as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, with a link to him speaking about “weird” MAGA Republicans. “Are they a threat to democracy? Yes,” said Walz. “Are they going to take our rights away? Yes. Are they going to put people’s lives in danger? Yes.”

It also inexplicably listed Walz’s wife, Gwen, who had simply said, “Buh-bye, Donald Trump,” during a rally—not quite the threat Trump’s team are pretending it is. But the kind of magical thinking on display in this list is certainly in line with Trump’s victim complex, which predated any failed attempt on his life.

Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and “Top Harris surrogate Liz Cheney” were among more than two dozen other Democrats who had, at one point or another, called Trump a threat.

Trump’s campaign also claimed that any journalist who honestly reported on his blatant use of extremist rhetoric—which has incited violence time and time again—was actually guilty of inciting violence against him.

The campaign included snippets of “deplorable commentary“ from journalists and news outlets covering Trump’s second attempted assassination. The campaign’s decision to identify journalists by name shifted the purpose of its list, not to a round-up of statements but a list of political targets.

The campaign included NBC’s Lester Holt, who said that the “apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail” and cited the “baseless claims” of the Republican ticket. It’s unclear what Trump’s team found objectionable about this particular phrasing of facts.

The campaign listed MSNBC’s Alex Witt, who merely questioned whether the Trump campaign might consider toning down its rhetoric in response to the near violence.

The list included several other journalists by name, from The Bulwark, The Washington Post, Meidas Touch News, The Atlantic, and New York magazine. Each observation by an outlet seemed more self-evident than the last. At one point, the campaign seemed to take issue with NBC News referring to the assassination attempt as the “golf course incident.”

“Democrats and the Fake News must immediately cease their inflammatory, violent rhetoric against President Trump—which was mimicked by yesterday’s would-be [assassin],” wrote the campaign. “President Trump said it best: ‘Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!’”

If what’s happened in Springfield, Ohio, is anything to go by, attacks from the former president’s mouth seem to sprout bomb threats. It’s clear that Trump doesn’t care about any of that (he said as much on Friday). Instead, the former president is taking the opportunity to continue painting targets on the back of anyone who says something he doesn’t like—and the repercussions could be dangerous.

A local Ohio sheriff has thrown himself into electoral politics, suggesting in a social media post last week that his constituents send him the personal addresses of locals with Kamala Harris’s campaign signs in their yards.

Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski issued the missive on Facebook Friday, referring to the vice president as a “Flip-Flopping, Laughing Hyena.”

“I say … write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards!” Zuchowski wrote. “Sooo … when the Illegal human ‘Locust’ (which she supports!) Need places to live … We’ll already have the addresses of their New families … who supported their arrival!”

The post was seemingly made in reference to a virulent conspiracy theory spread by top Republicans, including Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, about Haitian migrants eating other residents’ pets in Springfield, Ohio—roughly 200 miles away from Zuchowski’s district.

People in the area were infuriated by Zuchowski’s post, including local Republican leadership, one of whom—Portage County Commissioner Tony Badalamenti—resigned in protest from the county’s Republican Central Committee. Badalamenti said in a Facebook video that “this is not the leadership I want to be part of.”

“[Zuchowski] posted that we should all copy down the addresses of the people that display political signs which are different from our beliefs,” Badalamenti said. “It scares people. It’s called bullying, from the highest law enforcement official in Portage County.”

Springfield shut down two of its elementary schools Monday, while two local colleges switched to all-virtual classes and activities. The city also canceled its annual CultureFest due to safety concerns.

The city saw even more closures last week. Springfield evacuated two elementary schools and closed a middle school on Friday after receiving information from the Springfield Police Division. The day before, 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 in no uncertain terms that the conspiracy is false.