Donald Trump claimed during a debate with Kamala Harris that Haitians eat the pets of local residents.
Rancho Palos Verdes, United States:
US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris took their campaign to key states again on Friday as the racial row over Haitian immigrants deepened, with the Republican leader promising “major deportations”.
Trump, 78, is scheduled to hold a rally in Nevada later Friday, where his campaign says he will focus on voters' economic concerns, including inflation.
Harris, who had delivered a strong performance in Tuesday's televised debate against Trump, was heading to Pennsylvania, perhaps the most important state that determines the winner in a close presidential election.
Opinion polls show the vote is almost evenly split with just seven weeks left until Election Day.
Struck by the broad consensus, including among prominent Republicans, that Democrat Harris won Tuesday's debate, Trump is pushing even harder for tough rhetoric on illegal immigration — the issue at the heart of his campaign.
In a speech from his posh golf course near Los Angeles, Trump accused the “communist” Harris of “allowing illegal aliens to cross our border.”
He focused on the small town of Springfield, Ohio, saying Haitian immigrants there are “destroying their way of life.”
“We're going to do major deportations from Springfield, Ohio,” he said. “We're going to do the largest deportation in the history of our country.”
Springfield is at the center of a conspiracy theory being spread by Republicans and the Trump campaign that Haitians are eating local residents' pets.
On Friday, authorities in Springfield evacuated schools for a second day due to unspecified threats related to the rising tension.
The head of the local Haitian community centre, Viles Dorsainvil, told AFP that the FBI is investigating threatening phone calls to the organisation.
Trump expanded the false narrative about the pets in extended remarks on Thursday, in which he claimed that Haitians also kill geese in the park. He also said at a rally that “young American girls are being raped, sodomized and murdered by barbaric criminal aliens.”
President Joe Biden, who had suspended his own re-election campaign to instead endorse Harris, intervened on Friday, saying Trump “must stop” stoking tensions and that “there is no place for this in America.”
– Far-right entourage –
There was also growing controversy over the presence of far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer in Trump's entourage.
She traveled with him to Tuesday's debate and also accompanied him to Ground Zero on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, despite claiming that the deadliest terrorist attack in American history was an “inside job.”
“I have no control over Laura, Laura says what she wants,” Trump told reporters in Los Angeles.
“Laura supports me,” he said, adding that he had never heard of her spreading 9/11 conspiracies.
Loomer even drew criticism from far-right Republicans for her comment that Harris, whose mother was Indian, would make the White House “smell like curry.”
With Election Day fast approaching on November 5, Trump has been forced to focus his campaign on Harris rather than Biden. At 81, Biden was considered by his own Democratic Party to have little chance of winning.
Trump's problems have become increasingly visible, including in his televised speeches from the golf course on Friday.
He spoke defensively about the polls, which he said gave him a big lead, and insisted again that he had dominated Harris during the debate. He also rejected her challenge to hold another debate.
On Thursday, Trump was in Arizona, the state where the outcome is still uncertain, while Harris held two rallies in North Carolina, also a battleground.
– 'Turn the page' –
Harris, 59, has largely avoided responding directly to Trump's personal attacks, preferring to portray herself as a new-generation leader who will end the ongoing drama and division that have defined Trump's presidency and post-presidency.
When Trump raised the false narrative during the debate that pets are being eaten by migrants, she shook her head in disbelief.
On Thursday, Harris told participants at the rally in North Carolina: “It's time to turn the page.”
Despite raising huge amounts of donations and trailing Trump in the polls, Harris reiterated Thursday that she still has a lot of work to do.
“We know it's going to be a tight race until the end. We are the underdogs. Let's be clear about that,” she said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published via a syndicated feed.)
