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Last week marked the highly anticipated presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Hosted by ABC News, the event was touted as the first–and likely only–meet up between the two candidates, who will square off in November.
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DONATE HERE!By most accounts, Harris had a strong night. Pundits observed that she baited her opponent, repeatedly drawing out his least popular tendencies. At one point, she took a jab at Trump's apparent fixation on crowd sizes at their respective rallies.
The former president, meanwhile, touted himself as a strongman and frequently found himself at odds with the moderators, who fact-checked numerous false statements he made–something that did not happen in his previous debate with Joe Biden.
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Trump sought to turn the focus of the debate to immigration, an issue on which voters have consistently seen him as the stronger option. For years, Trump has used migrants as political fodder. He has deployed dehumanizing and racist rhetoric, describing them as an "invasion," as "rapists and murderers," and people who are "poisoning the blood of the country." For his 2024 campaign, he has sought to blame Harris for what he has described as a border that is out of control.
At the debate, Trump took the rhetoric a step further. At one point, he repeated a discredited, racist claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating other people's pets.
"They're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats," Trump declared.
The claim had been deliberately spread online by far-right activists, neo Nazis, and Republicans, including billionaire conspiracy theorist and Trump ally Elon Musk as well as Trump's vice presidential pick, JD Vance.
Following the former president's remark violent anti-Haitian threats began hitting Springfield. On Thursday, bomb threats forced the closure of government buildings and the evacuation of local schools. Days later, more bomb threats caused two hospitals to go into lockdown. On Sunday, Wittenberg University canceled all on-campus events after threatened shooting.
Trump, for his part, refused to condemn the threats. In a video the Harris campaign shared on Threads, the former president said he was unaware of them. Both he and Vance have continued spreading the debunked, racist claims about Haitians seemingly for political benefit. Trump, for example, insisted they have been rounding up geese at local parks to eat and pledged to begin his mass deportations in Springfield.
Anti-Haitian Rhetoric
Check out this piece in THE NEW REPUBLIC about the escalating Trump campaign rhetoric against Haitians and what it means for the country.
THE MAJORITY REPORT, meanwhile, gave a good rundown of anti-Haitian sentiment on the rise.
STATES NEWSROOM reported on how President Joe Biden denounced anti-Haitian racism at the White House's first brunch to celebrate Black excellence.
THE NATION offered a perspective by columnist Joan Walsh, condemning the use of Haitian migrants as political tools by Trump and Vance.
WAIT!!! Did you see the latest IMPORTANT CONTEXT report? Last week, Johns Hopkins University held a health policy symposium with a number of notable COVID-19 misinformation spreaders and contrarians. Joining them were a number of right-wing political operatives affiliated with groups funded by billionaire industrialist and conservative powerbroker Charles Koch, who himself is a donor to the school. The event is similar to another conference Stanford is hosting next month, which IMPORTANT CONTEXT also reported on.
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The Latest on Gaza
Israel has continued waging its brutal in Gaza, which experts are increasingly called a genocide. The IDF recently dropped 2,000-pound bombs on refugee camps. MAJORITY REPORT did a segment on the story.
Despite the gratuitous violence, U.S. weapons sales to Israel have continued without conditions. The U.S. recently approved $165 million in weapons sales to the country for delivery in 2027.
JACOBIN offered a scathing rebuke of the U.S.'s posture.
THE INTERCEPT reported that in addition to all of the weapons America has sent Israel, the U.S. Army is now upgrading an airbase in the country.
More Election 2024
In other news, THE CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY reported on a troubling report on the growing threat to American democracy.
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