Trump’s ‘cat-eating Haitian immigrant’ is a Republican born in Ohio

Crackpot claims from disgraced former President Donald Trump are nothing new but the 2020 election loser is being ridiculed for his debate performance that included bizarre and unfounded allegations that are more ridiculous than usual.

Trump’s false claim that migrants are dining on cats and dogs in Ohio was perhaps the most memorable moment in the mendacious politician’s miserable debate performance against Vice President Kamala Harris.

The person who disgraced former President Donald Trump called a cat-eating Haitian immigrant was born in Ohio, and the 27-year-old is reportedly suffering from mental illness.

This incident contradicted the candidate’s claim that “we’re not weird” on Fox News.

“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,” said Trump during the debate, parroting a lie that was circulated on the Internet.

Although the 2020 election loser’s remarks about this were less incoherent than much of his comments but consistent with his practice of lying.

The Washington Post cataloged 30,573 false or misleading claims in the 1,461 days of Trump’s presidency. 

This absurd lie originated in the conservative American blogoshere, which has become notorious for distortions and lies since the FCC abolished the fairness doctrine in 1987, paving the way for Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and purveyors of falsehoods for the purpose of perverting the political process.

It is also rooted in an entirely different situation that has no beneficial political impact for the Republicans.

The Canton Police Department released bodycam footage of 27-year-old Allexis Ferrell being arrested after she allegedly was spotted eating a cat some 170 miles away from Springfield.

Ferrell, the suspect, was born in Ohio and she graduated from Canton McKinley High School in 2015.

The incident happened on Friday, Aug. 16, in the 1100 block of 13th Street SE in Canton. After receiving multiple calls about the incident, police arrived at the scene and arrested Ferrell on animal cruelty charges.

Allexis Telia Ferrell is a registered Republican listed at 1310 Roe Ct Se Canton, Oh 44707, according to the Stark County Board of Elections.

Stark County gave Trump comfortable victories in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, when he carried 55.85% and 58.44%, respectively, according to Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.

The dog-eating drama was not the only embarrassing episode from the presidential debate.

Trump can’t seem to stick to the script, reading policy portions of his speeches with an obvious lack of enthusiasm and often lodging unfounded complaints about ballot fraud in 2020, describing preposterous conspiracy theories, and insulting his critics.

Debate moderator David Muir pointed out that judges rejected Trump’s election fraud claims four years ago, but the convicted criminal complained that “no judge looked at” his evidence because litigants were found to lack standing. 

According to Michael Waldman, president of the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, “That’s nonsense.”

Sixty-three courts ruled on those cases and they rejected them using language such as “flimsy,” “incorrect and not credible,” and “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations . . . unsupported by evidence.”

The Supreme Court refused to even consider Trump’s appeals.

Trump and his allies lost 29 of the 30 cases where plaintiffs did have standing and judges determined that the arguments were almost entirely without merit.

The Republicans lost on claims of rigged election machines. They lost on claims of improperly counted ballots. They lost on claims of mail ballot irregularities. They lost on claims of ineligible voters. And they lost on claims of observers being excluded from polling places.

Trump won only one case — a ruling in Pennsylvania concerning far too few ballots to alter the results of the election and had nothing at all to do with fraud.

The Big Lie has been used to justify  laws that strip voting rights from many qualified American citizens, inspired the mob of terrorists to storm the United States Capitol, and resulted in hundreds of criminal convictions as well as indictments against Trump and many of his criminal collaborators.

Data does not support claims that the United States is experiencing a surge in crime caused by immigrants.

The view that immigrants commit crime or are incarcerated at higher rates than native-born Americans is another lie, intended to scapegoat people who have courageously made the United States their home. 

Trump falsely claimed President Biden presided over a spike in “bloodshed, chaos, and violent crime” but facts show he is lying to the American public about crime trends.

Here are the facts on crime. Starting in the early 1990s, crime dropped rapidly in the United States. The causes were complex — owing much to improving economic conditions and innovations in policing strategy.

Following that decades-long decline, violent crime rose during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, Trump’s last year in office, murder rates climbed by nearly 30 percent and assault rates by more than 10 percent.

FBI data also confirms a sharp downward trend in crime, undercutting Trump’s attempts to blame criminal justice reform for pandemic-era spikes in violence.

The Republican’s blunders on Covid-19 disrupted America, instigating social and economic hardships, economic decline and spikes in unemployment, plus a surge in firearm ownership and shooting incidents.

Although crime increased when Trump was in the White House, violent crime dropped in 2021 and 2022 — and then declined again, significantly, in 2023. 

Trump claims an immigration crisis in America has created migrant crime, but the prevaricating former president is simply blaming others for the consequences of his failures. There is no evidence of a migrant crime wave.

If anything, immigration is linked to decreases in both violent and property crime. Trump’s scary argument has demagogic appeal that combines our fear of criminality with the bigotry that surfaces during tough times — but it’s a myth.

Trump failed to convince voters Harris was wrong for shifting her position on such issues as health care, fracking, and immigration since she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. 

While Medicare for All, climate change and border crossings remain important to many people, candidates are not expected to ignore new information that influences their opinions.

“How can we compare lies like the claim that people are eating pets to a regular political omission about a policy detail?,” asked Dr Emma Shortis an historian and writer whonis an expert on the history and politics who says “We can’t, and we shouldn’t.”

Shortis said, “We know Trump is a serial, egregious liar. That analysts and pundits are still being asked to rate or weigh up truthfulness and lies is quite extraordinary.”

Congressional Republicans are lamenting Trump’s performance in what may be his only debate against Harris, who got under her GOP opponent’s skin several times during the 90-minute showdown with fact about the attendance at his rallies, the origin of his wealth, and world leaders “laughing” at him.

One sign that Republicans recognize the harm his campaign suffered as a result of his clash with Harris was revealed when Trump personally  appeared in the spin room after the debate in a desperate attempt to convince reporters that it wasn’t a fiasco, but the unconventional move for a major-party candidate only made the negative assessment more obvious.