The View’s Sunny Hostin Calls Out Trump for ‘Racist’ Regurgitation of Pet-Eating Lie During Debate
Today on The View, co-host Sunny Hostin — as “the wife of a Haitian, and the mother of Haitian children” — called out former president Donald Trump for using Tuesday night’s presidential debate to spread a lie about Haitian immigrants.
Propagating without any foundation a tale told by his veep pick JD Vance on social media — that residents of Springfield, Ohio “have had their pets abducted and eaten” by “Haitian illegal immigrants” — Trump said during the debate, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there… And it’s a shame.”
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David Muir, one of the nights two moderators, followed that up by telling Trump that the city manager in Springfield “told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Trump shrugged, “Well, I’ve seen people on television… say, ‘My dog was taken and used for food.’ So maybe … that’s a good thing to say for a city manager.”
Hostin, though, was having none of Trump’s “Hey, this is simply what I heard!” deflection.
“As the wife of a Haitian, and as the mother of Haitian children, how dare you. How dare you imply that,” she scolded Trump over the airwaves. “To imply that Haitian people eat cats and dogs is racist.”
ABC News’ Muir and Linsey Davis moderated the audience-free debate from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where they sought to ensure a civilized discussion. The debate ran for more than 90 minutes, with two breaks. Harris and Trump were given two minutes to answer each question, with two additional minutes allowed for rebuttals and an extra minute for follow-ups.
In a TVLine reader poll, 73% of respondents said that Harris won Tuesday’s debate (as of press time), while moderators Muir and Davis earned an average grade of “C+.”
In the first presidential debate of this election year, Trump trounced Biden (with 69% of the TVLine poll vote), while CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash earned an average grade of “C+” as moderators.
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