American mayors refute claims made by Donald Trump during presidential debate

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser blames Donald Trump for the 6 January 2021 riots in the US capital

September 2024: In March 1986, the Rupert-Murdoch-owned British newspaper The Sun ran the front-page headline ‘Freddie Starr ate my Hamster’. At that time, Freddie Starr’s popularity as a stage and television performer started to decline with fewer and fewer mentions on the entertainment pages of tabloid newspapers. To prevent his client from falling into obscurity his agent Max Clifford made up a story of Freddie Starr returning hungry to a friend’s house and eating her hamster after she refused to make him a sandwich. Years later, Clifford admitted that the story was a complete fabrication but it had boosted his client’s career.

Perhaps Donald Trump, running for US President, was aware of Freddie and the Hamster when he spoke of cat-eating immigrants during the presidential debate with Kamala Harris, thinking that any headlines, however absurd, would appeal to his audience. Well, the strategy worked for Freddie Starr.

If Donald Trump was a mere entertainer the story of pet-eating Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, could be shrugged off as an embarrassing falsehood of an ageing showman. Unfortunately, he is running for the US presidency and still has a good chance of winning. While some of Trump’s tales, whether they deal with windmills, sharks or electric submarines, might be fanciful nonsense others are the result of dangerous delusions.

During the presidential debate, the former President, who still maintains that he won the 2020 election, claimed that the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 was a mere rally to which he was invited to speak. No mention of urging the crowd to march on the Capitol.

"I went to Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House of Representatives) and Muriel Bowser, the Mayor of Washington, DC and the mayor put it back in writing as you know. I said, you know, this is going to be a very big rally or whatever you want to call it. Again, it wasn't done by me. It was done by others. I said, 'I'd like to give you 10,000 National Guard soldiers. They rejected me," Trump said from the debate stage.

The Washington DC Mayor refuted Donald Trump’s claim immediately after the debate wrapped up.

“On 6 January 2021, Trump summoned a violent mob and dispatched them to the US Capitol. He never offered DC 10,000 troops, and the President - not the DC Mayor - controls the DC National Guard. Unlike Trump, we immediately offered the DC Metropolitan Police Department to support the US Capitol Police. We owe the DC Police and the US Capitol Police our never-ending gratitude for saving our Capitol and democracy."

The claim by Mayor Bowser is backed up by the final report by the bipartisan select committee to investigate the 6 January attacks. It determined there was ‘no evidence’ to support Trump's claims.

Meanwhile in Springfield, Ohio, the town’s Mayor, Rob Rue, strongly denied that any pets had been harmed by members of the immigrant community. “There have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community nor has the police department received any reports related to pets being eaten.”

The Mayor also called the rumours inhuman. “As a human being, can you imagine being talked about like this? What we’re doing is we’re letting these rumours, this national rhetoric come into our community and divide us.”

Another controversial topic in Springfield is the death of Aiden Clark, who was killed in a school bus crash last year caused by a driver who happened to be Haitian. The parents of Aiden Clark addressed the community at a town meeting. They called for an end to the hate and bigotry toward immigrants they say they’ve seen.

“They make it seem as though our wonderful Aiden appreciates your hate. That we should follow their hate. They have spoken my son’s name and used his death for political gain. This needs to stop now,” said Nathan Clark, father of Aiden Clark. Aiden’s father said during public comment that the family does not appreciate his son’s name being used in political campaigns.

A further claim Donald Trump made during the presidential debate has infuriated the people of Aurora, Colorado. The Republican presidential candidate pushed rumours that migrant gangs had taken over apartment buildings and that gang members were collecting rent from residents. The town’s police chief refuted the claim publicly and the Republican mayor said he was not sure where the truth in all this is. “The debunked claims of the migrant gang taking over apartment buildings in Colorado paralleled those repeated by Trump during the debate regarding Haitian migrants in Ohio eating household pets, which community leaders have also disavowed as baseless,” reported the American broadcaster NBC.

ON OTHER PAGES: US women mayors for Kamala Harris | American women in municipal government | Women mayors in America | US women mayors speak out for Kamala Harris |

BACK TO TOP