On ABC’s This Week, Mike DeWine has dismissed rumours of Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats.
Speaking to "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz, DeWine repeatedly noted that the immigrants are in Ohio legally and praised their work ethic, stridently swatting away claims that they are eating neighbors' pets -- unsubstantiated conspiracy theories promoted by Trump and his allies.
"I think it's unfortunate that this came up. Let me tell you what we do know, though. What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in. These Haitians came in to work for these companies," DeWine said.
"What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers. They're very happy to have them there, and frankly, that's helped the economy. Now, are there problems connected? Well, sure. When you go from a population of 58,000 and add 15,000 people onto that, you're going to have some challenges and some problems. And we're addressing those," he added.
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“Look, there’s a lot of garbage on the internet and, you know, this is a piece of garbage that was simply not true. There’s no evidence of this at all,” DeWine said on “This Week.”
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"There are hate groups coming into Springfield. We don't need these hate groups. I saw a piece of literature yesterday that the mayor told me about from purportedly the KKK. Look, Springfield is a good city. They are good people. They are welcoming people. We have challenges every day. We are working on those challenges," DeWine said.
"This idea that we have hate groups coming in, this discussion just has to stop. We need to focus on moving forward and not dogs and cats being eaten. It's just ridiculous," he added.
Just recently, DeWine has redirected more resources to Springfield to deal with the population surge; over the past week or so, he has met with Springfield city officials.
DeWine said Tuesday that the state for months has been engaged with Springfield officials, who he said have described increased waits at doctors’ offices, a rise in traffic crashes from inexperienced Haitian drivers and educational challenges like teaching English to K-12 students.
But he also said Springfield officials believe they’ve contributed to the community. He described population growth in Springfield as reaching a plateau. He also said he has not engaged with Haitian community members in Springfield during his talks with people in the city.
”If you talk to the officials, they think they’re doing a good job. They’re going to work. Some of them may not speak English,” DeWine said.
DeWine said the federal government should do more, specifically describing a lack of a larger settlement plan or extra money or resources for Springfield. DeWine, who has performed expensive charity work in Haiti over his life, also said he understands why people are fleeing Haiti and doesn’t oppose the government program through which they came to Ohio.
But DeWine’s denunciation of baseless rumours of Haitians eating pets isn’t leading towards guaranteed Democratic support. In fact, the Ohio governor says that Trump has the upper hand on the economy and the border, two of the leading campaign issues in the presidential election.
When pressed by Raddatz on how to square his defense of immigrants in Springfield with Trump's comments about them, on top of recent incorrect claims at the debate that he in fact won the 2020 election, the Ohio governor said Americans trust Trump on the economy and other issues.
"I've said before we knew who the nominee was going to be, I would support the Republican nominee for president. I am a Republican. I think if you look at the economy, these are issues that I think the American people are most concerned about. I think that Donald Trump is the best choice," he said.
"Look, there's these are legitimate problems that we have on the border. I'm not minimizing that at all. And those are legitimate arguments where the vast majority the American people agree with Donald Trump, and not the vice president, [Kamala Harris]," he added. "But what's going on in Springfield is just fundamentally different. These people are here legally. They came to work."
