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 Donald Trump said it Springfield Ohio is dealing with a massive influx of migrants from Haiti and some of the residents do claim that the Haitians are eating their pets the cats the dogs the Ducks from the local park but police have said that they haven't received any of these reported incidents so before we get to to what's happening on the ground let's lay out how we've gotten here Matthew I want you to walk us through how we've got all these cat memes and why Donald Trump is even mentioning this on the debate stage last night well it's an instructive study in how media works these days and it's uh more than amusing I think it makes a serious point and it's part of uh really Warfare in the media so all this starts with a story that's been developing for years in Springfield Ohio uh where we have at least one incident where a child was killed in a car accident by a Haitian who couldn't drive I don't think had a had a driver's license and there's many such cases there so this is a serious story it's a it's a serious story that's been developing for years but what happened recently was someone noticed uh on the twitters on X that City residents were actually complaining at City Council meetings about Pats and animals being taken from this park and then someone found a video of a woman who was in Ohio uh somewhere else in Ohio who may or may not have been a Haitian immigrant a body cam footage of police coming up to her and her apparently eating a a cat whether that was related or not right this is all thrown into the mix of the internet and all of a sudden people started to get on grock which is X's AI uh and you can easily make images there if you haven't tried that before it's great fun and and the meme started immediately coming from the people of Donald and his his wife uh saving the cats and various pets this is one from pachy Keenan our our friend who's been on the show uh saving them you know bringing them to safety from the migrants this ended up on the Drudge Report uh trying to say that the campaign was over uh for Trump and it also I believe was retreated by the president if not his son so within the period of a couple days you had people basically saying look uh the pets need to be saved and of course the mainstream media very important to note said and some on the right said don't do this fact check this we don't actually know if a specifically cat was was eaten by anyone and I think the uh the smarter play was people who said we know people are complaining about something like this happening we're going to use the memes to draw attention to it and oh what's behind the curtain well that's all the really bad stuff that Julio is here to tell us about absolutely let's bring in Julio Ros as a blaze media National correspondent who's in Springfield Ohio and Julio take us what you've seen now on the ground and and what have some of the residents actually told you one of the biggest issues um outside of this whole you know pet and duck Park issue is is just the lack of housing um what what's been happening is because uh landlords have not uh renewed their leases with let's say a family of four that are American citizens and so they give them the notice that we're not going to renew the lease they then bring in I mean I mean I've heard numbers of 10 15 even 20 patients uh into a two three-bedroom house or or apartment and they're not charging they're either charging per room or they're charging per bed um heard that they're charging $200 uh for a bed per week to these hati and the reason why the landlords have been able to get away with it is because the city is not enforcing it's it's it's building codes it's not enforcing the the occupancy codes uh because that is a fire hazard you you can't have that many people uh in in a house or an apartment that like that it's just it's it's just not safe uh for for many reasons and so there there have been American citizens who have been displaced you can even say they've been replaced uh from their homes and that's why a lot of American citizens have left uh Springfield uh not only that because also safety concerns or they've ended up homeless um because you know when when we're talking about homeless in the problem homelessness in the rest of the country usually there's there's drugs involved or there's mental illness involved but in some cases here in Springfield it's just simply because they're they don't have the means to move somewhere else with in four different place so there actually has been encampments and I reported that uh today at at the bl.com of of some of these uh encampments that have sprung up around Springfield well I know that there is an elderly woman that was explaining like she doesn't even feel safe anymore right now leaving her house uh without some kind of weapon on her I think we could have that clip let's go ahead and take a listen to that I am a disabled elderly woman that has such high anxiety leaving my house that I rarely do and when I do I'm armed and I have my or my 120 lb pit with me I have [Music] been I've been followed I've been groped I'm 58 years old right like these are just widespread issues it seems like with with so many people coming into this town how how do you explain that people are just being told like some of this isn't happening to them and you know what just just make this all go away right the the news media the national media is trying to make this out not to be a problem but you're hearing other things there Julio on the ground yeah and that's been kind of the frustrating thing about it is because you have a lot of citizens I mean the the whole reason why this the whole cats and and ducks at at SNY Park became an issue it wasn't because of the local media reporting on it it was because people on Facebook had been raising the alarm about that issue for for a while and and just happened to be that post was was the one that got thrown into the stratosphere um but there there are a host of other issues and and the other one that I found is um as Matt mentioned earlier when it came to driving um I went to tront city which is a very very very small village that has 350 people um it's right on the outskirts of Springfield and they don't even drive to Springfield uh for to go grocery shopping or clothes shopping they they travel further north to other towns where there's not any Haitians um because they don't even feel safe driving on the road and and they're not harassed by by the Haitians like they had been in Springfield so it there there's there's a multitude of of issues that is being compounded all at once um it has been building for a while but it really has reached kind of a boiling point um especially in the aftermath of them being kind of thrown into National Spotlight this week and so yeah I know people have been kind of posting about how oh well it's great that you know their jobs are being fulfilled it's like well but it's coming at a cost of American citizens that that that's been the issue for for for some time and so uh just because you know yeah the city manager might say they haven't heard any reports I've kind of heard differently um I'm working on that right now but that there are other issues and citizens here have said that they feel like the city commission is not listening to them and they're and they're just trying to push everything under the rug and that's why there's a petition that's being drafted right now uh to remove the the entire city Commission because people are so fed up about this Julio when you when you went to the city council Tuesday night and you know just so everyone knows we sent Julio instead of going to the debate outside the debate uh where there was some kind of minor protest scheduled he ended up going right to Springfield and and getting on the ground there and checking this out for us so tell us a little bit about the city council meeting it was interesting what you said uh on on Twitter um we should follow Julio on Twitter if you don't already uh you said that probably most people were still accepting they're like you know I don't have a choice I can't do anything about this and this is just something we have to deal with well others were angry and can can you tell us just describe the sentiment I mean the people who are angry are they getting really upset you said boiling point and and what are the other people saying so the people that were in generally supportive of the Haitians being there it was kind of a combination of well we can't be racist uh you know we have Trump mentioning us and slandering us so you know that's not good and basically they've just said they're here and they're here to you know they're they're not going anywhere so we have to deal with it um the other half was upset but they they weren't they weren't shouting or or being confrontational um like that woman earlier I mean she she um was directly saying and she actually said afterwards she said that she was scared that's not just for herself but for all the women uh in Springfield because of what she and other people have gone through and so it was it was a it was a peaceful it was a very you know calm cool collected uh City Hall city hall meeting given the circumstances but that doesn't take away the the anger that people are feeling about even just the basic tenants of what we know to be a civilized society right but there's a lot of things that have kind of gone to the Wayside because it just seem it just seems like for the the leadership in Springfield is more focus on accommodating the Haitians first and then the American citizens second [Music]