It's been less than two weeks since Trump falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Ohio on national television during his first, and apparently only, presidential debate with Kamala Harris.
The claim itself has been debunked several times, but its impact on Springfield are tangible, ranging from Haitian families in the state fearing for their wellbeing to the community at large living in fear after at least 33 bomb threats linked to the false rumors.
John Oliver, host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, is the most recent personality who chimed in on the subject on Sunday after his show's hiatus prevented him from speaking out on the issue before.
After showing a clip of the now infamous words uttered by Trump on the debate stage, Oliver bashed the Republican candidate, going as far as to suggest that he should have been disqualified from the election:
"Can you even remember a time when something like that would have been disqualifying? Because I can't anymore. Republicans have now nominated Trump three times. Democrats have so far lost to him half the time. And the election is still inexplicably close because unfortunately, some Americans watched that and thought, 'I don't like how Kamala laughed when he called immigrants dog eaters. That wasn't very presidential.'"
He then called Trump's debate performance an "exceptional moment in American oratory", before using the rest of the segment to also bash Trump's running mate JD Vance, starting by post-debate comments in which he admitted to 'creating stories' about immigrants to get the media's attention and minimized the effects of not corroborating the veracity of the claim in a timely manner because he "just listened to people who are telling me these things."
"Wait — 'if enough people say it, I repeat it'?", asked Oliver about the claim. "It is not ideal when an aspiring vice president's guiding philosophy is indistinguishable from a f*cking parrot."
It should be noted that it was Vance himself who spearheaded the spread of the false claim the day before the Debate through a post on his X social media account
The segment concluded with Oliver's critique of Vance's mispronunciation of "Haiti," humorously referencing a famous mispronunciation from the movie "Clueless". Oliver used this to further emphasize the surreal nature of the ongoing political discourse surrounding Trump's campaign and its rhetoric.
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