What A Day - Trump’s Lies About Haitian Immigrants Create Chaos In Springfield, Ohio

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

In the week since the presidential debate, former President Donald Trump’s lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have sown chaos in the small city. Members of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, started showing up. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said more than 30 fake bomb threats have been called in, forcing schools, government buildings and stores to close temporarily. Dr. Robert Baker, a political science professor at Springfield’s Wittenberg University, talks about how Trump’s debate comment is disrupting life in the city. Later, Miami Herald Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles talks about how the situation on the ground in Haiti is driving people out of the country. And in headlines: House Speaker Mike Johnson failed to rally his conference to pass a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, the U.S. Justice Department filed a $100 million legal claim against the owner and operator of the cargo ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order banning the use of conversion therapy on LGBTQ minors.Show Notes:Check out Pro. Rob Baker's book – https://tinyurl.com/d9mjshysSubscribe to Priyanka's newsletter –https://www.shitiboughtandliked.com/Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Thursday, September 19th. I'm Jane Koston. And I'm Priyanka Arabindi, and this is What A Day, the show where one of us is very excited that, according to the State Department, we can now renew our passports online. Very helpful if we forget. There are two kinds of people. People who might forget to renew their passport just before a big trip. And people who are going to need to take a walk because thinking about this makes them very anxious. Yeah, but listen, this helps both of those people. That's true. Perfect. On today's show, we try to understand why everybody is so excited about the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates. Plus, Kentucky takes a stand for LGBTQ folks. But first, in the weeks since the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump

and Vice President Kamala Harris, people have been reacting to one moment in particular. 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. This is a lie. A lie that has been repeatedly debunked. But it is creating very real chaos in the city of Springfield. Members of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, started showing up in the city.

Republican Governor Mike DeWine said that there have been more than 30 different bomb threats made. All of them hoaxes. Schools, government buildings, universities, and stores have had to close because of those threats. During an interview with PBS NewsHour on Tuesday, DeWine urged Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, to stop making these comments. And he reiterated that the Haitian immigrants who are living and working in Springfield are doing so legally. So those comments are, you know, about eating dogs and things are very hurtful. They're very hurtful for these men and women who work very, very hard. They're obviously very hurtful for their children. So to get a sense of what things have been like for the community since the debate,

I spoke with Dr. Robert Baker. He teaches political science at Wittenberg University in Springfield, which has had to move classes online and cancel all events. Baker is also the author of the new book, Strengthening American Democracy, Reflection, Action, and Reform. So what was your reaction when Trump brought up Springfield in the debate last week? Well, we were watching the debate with some friends. I was going to watch with some students, but I required that they watch it on their own. And we were flabbergasted. I mean, as soon as he brought it up and said that our Haitian residents were eating our pets, we were just gobsmacked by that, and it's really been rough. Yeah. Can you set the scene for us a little bit?

What's the mood been like in Springfield over the last week since these lies about Haitian immigrants started spreading and you had all these weirdos coming to your town purely to try and spread this story more? Right, right. So this has been going on for a few years, right. So, you know, this has been going on for a few years, right? The Haitians had started coming in a few years ago because of jobs and the war-torn country that they're coming from. But last Tuesday, obviously, we had the

presidential debate. And when Trump said what he said about them eating our pets, that created a firestorm of reaction almost immediately. I mean, when I was in my class the next Wednesday morning asking the students, you know, what is the most memorable thing from the debate, three quarters of them said that Springfield was mentioned, and they weren't really aware of the Haitian immigration issue. Some of them are just new students, and they hadn't been told about it. Some of them were aware of it, but they certainly were shocked and saddened and scared that this was said in the debate. And immediately after that, on Thursday, we had a number of bomb threats called in to local schools, to City Hall, to a pet rescue facility, interestingly enough. So the schools had to let out. City Hall had to close.

The next day, the same thing happened, which was Friday of last week. Some other schools closed. And then over the weekend, we got some threats here on campus about shooting that was going to occur and that there was a bomb threat on Sunday. And so Wittenberg made the decision to go remote. Students were scared. Many of them left campus on the weekend when they first heard about the threat, and they said they weren't going to come back even if we didn't go remote. They were going to stay at home. And almost all of them have left, or many of them anyway, have left as of now. They're hoping they can be back in person again because nobody likes remote learning. That sounds incredibly difficult. How are you

dealing with this? I mean, you've been at Wittenberg since 1987. So Springfield's been your home for decades. What's going through your mind as you're watching your community be torn apart by these rumors and lies and seeing your students be so scared? And this is all coming from the state sitting senator, Ohio Republican J.D. Vance. I mean, he's my, you know, I'm from Cincinnati. Like, he's my parent's sitting senator, too. And he's the one helping to spread this. Exactly. I mean, this is the horrendous thing about it, right? He's our elected senator elected to help us. And he's basically thrown our city under the bus by just continuing to double down and triple down on the lie. You know, he's backed off a little bit by

saying, well, maybe it's not true, but, you know, I need to create stories. This is just unbelievable. You know, our city is one that has struggled significantly over the years. We've had significant economic destabilization from the 70s and 80s when we started losing jobs as an industrial city. But we've been coming back strong and a lot of jobs were created in our community. Companies have come in and a number of employers were having a hard time finding employees. Once we came out of the COVID crisis, Haitians were able to work legally here with their temporary protected status and they started hiring them. And of course, once a few of them got hired, they started telling others to come here. It was a nice place to live and you could get a good job. As that began to increase in terms of numbers, it created a culture clash and people got scared.

There were some misunderstandings. It's been really rough and it seems like there's not a lot of relief in the near future from this. I mean, we've had some help from the state governor, Mike DeWine, actually, who's pushed back very strongly against the negative lies that have been pushed forward about immigrants eating pets. But there are many of us are trying, but we have this negative laser of hate that's sort of shined this horrible spotlight on us, and it's made it hard to make any progress in recent days. Yeah, it's interesting because it kind of reminds me, you know, you hear of stories from the 60s, 70s and 80s of immigrants coming into new communities, whether itD. Vance to stoke these divisions among the people he's supposed to represent? Because it seems like he's not working on behalf of the people of Springfield. It seems like he's working on behalf of the people of the Internet.

It's helping them. This is rallying their base. This is something that is sort of red meat to dogs. Right. This is something that they're picking up on as far as supporters of the Trump and Vance team. But ultimately, I mean, I hate to be cynical about this, but to answer your question in terms of what might Vance get out of this, he might get the vice presidency. You know, he might win. Now, it's turning off a lot of people. And I think the folks who they need to try to get support from are those who claim that they haven't made up their mind yet. And it's kind of weird to think that you haven't made up your mind yet, given the two candidates that we have. But they think that they're getting something out of this, and potentially they're going to win the election as a result of tripling

down on it. That was my conversation with Dr. Robert Baker, political science professor at Wittenberg University and author of the new book, Strengthening American Democracy, Reflection, Action and Reform. And Priyanka, I just can't get over J.D. Vance setting fire to his own state. Like that's the state where I'm from. That's the state where my parents and sister live. And it's like he doesn't even care about the actual constituents. Everything I know about J.D. Vance, again, a thing I've learned against my will, has indicated that this is just par for the course for him, setting fire to absolutely anybody who could possibly care for him. But yeah, for anybody, any sane person, that would be not a normal thing to do. You wouldn't know it from listening to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, but there is some important context that helps explain

why so many people have immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti in recent years. There are an estimated 15,000 Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, and as Governor DeWine mentioned, they are there legally and are authorized to live and work under the protections of the temporary protected status, which was granted in 2010 after an earthquake devastated the country and, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, killed more than 300,000 people. TPS allows migrants to stay in the country under sponsorship while they wait for their long-term immigration status.

And if you can believe it, there wasn't just an earthquake. There was also Hurricane Matthew and a cholera outbreak. So many things that have contributed to the instability and chaos really in Haiti over the past few years. Major political instability as well has made conditions within the country really, really challenging. In April, a group of gangs prevented then Prime Minister Ariel Henry from returning to Haiti after a trip abroad. Henry ended up resigning from his post from Los Angeles. And since his resignation, an interim prime minister,

along with a nine-member transitional council, have been governing the country. According to the United Nations Population Fund, more than half a million people are internally displaced in Haiti as a result of the gangs who are currently controlling most of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Haiti to meet with the country's interim leaders. During that visit, Blinken reiterated the Biden administration's support for an ongoing security mission that the U.S. government is putting $300 million towards. But so far, that mission has not been successful. To better understand the current situation in Haiti, I spoke with Jacqueline Charles, Caribbean correspondent for the Miami Herald. So let's talk about how Haiti has been governed since the former prime minister was

forced to resign this past April. What has been going on since then? So presently, there's a transitional government that's in place. You have a transitional presidential council, which has nine members of the nine members, seven of them have voting rights. You also have a prime minister who has replaced Ariane Marie, this current prime minister. David Pony, he's Haitian, but he's a longtime technocrat with the United Nations. He was previously with UNICEF right before he was chosen to lead this transition with a new government and a new cabinet. It's been a very difficult transition, so to speak. As we're speaking right now, there is a corruption scandal that seems to have brought everything to a halt in some sense. Three members of the transitional presidential council are accused of shaking down the director of a state-owned commercial bank for a bribe equivalent of almost $800,000. This director of the bank who was subsequently fired by Prime Minister Kony, who as a side note, basically said that his time

had already expired and the bank has now been taken over by the central bank. And this is why he took these decisions. But either way, they're the allegations of a bribery scandal. As a result, not much is getting done, even for Prime Minister Gary Coney, who basically needs the signature of the executive. And this is what these members of the presidential council, the role that they play, the executive, they haven't been able to get much of that because everything has been focused on getting these three individuals to step aside. But there really isn't anything in this agreement that was basically crafted with the assistance of the United States and the Caribbean community to force them to resign.

They actually have to agree to resign. So that is where we are right now in terms of that. The United States itself is pressing for Haiti to name a provisional electoral council that itself would also be nine members representing various sectors. And their job would be to organize elections next year. Can you tell us about a day in the life for an average citizen in Haiti at this point? I mean, it depends on where you are. I mean, if you are in the capital, you can't afford to stay home because staying home means that you're going to die of starvation in a country where 5 million people are going hungry. It means that you're not going to have food on your table in the place where no supermarket shelves are empty. So for the

average person that's in Port-au-Prince, you know, they wake up in the morning and first trying to figure out whether or not today is going to be a day that I can leave my house. So they start by making phone calls. You plot out your route or where you have to go. And then you call people along that route to find out what do the streets look like? What does it smell like? How are things going? What do you think is going to happen today? Do you think that I can leave? One of the things that have happened is that the gangs now control major transport roles. So if somebody has to leave the capital and they have to go to another province, another city because of family emergency or they're trying to escape the capital, that in and of itself is literally taking your life into your own hands. If you are outside of Port-au-Prince, as we recently visited when we went to the southern regions of the country, well, you don't have the gang violence.

But what you do have is communities that are completely on lockdown because of the gang violence, because of the control of roads. Prices are skyrocketing. You don't really have access to a lot of things. And you're always on the lookout, you're on the lookout for not just the displaced that are coming there to your city, but you're on the lookout for potential gang members, you feel very vulnerable, because you don't even have anywhere near the police force that they have in Port-au-Prince, which still isn't much in and of itself. Are the people that you've spoken to on the ground in Haiti at the moment aware of the way that in our domestic politics that Donald Trump and JD Vance have been demonizing Haitians very recently? This is a story

in Haiti and people are very much aware of it. One, because a lot of people have families in the United States. And regardless of whether a Haitian is in Springfield, Ohio or Miami, Florida, they are not ignorant to what's happening and they're being affected somehow. Some people are being triggered because they're remembering their own experience in terms of this country. But one of the things that I've also seen is that Haitians, you know, on social media like Facebook, they've been sharing their migration stories, you know, in terms of the fact that they are proud of what they've contributed and, you know, what they've been able to achieve

here in this country. And also in terms of the role that Haiti's played in the United States' own independence in terms of the siege of Savannah, as well as the Louisiana Purchase. But yes, Haitians in Haiti are very much aware that this derogatory comments, and I think a lot of them are shocked, those who were here, who are on the soil, who just recently arrived, to see the way that they are being depicted as, you know, undocumented or quote- quote unquote illegal, when in fact, most of them have some sort of illegal protection, either through temporary protection status or through this two-year humanitarian parole program that was rolled out last year. That was my conversation with Jacqueline Charles,

Caribbean correspondent for the Miami Herald. That sounds like such a complex and horrible downward spiral that so many Haitians are having to deal with. Truly. And then this just really the cherry on top, just fake stories being spread about them by American politicians. We will get to some headlines in just a moment. But if you like our show, please make sure to subscribe, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. We'll be right back after some ads. Now, let's get into some headlines. Well, everybody, you just watched legislative process play out. The play that we ran tonight was the right play. It's the right fight for the American people.

It's the one that they demand and deserve. That was House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday making a complicated and yet wrong play call metaphor in a press conference after his continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown was, well, shut down. Johnson's proposed bill would have tied temporary funding of the federal government to a requirement that people provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote, which is something Republicans say they want. But 14 of them still oppose the bill because apparently they either love having a non-functional federal government

or maybe they just hate Mike Johnson, which, you know, I would get. Either way, with both parties ostensibly wanting to avoid a government shutdown so close to the election, Johnson has said there's, quote, no plan B after this bill, which means it's very possible both parties will just keep pointing the finger at each other until the government runs out of money. Fun! In March, you might remember that a container ship, the Dolly, ran into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing the structure, killing six people, and shutting down traffic into and out of the Port of Baltimore, one of the busiest in America.

In short, a giant disaster for the people and businesses of the region. On Wednesday, the Justice Department filed a legal claim against the owner and operator of the Dolly for $100 million, stating that their actions were, quote, outrageous, grossly negligent, willful, wanton, and reckless. And, as the lawsuit alleges, that sounds pretty accurate. For one thing, none of the four ways someone could control the Dali worked. Now, I do not know a lot about container ships, but I do know that broken ship is bad,

and that DOJ is alleging that the two companies, Grace Ocean and Synergy, both based in Singapore, were well aware that the Dali was in big trouble. A representative of both companies told the New York Times that they had no further comment, but added, quote, We do look forward to our day in court to set the record straight. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Cairo on Wednesday for ceasefire negotiations. He weighed in on Israel's alleged attack on the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah Tuesday, in which hundreds of pagers exploded almost simultaneously, killing at least 12, including two children and four health care workers, and injuring at least 2,800 people.

So with regard to Lebanon, the United States did not know about nor was it involved in these incidents. And we're still gathering the information and gathering the facts. On Wednesday, just a day after the initial attack, walkie talkies, solar equipment and other electronic devices being used by the Iran backed militia exploded at a funeral for victims of the Patriot explosions, killing at least 20 more people and injuring 450, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Blinken warned against further escalations from all involved parties, as the attacks jeopardize already shaky ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas. My faith teaches me that all children are children of God,

and where practices are endangering and even harming those children, we must act. Governor of Kentucky Andy Beshear signed an executive order on Wednesday banning the use of conversion therapy on LGBTQ minors. Conversion therapy is a widely debunked practice in which LGBT people are subjected to counseling that aims to make them simply not LGBT anymore. I mean, the entire concept is based on the idea that being LGBT is bad, and if you can make someone not LGBT,

which, by the way, you can't do, that's good. It isn't. This is not about red or blue. It is not about politics at all. And to me, it's not even about gender or sexuality. It's about protecting our youth from an inhumane practice that hurts them.

The order makes it illegal to use state or federal funds to provide conversion therapy for minors and allows licensing boards to discipline providers who practice the therapy, or therapy, on people under the age of 18. Conversion therapy has been called torture by the Kentucky Mental Health Coalition, and a 2023 survey from the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention nonprofit, showed that LGBT people who go to conversion therapy are twice as likely to attempt suicide. And that's the news. Priyanka, I got to tell you, I know a lot of things about a lot of things. Ask me who's going to win the Heisman Trophy this year. Who is it?

We're going to get into that later. Okay, okay. His last name is Nussmeyer. Don't worry about it. Okay. I wouldn't know anyways. It's fine. Or what the weirdo right-wing outrage du jour is

or some random trivia about President Warren Harding's sex life. Don't ask unless you want to know. I don't. I don't. See, I can tell you exactly what's going on there. But on days like yesterday, when the front page of every news publication says things like Federal Reserve makes huge half point cut to interest rates. I do not understand what's going on.

Half a point is huge. You're not alone. Thank you. So to make sense of this, we reached out to someone who explains these things for a living. Stacey Vanek-Smith from NPR's The Indicator. Can you tell me why is everyone on my Twitter page so excited about the Fed cutting a rate half a percent? What does that mean? Yeah, everyone's losing their minds over this, and it is a little confusing. So the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a percentage point. Mostly people seem to think it's good.

So they were expecting this is going to sound so ridiculous. They were expecting the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point. But instead, they cut it by a half a percentage point, which is like the smallest difference. But in the world of finance, it's like Macbeth. It's high drama. Okay. I know a lot of things, but many of those things are useless knowledge about World War II or 80s action movies. What does this mean on a practical day-to-day level for people like me who have student loans or credit card debt or are kind of lightly afraid of money?

Okay. So are you a Back to the Future fan of 80s? Yes. Okay. Remember when he says we're about Future fan of 80s? Yes. Yes. Remember when he says we're about to see some serious stuff? Yes. Okay. Well, that is the idea right now. When the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates,

it just makes it a little cheaper to borrow money. So basically, when it gets cheaper to borrow money, people and businesses will borrow more money and then they will spend more money. And when they spend more money, they buy more stuff, which means companies sell more stuff. And then those companies are making more money. So they tend to expand and then hire people. So it sounds like this rate cut could be good for everyday normal people. But like, what is the trickle down effect that actually gets to like me? The big group of people that get affected are homeowners and would be homeowners, because mortgage loans, like for most people who own a home, their mortgage loan is the most debt they have. And so even a tiny change in the interest rate, that could affect your monthly payment by thousands of dollars.

So the hope is that this will help younger people buy houses and get into the housing market. Also, it can help with your credit card bill a little bit. Interest rates should come down on your credit cards. So that can help everyday people. But mainly this is a very sort of high level financial economic thing. And it takes it a while to get down to us. What decisions went into this moment of cutting? Like, was there like a meeting? Did they chant cut the rate, cut the rate altogether, like some sort of like secret cabal? Oh, my gosh, I hope they do that. So they do have a secret

meeting. They actually have this period called a blackout period where all of the heads of the different banks around the country, they all get together. They discuss what they want to do. They're all in deep discussion and they vote. And then today, which is like the day that the press conference happens, the head of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, says this is what we have decided. But you mentioned that some people had thought that it was going to be a quarter of a percentage point. So where were the conversation points before this of what was going to happen? Well, the real worry here is that inflation is going to come back. So that is the thing that is causing some hesitation because lowering interest rates does do good things for the

economy. Businesses love it. The only problem is it can push up inflation. And as you know, we have been dealing with higher prices for years now, and it's really hurting people and it's really hurting families and it's really hurting businesses. And the danger is if they cut interest rates too fast or too much, that it could make inflation go back up and prices start to rise again. OK. Thank you so much, Stacey Vanek-Smith. You have made this moment make more sense to me, a person who didn't understand. Thank you.

You're so welcome. One more thing before we go. Reports show that Israel sent thousands of explosive pagers to members of the militant group Hezbollah that injured nearly 3,000 people. Does this signal the beginning of a larger Israeli military operation in Lebanon? This week on Pod Save the World, hosts Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes discuss the implications of the incident and explore Kamala Harris's leadership style on national security and foreign policy. Listen to the latest episode of Pod Save the World, available now, wherever you get your podcasts. And WOD Squad, one final update from me. Today is my last day as a host on What A Day.

I have loved getting to make sense of the news with you all for the past three years, even longer for those of you who were around in the early What A Day newsletter days. It's been a run. I want to take a minute to thank the people on the Crooked team at past and present who helped me get on this mic to my brilliant, beyond brilliant co-hosts and team who makes this show. It has been such a gift to spend my weeknights with all of you. And of course, to all of you who listen, it really just means the world to be with you every day as you listen to your news. Thank you so, so very much for your time. You can still hear from me on my newsletter, Should I Bought and Liked. It's at shouldiboughtandliked.com. Lots of fun interviews and features and so much

more there. And I'm very excited to be back on the team at Vote Save America this year to help win another big election. Hoping to be back in your headphones very, very soon. But thank you all so much for all the support over the years. Thank you, Priyanka. You are an absolute icon and you are the moment. Oh my God. Thank you. This has been so fun to do with you. Absolutely. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, keep your massive container ships in working order and tell your friends to listen. And if you are into reading and not just my passport renewal application

like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Priyanka Arabindi. I'm Jane Koston. Thanks for listening. What a day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded by Jarek Centeno and mixed by Bill Lance. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michelle Aloy. Thank you. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.