Town at center of US migrant conspiracies hit with 33 bomb threats

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00:00With a second apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump foiled, no shot

00:09fired, suspect in custody, both US presidential candidates are back on the

00:14campaign trail. Donald Trump, the Republican, is expected in Michigan.

00:18Kamala Harris, the Democrat who's leading the opinion polls, is in

00:21Pennsylvania to speak at the Black Journalists Forum. Now Trump's false

00:26claims during the September the 10th debate, head-to-head with Harris, about

00:30Haitian migrants capturing and eating domestic pets in Ohio, has sparked a

00:35racist alert. There, police are ensuring the security of schools. The Cultural

00:40Diversity Festival is set to be cancelled.

00:45Schools in Springfield closed after threats of violence in the wake of viral

00:50misinformation targeting its Haitian community. The Ohio City also cancelled

00:54its annual two-day culture festival, scheduled for later this month, for

00:58security reasons. Unfounded online claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield

01:03stealing pets and eating them have been amplified by Donald Trump and his

01:07running mate J.D. Vance. Ohio's Republican Governor Mike DeWine

01:11announced Monday afternoon he was sending three dozen state troopers to

01:16provide added security to schools after a series of unfounded bomb threats.

01:20We have received at least 33 separate bomb threats, each one of which has been

01:34responded to, and each one of whom has been found as a hoax. DeWine said many of

01:42the bomb threats were coming from one particular country, though he did not

01:46specify which one. Far-right groups have capitalized on the misinformation

01:50spread by Vance and Trump. At the weekend, members of the far-right Proud

01:55Boys were seen marching through the streets of Springfield, and a branch of

01:58the Ku Klux Klan spread leaflets with hateful messages. It's a situation that

02:03has congregants at this Haitian church worried. They feel the threat. They feel

02:11they're not welcome. They feel people are talking about them. Springfield, a

02:18largely white town, has seen a boom in population in recent years, fuelled

02:22mostly by Haitian immigrants attracted by its economic revival and new

02:26businesses in search of manpower. The rise in population has put pressure on

02:31schools and services, though local authorities deny reports of social

02:36tensions. Oliver Farry, our reporter, let's bring in Fraser Jackson. He's our

02:41correspondent, of course, in Washington. As you can see in his position near the

02:45White House, he's got the stripes, the stars will be added later. Great to see

02:48you, sir. Can we talk about the latest on the assassination situation, because

02:52clearly Ryan Routh in custody, no shots fired. There's all a big kerfuffle

02:57regarding the role of Secret Services. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has spoken for

03:02the first time. Give us a sense of what he's saying. Yeah, the rhetoric coming

03:09out of Donald Trump in the wake of this second assassination attempt is vastly

03:13different to what we saw after the first assassination attempt. If you cast

03:17your mind back to July, you'll know that Donald Trump said that he was going to

03:20call for national unity. That's what we heard from the Trump campaign, especially

03:25obviously this was just before the RNC, the Republican National Convention. He

03:29said that in that speech Donald Trump would strike a tone to lower the

03:33national temperature. Well, that is vastly different to what is happening

03:36this time around. Donald Trump, in a series of both posts on his social media

03:42platform, Truth Social, and also interviews with various outlets,

03:46including Fox Digital, has blamed the Democrats for amping up the national

03:50rhetoric and for providing an environment in which people feel

03:54emboldened to be able to carry out this kind of attack. Of course, this has been

03:59pushed back against on by the Democrats, who many of the surrogates for the

04:04Harris campaign are saying that it's Donald Trump and his campaign which have

04:08actually fostered this kind of environment. But Kamala Harris herself

04:12following very much in the similar vibe to Joe Biden, saying that there is

04:17no space for political violence in the United States and that they are both

04:20very, very pleased that Donald Trump is safe. We know that Joe Biden actually had

04:25a phone call with Donald Trump late on Monday evening. It's said to be a

04:30very convivial conversation and that Donald Trump expressed his thanks to Joe

04:34Biden for reaching out to him. But what he says to Joe Biden's face and what he

04:39says in public are two very different things. And no doubt Donald Trump will

04:43be using this to his advantage as the campaign continues in those

04:47battleground states this week. The remarks he made in the head-to-head

04:50debate with Kamala Harris regarding Haitian migrants stealing and eating

04:55domestic pets in Ohio, of course, proved, well, sounded outlandish to begin with,

05:00but of course it's all been proven to be complete nonsense. So his reason for

05:04stating that was purely inflammatory to try to inflame people towards his side

05:08in some way, shape or form. We saw in our report that that's created a big racial

05:12incident, a rise of racism there and fears among the non-white community,

05:16which is an absolutely horrific situation. Is this something that's been

05:19reflected in other places, Fraser? Is this something that's really sort of has

05:23captured the sort of zeitgeist in the US?

05:27Well, of course, racial tensions have always been an issue in the United

05:31States and those tensions have definitely been stoked over the course

05:35of the last few years. Now, if you cast your mind back to the last election, the

05:40immigration notes that the Republicans were striking was about caravans of

05:44migrants coming up through South America, through Mexico to invade the southern

05:49border. Well, now that message has changed to a lot of them are coming up

05:53through the border, but a lot of them are already here, which is why these Haitian

05:57migrants have now found themselves in the national spotlight. Donald Trump

06:01said he was going to cause mass deportations of these people from

06:04Springfield, Ohio. But it must be said that these people who are in

06:07Springfield, just for as an example, are here entirely legally, the vast

06:11majority of them. They're here under temporary protected status, which was

06:15extended because of the civil unrest in Haiti. It's a similar statute that is

06:19used by refugees from Ukraine, for example. So targeting these people

06:25doesn't really, it's not exactly the same argument that Donald Trump has, but

06:29he has managed to get immigration back into the national spotlight, back into

06:33the national debate. And that was something that Donald Trump was

06:36struggling to do as we went through up until the Democratic National

06:41Convention. Because basically, Kamala Harris and her meteoric rise to the top

06:45of the Democratic ticket was taking up all the political oxygen here in the US.

06:49And Donald Trump now managed to get his message back to the top of the ticket,

06:54reflecting those small town worries across America. But of course, it has

06:58now been proven to be debunked. But for many, the damage has already been done.

07:02And the fact that we are still talking about it really, is what is going to be

07:07burned into people's memories.

07:08Fraser Jackson, thank you very much indeed. I'll just say to those who are

07:11watching this and perhaps would like to know more about what's happening in

07:14Haiti, please go to our website, type in the words Haiti, and you will find

07:19Haiti and upset there you will find a report by Catherine Norris-Trent and

07:24Romeo Longua about the extent of the violence that's made many people flee

07:28Haiti for their lives in many cases. Fraser Jackson, as always, great to see

07:33our correspondent watching everything for us there in Washington. And we of

07:37course continue our coverage of the US President's election campaign. Just

07:40remember, seven weeks to go until Voting Day, November the 5th.

07:49Time for truth or fake.

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