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Trump pledges to deport Haitians in Ohio city; Biden calls for attacks to stop

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, California / WASHINGTON — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump promised mass deportations of Haitian immigrants in an Ohio city on Friday, shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden called for attacks on that community to stop. 

“We will do large deportations in Springfield, Ohio,” Trump said at a news conference at his Los Angeles-area golf resort.  

While Trump, 78, continued his attacks on immigrants, he did not revisit false and derogatory remarks he made during his debate on Tuesday night with his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Those comments, including that the Haitian community was eating household pets, drew a sharp rebuke earlier Friday from Biden. 

At a White House event celebrating Black excellence, Biden referred to his White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, as a proud Haitian American. 

“A community that’s under attack in our country right now. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place in America. This has to stop — what he’s doing. It has to stop,” Biden said. 

Haitian community leaders across the United States said the Republican candidate’s remarks could put lives at risk and further inflame tensions in Springfield, where thousands of recent Haitian arrivals have boosted the local economy but also have strained the social safety net. 

Trump’s comments that “they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats” during the debate were the latest in a long list of lies about immigrants that have defined his political career. It followed a similar false claim spread by his running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance of Ohio, on social media about Springfield’s new residents. 

City officials say they have received no credible reports of anyone eating household animals. Karen Graves, a city spokesperson, said she was not aware of recent hate crimes targeting Haitian residents but that some had been victims of “crimes of opportunity,” such as property theft.
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Trump refuses to criticize Loomer, alarming Republican allies

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, California — Donald Trump refused on Friday to weigh in on recent racist and conspiratorial comments from right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer, who traveled with him earlier this week to the debate and several 9/11 memorial events.

“Laura’s been a supporter of mine,” Trump told reporters at a press conference near Los Angeles, where he was pressed on concerns from Republican allies about his ongoing association with Loomer.

“I don’t control Laura,” Trump said. “I can’t tell Laura what to do. She’s a supporter.”

Trump said Loomer has “strong opinions” but said he was unaware of her recent comments, including a post on X in which she played on racist stereotypes by writing that “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center” of his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins in November. Harris is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

Loomer’s appearances on the campaign trail with Trump have alarmed many of the former president’s allies who worry he is hurting his chances of winning in November, particularly as Harris has driven up Democratic enthusiasm and repeatedly put Trump on the defensive in Tuesday’s debate. Harris was campaigning Friday across Pennsylvania.

Loomer’s comments have drawn rebuke from Trump allies, including Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Georgia congresswoman, herself known for spreading conspiracies, called the post about curry “appalling and extremely racist” and said it did not represent Trump’s movement.

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, called Loomer “a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans. A DNC plant couldn’t do a better job than she is doing to hurt President Trump’s chances of winning reelection. Enough.”

Trump’s comments came at a news conference at his Los Angeles-area golf club after days of criticism of his performance at this week’s debate.

Trump, in remarks, unleashed against Harris a litany of attacks that his aides had suggested he would focus on during the debate, including accusing her of having been soft on crime in her previous positions.

Before she served as vice president, Harris represented California in the Senate and also served as the state’s attorney general and the district attorney of San Francisco.

“She destroyed San Francisco, and she destroyed the state,” Trump charged. He also assailed the ABC anchors who moderated the debate. He’ll travel later Friday to northern California for a fundraiser, followed by a rally in Las Vegas, the largest city in swing state Nevada.

Harris headed to Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre on Friday, campaigning in counties where Trump won in 2016 and 2020, as she tries to capitalize on her momentum after Tuesday night’s debate.

It’s her second day of back-to-back rallies after holding two events in North Carolina, another swing state, on Thursday. Her campaign is aiming to hit every market in every battleground state over four days, with stops by Harris, her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and other surrogates in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.

While speaking in Charlotte, Harris took a victory lap for her debate performance in which she needled Trump and kept him on the defensive. Recounting one moment while campaigning in North Carolina, she mocked Trump for saying he had “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act.

“Concepts. Concepts. No actual plan. Concepts,” she said as the crowd roared with laughter.

Her campaign said she raised $47 million from 600,000 donors in the 24 hours after her debate with Trump.

Harris said the candidates “owe it to voters to have another debate.” But Trump said he won’t agree to face off with her again.

Trump’s morning press event was the second Friday in a row that the Republican has scheduled a news conference, although at his last appearance in New York, the former president didn’t take any questions. Instead, he railed for nearly an hour against women who have accused him of sexual misconduct over the years, resurrecting the allegations in great detail before his debate with Harris.

Harris has not held a news conference since becoming a presidential candidate, and the Democrat has sat for just one in-depth interview. Her campaign has said she will start doing more interviews with local media outlets in battleground states.
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Comparing Trump and Harris: Where do they stand on top issues?

Former President Trump and Vice President Harris offer worlds-apart contrasts on top issues in presidential race
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Trump rejects 2nd debate against Harris as her campaign says it raised $47M

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Judge tosses some counts in Georgia election case against Trump, others

ATLANTA — The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and others on Thursday tossed out three counts in the indictment — including two counts brought against the former president — saying that they lie beyond the state’s jurisdiction. 

The case against Trump and others who are appealing an order allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to continue prosecuting the case is on hold while that appeal is pending. But Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee issued orders Thursday based on motions filed by two defendants, Shawn Still and John Eastman, who are not part of that appeal, meaning the case against them is not paused.

In the Georgia case — one of four criminal prosecutions against the Republican presidential nominee — a grand jury in August 2023 returned a 41-count indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging conspiracy to illegally try to overturn Trump’s narrow loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Four people pleaded guilty last year after reaching deals with prosecutors.

Trump and other defendants tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case, arguing that a romantic relationship she had with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired to lead the case, created a conflict of interest. McAfee ruled that there was not a conflict of interest that warranted Willis’ disqualification, as long as Wade left the case. Trump and others have appealed, and the Georgia Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments in December. 

The judge in March had thrown out six counts of the indictment, a ruling that prosecutors are appealing. Even with a total of nine counts quashed, 32 counts remain, including an overarching racketeering charge brought against all of the defendants.

At issue in Thursday’s ruling are two counts having to do with the filing of a document with the federal court in Atlanta that declared that Trump had won the state of Georgia and 16 Republicans who signed the document were the “duly elected and qualified electors” from the state.

One of the counts charges three of those Republicans, including Still, with filing false documents. The other charges Trump and others, including Eastman, with conspiracy to file false documents.

McAfee wrote that punishing someone for filing certain documents with a federal court would “enable a state to constrict the scope of materials assessed by a federal court and impair the administration of justice in that tribunal to police its own proceedings.” He concluded that those two counts must be quashed “as beyond the jurisdiction of this State.”

The third count charges Trump and Eastman with filing false documents, saying they “knowingly and unlawfully” filed a lawsuit with the federal court in Atlanta while “having reason to know” that the document included at least one “materially false” statement about the 2020 election in Georgia.

McAfee cited case law that says complaints filed in federal court fall within the scope federal perjury statutes and said the charge must be quashed.

A spokesperson for Willis said prosecutors are reviewing the order and declined to comment.
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As gender gap widens, will women push Harris to victory?

The U.S. presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump remains tight. But Harris has opened a sizable lead over Trump among one group of voters — women, who vote at higher rates than men. As VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports, Harris’ late entry into the race widened the political parties’ gender gap.
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Young voters could make difference in US presidential election, say analysts

This year, about 8 million young people will turn 18 and become eligible to vote. In all, an estimated 41 million members of Gen Z — people under age 27 — will be able to vote in the 2024 presidential election
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More than 67 million people watched Harris-Trump debate 

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Haitian Americans fear for their safety after Trump repeats false claims about immigrants

WASHINGTON — Haitian Americans said they fear for their safety after Donald Trump repeated a false and derogatory claim during this week’s presidential debate about immigrants in Ohio.

Haitian community leaders across the U.S. said the Republican candidate’s remarks about immigrants eating household pets during his debate with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris could put lives at risk and further inflame tensions in the small city of Springfield, Ohio, where thousands of recent Haitian arrivals have boosted the local economy but also strained the safety net.

“We have to be careful where we go,” said Viles Dorsainvil, 38, who says the Haitian community center he heads in Springfield has received threatening phone calls. The hostility has prompted one friend working at an Amazon warehouse to consider leaving, he said.

“He said that things are getting out of hand now; the way people are treating us, making bad comments about us,” Dorsainvil said.

Trump’s Tuesday remark that “they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats” is the latest in a long line of lies about immigrants that have defined his political career. It followed a similar false claim spread by his running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance of Ohio, on social media about Springfield’s new residents.

City officials say they have received no credible reports of anybody eating household animals. Karen Graves, a city spokesperson, said she was not aware of recent hate crimes targeting Haitian residents but that some had been victims of “crimes of opportunity,” such as property theft.

The Haitian Times reported that some Haitian families in Springfield, Ohio, were keeping their children home from school, while other sources told the newspaper that they were subject to bullying, assaults and intimidation in front of their homes amid racist rhetoric amplified by social media.

The lie fed on frustrations of some in the western Ohio city, who say the 15,000 Haitians who have arrived in recent years to fuel the city’s economy, have also stressed limited resources at local schools and health clinics and driven up rents.

Tensions have increased since a Haitian driving without an Ohio license struck a school bus in 2023, killing 11-year-old Aiden Clark and injuring 26 other children.

“People are getting really fed up,” city resident Richard Jordan said at a city council meeting on Tuesday. “Things are going to get ugly.”

At that same meeting, Clark’s father Nathan Clark criticized Trump and Vance for exploiting his son’s death.

“They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis, and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members,” Clark said. “However, they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed, to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio.”

Last month, a white supremacist was ejected from a city council meeting after he made threatening statements towards Haitian immigrants.

‘My heart fell’

Ahead of the debate, billionaire Elon Musk amplified the lie further on his X social media platform, as did Republicans on the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

Guerline Jozef, who heads the national advocacy group Haitian Bridge Alliance, said her group had been trying to knock down the rumor before the debate.

When Trump mentioned it, “my heart fell to the floor,” she said. “This has become a nationwide lie that people everywhere are repeating.”

For Taisha Saintil, now an analyst with the immigrant advocacy group UndocuBlack Network, said Trump’s remark brought back painful memories of being taunted when she arrived at a Florida elementary school in 2006.

Some 1.1 million Haitian Americans live in the U.S., about half of whom are immigrants, according to the Census Bureau. Long established in Florida and New York, Haitian immigrants have recently been moving to states like North Carolina and California to pursue work, Jozef said.

Seeking work

Springfield officials say the majority of Haitian migrants are in the country legally, drawn by jobs at warehouses and factories. They have opened two restaurants and seven groceries, according to a city fact sheet.

“While we are experiencing challenges related to the rapid growth of our immigrant population, these challenges are primarily due to the pace of the growth,” city manager Bryan Heck said in a video on Wednesday.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, said on Tuesday the state is providing $2.5 million to help the new residents get vaccines and other health services, and state police are being brought in to help enforce traffic laws. He said President Joe Biden’s administration should also provide aid to cities like Springfield that see a sudden increase in new migrants.

Trump’s comments could energize his supporters to help him win over undecided voters, particularly aggrieved white voters who feel a sense of their own decline in this country, said Republican strategist Mike Madrid, founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.

“The attempts to dehumanize people is a long-proven strategy to work at a time when society’s undergoing change,” he said.

But that strategy risks spurring violence, Haitian American leaders said.

Democratic Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the only Haitian-American in Congress, said Trump’s rhetoric endangers Haitians across the country.

“We’ve heard these stereotypes for years about Haitian people, Black immigrants, doing all these things that we know aren’t true,” she said.

Gepsie Metellus, who heads the Sant La Haitian neighborhood center in North Miami, said Trump’s comment was viewed as a “cheap political shot” in her community, but directly endangers those in Springfield.

“This rhetoric has a way of turning out really badly,” she said. 
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AI not a US election gamechanger yet, officials say

Washington — When the U.S. announced the seizure of 32 internet domains tied to Russian efforts to ply American voters with disinformation ahead of November’s presidential election, prosecutors were quick to note the use of artificial intelligence, or AI.

The Russian operation, known as Doppelganger, drove internet and social media users to the fake news using a variety of methods, the charging documents said, including advertisements that were “in some cases created using artificial intelligence.”

AI tools were also used to “generate content, including images and videos, for use in negative advertisements about U.S. politicians,” the indictment added.

And Russia is far from alone in turning to AI in the hopes of swaying U.S. voters.

“The primary actors we’ve seen for election use of this are Iran and Russia, although as various private companies have noticed, China also has used artificial intelligence for spreading divisive narratives in the United States,” according to a senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive information.

“What we’ve seen is artificial intelligence is used by foreign actors to make their content more quickly and convincingly tailor their synthetic content in both audio and video forms,” the official added. 

But other U.S. officials say the use of AI to spread misinformation and disinformation in the lead-up to the U.S. election has so far failed to live up to some of the more dire warnings about how deepfakes and other AI-generated material could shake-up the American political landscape.

“Generative AI is not going to fundamentally introduce new threats to this election cycle,” according to Cait Conley, senior adviser to the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the U.S. agency charged with overseeing election security.

“What we’re seeing is consistent with what we expected to see,” Conley told VOA.

AI “is exacerbating existing threats, in both the cyber domain and the foreign malign influence operation-disinformation campaigns,” she said. But little of what has been put out to this point has shocked officials at CISA or the myriad state and local governments who run elections across the country.

“This threat vector is not new to them,” Conley said. “And they have taken the measures to ensure they’re prepared to respond effectively.” 

As an example, Conley pointed to the rash of robocalls that targeted New Hampshire citizens ahead of the state’s first in the nation primary in January, using fake audio of U.S. President Joe Biden to tell people to stay home and “save your vote.”

New Hampshire’s attorney general quickly went public, calling the robocalls an apparent attempt to suppress votes and telling voters the incident was under investigation.

This past May, prosecutors indicted a Louisiana political consultant in connection with the scheme.

More recently, the alleged use of AI prompted a celebrity endorsement in the U.S. presidential race by pop star Taylor Swift.

“Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site,” Swift wrote in an Instagram social media post late Tuesday. 

“It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter,” she wrote, adding, “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

But experts and analysts say for all the attention AI is getting, the use of such technology in attacks and other influence operations has been limited.

“There’s not a tremendous amount of it in the wild that’s particularly successful right now, at least to my knowledge,” said Katie Gray, a senior partner at In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s technology-focused, not-for-profit strategic investment firm.

“Most attackers are not using the most sophisticated methods to penetrate systems,” she said on September 4 at a cybersecurity summit in Washington.

Others suggest that at least for the moment, the fears surrounding AI have outpaced its usefulness by malicious actors.

‘We jump to the doomsday science fiction,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI special agent and counterterror consultant who heads up the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC).

“But instead, what we’re seeing is the number one challenge to all of this right now is access, just getting to the [AI] tools and accessing them,” he said, speaking like Gray at the cybersecurity summit.

Over the past 14 months, MTAC has logged hundreds of instances of AI use by China, Russia and Iran, Watts said. And analysts found that Moscow and Tehran, in particular, have struggled to get access to a fully AI toolbox.

The Russians “need to use their own tools from the start, rather than Western tools, because they’re afraid they’ll get knocked off those systems,” Watts said.

Iran is even further behind.

“They’ve tried different tools,” Watts said. “They just can’t get access to most of them for the most part.”

U.S. adversaries also appear to be having difficulties with the underlying requirements to make AI effective.

“To do scaled AI operations is not cheap,” Watts said. “Some of the infrastructure and the resources of it [AI], the models, the data it needs to be trained [on] – very challenging at the moment.”

And Watts said until the products generated by AI get better, attempted deepfakes will likely have trouble resonating with the targeted audiences.

“Audiences have been remarkably brilliant about detecting deepfakes in crowds. The more you watch somebody, the more you realize a fake isn’t quite right,” according to Watts. “The Russian actors that we’ve seen, all of them have tried deepfakes and they’ve moved back to bread and butter, small video manipulations.”
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Trump, Harris exchange barbs on debate stage

In the U.S. presidential election, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, clashed with his Democratic Party rival, Kamala Harris, Tuesday evening over issues such as abortion, immigration and foreign policy. VOA’s chief national correspondent Steve Herman has details from the candidates’ first debate in Philadelphia.
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