It was not a novel strategy: He blamed the media. After meeting with city officials and members of the Haitian community, he spoke in front of a City Hall that had been shuttered by bomb threats just days ago with a group of local and national reporters, who asked him if he believed the claims about eating pets.

A Trump supporter in Springfield, Ohio, who filed a police report accusing Haitian migrants of stealing her cat, recently discovered her pet hiding in her own basement. Anna Kilgore gained national attention after filing a police report in which she accused her Haitian neighbors of being responsible for her cat's disappearance in late August,