Springfield’s GOP Mayor Issues Stark Warning to Trump After His Lies

The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, doesn’t want Donald Trump anywhere near the town.

At a news conference Tuesday, Mayor Rob Rue said that a visit from the former president and convicted felon would be too much for local authorities to handle as they grapple with the fallout from false rumors about Haitian immigrants capturing and eatings pets, ducks, and geese.

“It would be an extreme strain on our resources. So it’d be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit,” Mayor Rob Rue said, commenting on a report that Trump was planning to visit the town in the near future. Even Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, who visited Springfield Tuesday, said that while a campaign visit from a former president is “generally very, very welcomed,” he had misgivings about a possible Trump visit.

“I have to state the reality, though, that resources are really, really stretched here,” DeWine said. Neither Trump nor his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, have spoken to DeWine about visiting the town, he said.

Trump and Vance have continued to defend their part in spreading and amplifying the conspiracy, with the Republican vice presidential nominee even admitting that he was using the story for political purposes. Trump brought up the story in last week’s presidential debate and refused to back down , even when fact-checked by ABC News moderators.

Responding to Trump’s words at the debate, Rue warned last week that “we don’t need this pushback that is hurting our citizens and hurting our community—I would say that to anybody who would take a mic and say those things.”

Indeed, the rhetoric from the right, led by the former president and his running mate, has led to schools, government buildings, hospitals, and even a local festival receiving violent threats . What Springfield needs is solution and calm, not more political opportunism at the expense of an innocent populace.