Lammy refuses to condemn Trump over claim migrants eat pets – The Irish News

Foreign Secretary David Lammy declined to condemn Donald Trump for claiming that Haitian immigrants eat domestic cats and dogs.

The former president, who hopes to return to the Oval Office after the US elections in November, made the unsubstantiated claim during a debate with his White House rival Kamala Harris.

Mr Lammy said there was an “intense” political debate in the US and he did not want to comment on domestic issues as he had to work with whoever was in the White House at the time.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, he said: “I am here as Foreign Secretary. America is one of the most robust democracies in the world. There is a lively debate there.”

Mr Lammy said: “The ups and downs of the American political system and the language used are their business.

“I will work with whomever the American people select as their leader, and of course with the next Secretary of State, in the interests of global security.”

There is no evidence of Haitian immigrants eating pets in any Ohio community.

Yet during the debate with Ms Harris, Mr Trump specifically mentioned Springfield, Ohio, saying immigrants were flooding the city.

“They eat the dogs. They eat the cats. They eat the pets of the people who live there,” he said.

Mr Lammy has not always been so reluctant to criticise Mr Trump.

In 2017, he called the former president a “racist Ku Klux Klan and Nazi sympathizer” and announced that he would protest in the streets during his visit to Britain.