'Reprehensible': Father says Trump and Vance are politicizing son’s death

you know, some of the residents there have been fuming because they are upset about being a political football in this. The father of 11 year old and Clark, who was killed when a minivan driven by a Haitian immigrant who was in the U.S. illegally struck a school bus in Springfield, Ohio, is speaking out. He's calling out Donald Trump and J.D. Vance for using his son's death as a political talking point. Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose. And speaking of morally bankrupt politicians, Bernie Marino, Chip Roy, JD Vance and Donald Trump then spoke in my son's name and used his death for political gain. This needs to stop now. I want to bring in Melanie Flax. Well, she is the president of the Clark County Commission in Ohio. That county includes Springfield wilt as a Republican and commissioner, I appreciate your time. So, you know, as Omar obviously is reporting from Springfield. Springfield is the largest town in Clark County. now, your town is in the center of the presidential election. So you have been put in a position to do something that I'm sure you never imagined you would be doing, which is actually looking into claims about Haitians eating pets to confirm whether or not it actually had occurred. What did you find? We have real problems here in Clark County, Ohio, and that is not one of them. we have had one, call to our dispatch center making those claims, and when it was followed up on, it was not substantiated. and we have seen no other reports of that. All right, so one call we do have. Go ahead. We do have challenges here. I mean, we do have challenges from the influx of Haitian immigrants and refugees to our community. leaders both in the county and the city are working together to stay focused on the issues that really are at play here. one of those is what, Mr. Clark brought up in the previous segment, which is driver safety and training. secondly, we need funding to alleviate the pressure on our infrastructure that this refugee immigration has created. And third, we need resources for cultural assimilation. The challenges here are real. I'm confident that our Springfield grit is what's going to get us through this to the other side. Once everybody's kind of this is the news of the day, and it passes. But I urge people within our community and nationwide to be part of the solution instead of spreading, false rumors. So I want to ask you more about those rumors in a moment. But first, because you mentioned the challenges, the real challenges that are a part of this. And I think, you know, it's important, right, that you got a story out here that's false. But you also have a town of 60,000 that was 60,000. And now you get, you know, 20,000 people coming in. That is going to be very important that is going to change things. Governor Mike DeWine, today in your state announced he's sending new state support to Springfield, that he's sending troopers. He's sending $2.5 million. and that that that's going to help with this influx on your system. Do you think your county needs that assistance? And I guess, are you crediting a false story about immigrants eating pets for why you're even getting that assistance? We have been in conversation with the governor for many months about this and the assistance that's needed. We've been working with, his office on health care. I sat down with him, earlier this summer, and we discussed many of the issues that are facing Springfield as a result of this and Clark County as a whole. it's taking a toll on our infrastructure, and we're not in a position to be able to fund all of those challenges ourselves. So the state is helping us with health care and helping us with some of the driver training and safety. I on my way home this evening, I did pass a, Ohio highway patrol in the city of Springfield that had a car pulled over, and it did appear that they were helping us with some of our driver training, education and, encouraging people to ensure that they're driving with a license. So, you know, when we you. I wanted to ask you, when you talked about the false claims out there and the impact that's having the fear of for some in your community now that they are facing because of that. there was J.D. Vance, obviously, Senator, from your state. So he knows Springfield as well. He at first was out there at first amplifying this story. Then he came out and said, okay, well, it was likely false. The part about migrants eating pets. last night, though, Donald Trump junior posted an image on Twitter saying, save our pets. And, you know, it's it's Trump on the back of a cat, with some sort of an assault rifle and cats everywhere. Elon Musk, with a picture of a kitten and a duckling. he puts out that saying, save them. What's your reaction to this? I mean, when Elon Musk tweets something, tens of millions of people see it. Well, I'm not really here to discuss national politics because this is something that truly impacts my community. And knowing that it's not true and seeing, you know, how that has distorted the image of the community that I have chosen to raise my family and to grow up and come back to and to build my business. And it's disheartening to see that being perpetrated across the across the nation. I will say, you know, despite what has been shared nationwide and, sent through social media, Senator Vance has been a good friend of Springfield and a good friend to Ohio. and, you know, I appreciate that. He said some of these plans are probably going to turn out to be false. And and I think he has learned that that's the case. And of course, we reported on the show Monday that city officials told CNN that there is nothing to this rumor. Jimenez is out front. He is in Springfield. And Omar, it is true that Springfield has experienced an incredible influx of migrants up to 20,000, which is, you know, obviously massively significant in the city of 60,000. but you've been there now talking to residents about what this means. What are you hearing from them? Yeah, we're hearing a whole number of things. For starters, we we went right to the Haitian community, here in Springfield as soon as we got here. And Haitians, I can tell you were just as confused as everybody else when they heard about, these the allegations or unverified claims of people eating dogs and cats and stealing people and stealing pets from yards. But they also, as one Haitian community leader, told me, they were concerned about what these rumors would actually do to the community in the context of it would potentially put an unnecessary target on their backs, but also add just another level of stress to what has already been an arduous journey. And for many of these folks coming from Haiti and having to leave their home now, one one Haitian immigrant that we spoke to, who was a doctor back in Haiti, he at he's now a nurse here trying to regain that certification here in the United States. He actually told us he understood where the community was coming from, as far as concerns over stresses on resources, that the influx of migrants of immigrants has brought to this community, as we've heard from state officials and others. Take a listen to some of what he told me. What do you say to some of those people who are concerned about how many Haitians have come in? I would say I agree with these people, but, the problem is we're not going to leave anytime soon, because even though people are talking right here back in Haiti, it's a matter of life or death. And that seems to be the bottom line for everyone is an inconvenience of of stress is here versus going back to something that, as you just heard, was life or death. And just to be playing for for everyone looking into this and maybe lumping this into the wider immigration debate. What we've seen in a lot of cases around the country has had to do with asylum seekers. What we see here is legal immigrants who are under temporary protected status as Haitians have been. And as we know, the government has extended it through January 2026, and the city has even gone as far to put a frequently asked questions page on their city website, knowing that people have been asking but as you talked about before you came to me, it's about 20,000, up to 20,000, or so, as we've heard from the mayor in previous cases. But it hasn't stopped a lot of the rumor mills that we've seen going around online, including a woman who ate a cat that was spreading, that was supposed to be from here, that actually was from a town over 100 miles away. And there is no verification that that person was even Haitian. But that is the nature of what we've seen circulated online and has affected those in the Haitian community here in Springfield. It's sort of incredible to think we're having this conversation. All right.