Donald Trump’s “they’re eating the pets” line came from the September 10, 2024 presidential debate and repeated an unsupported rumor about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. The debate audio soon became a TikTok sound: first in clips of pets reacting to it, then in a musical remix that inspired a choreographed dance.
What Trump said about pets in Springfield
During his debate with Kamala Harris on September 10, 2024, Trump said: “In Springfield (Ohio), they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” PolitiFact’s debate transcript and fact-check document the remark and its context.
Trump was referring to Haitian immigrants in Springfield. Debate moderator David Muir challenged the claim, and local officials disputed it. Springfield spokesperson Karen Graves said there were “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” Police likewise said they knew of no credible reports, while Mayor Rob Rue said there were no credible or specific claims of immigrants stealing and eating pets.
What evidence supported the allegation?
The sources reviewed by PolitiFact did not substantiate the claim. Its account says the rumor appeared to stem from an unverified, secondhand social-media post; Springfield officials and police reported no credible reports of pets being harmed by Haitian immigrants. That is different from proving that no individual incident could ever have occurred, but the public allegation Trump repeated was not supported by credible local reports.
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Rue said the rumors distracted from Springfield’s practical concerns, including housing, school resources and an overwhelmed health-care system. PolitiFact’s account of what was known about the claim provides further local context.
How the debate audio turned into a TikTok dance
Pet-reaction videos used the original sound
In the days after the debate, TikTok users began pairing its audio with videos of dogs reacting to Trump’s words. Know Your Meme’s chronology documents an example posted on September 11, 2024, and traces this early use of the original debate sound. These clips turned a political line into a recognizable audio meme; their format alone does not establish what any individual creator believed about the underlying allegation. Know Your Meme’s entry on the sound records the trend’s early timeline.
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A remix gave the sound a dance format
By September 13, The Daily Dot reported a musical remix by CasaDiMusic and a dance choreographed to it by TikToker Isaac Bradshaw. The remix shifted the format from reaction clips to a beat people could dance to. That coverage reported more than 7,000 uses of the remix and 65,900 uses of the original sound at publication. Those are September 2024 snapshots, not current totals or a measure of how active the trend is now. The Daily Dot’s September 13 report describes the remix and dance.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the viral trend does—and does not—show
The sequence is clear: an unsupported allegation was repeated during a nationally televised debate, the audio spread through pet-reaction videos, and a remix inspired a dance. The viral circulation shows how quickly a political sound can become participatory entertainment online; it does not verify the allegation or mean every person using the sound endorsed it.
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The cited coverage establishes the trend’s early 2024 development, but it does not establish its current TikTok usage, present activity or a definitive ranking of dance versions.
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