Theres even more to it than demonizing immigrants, although thats obviously part of what hes doing, Buttiegieg told CNN s Kaitlan Collins.
This is a strategy to get us talking about the latest crazy thing he did, whatever urban legend he amplifies. Right now, its about people eating cats or geese or whatever because he cannot afford for us to be talking about his record, he added.
Buttigieg told Collins that Trump doesnt want Americans to discuss political issues including how he demolished the right to choose in the U.S. during his administration.
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The last thing he wants us to do is to talk about his record or his agenda so what he wants us talking about is whatever crazy nonsense he can thrust into the center of the internet and the media conversation, said Buttigieg, who said the distraction technique isnt harmless.
The city hall building in Springfield, Ohio the city with a population of about 60,000 thats at the center of the lie about immigrants had to be evacuated Thursday after it received a bomb threat .
The father of a boy killed in an Ohio bus crash involving a Haitian immigrant driver also spoke out earlier this week, calling on the hate to cease and politicians to stop using his sons name as a political tool. He said he wished his son was killed by a white man so an incessant group of hate spewing people would leave his family alone.
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Buttigieg said its all part of Trumps strategy.
Again, this is strategic. I dont give him credit for much but whether its this, whether its blurting out a racist remark in an auditorium full of Black journalists as he did a few weeks ago, whether its choosing 9/11 of all days to invite a 9/11 truther who said it was an inside job with him [to ceremonies], he said.
He continued, The purpose is to do something so outrageous that we have to talk about it, that journalists have to go in if for no other reason than to run it down and debunk it when its false and to try to suck up all the oxygen into that so that were not talking about his profoundly unpopular policy agenda, Project 2025, and all of the failures of his actual time in office.
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