Nigel Farage repeated Donald Trump’s widely-ridiculed and dangerous claim that immigrants in the US state of Ohio are eating cats and dogs on Thursday morning.
During a debate last week, the former US president, who is running for re-election, said Springfield citizens “have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country”.
The Wall Street Journal has since traced this claim back to a particular police report, based on a pet-owner who later found her lost cat in her basement.
Trump’s own VP nominee JD Vance also admitted he “created” the story “to draw attention to the Biden-Harris immigration policies”.
So on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Reform UK leader Farage, who is also a friend of Trump, was asked how he felt about such comments.
“You’re very loyal to Donald Trump,” Richard Madeley began.“How difficult is that when he says things like ‘Springfield cats and dogs are being eaten by immigrants’ and saying that he believes it was divine intervention that saved his life?”
The Republican nominee survived an assassination attempt against him in July and has since claimed it showed he had “God on his side”.
Madeley continued: “He can be pretty ridiculous, can’t he, isn’t that hard for you to stay loyal to?”
Farage said: “Whenever Donald Trump makes a comment which is ridiculed, it always turns out to be true. I refer that to the cats and dogs.”
Trump’s baseless claims triggered a wave of threats against schools and government buildings in Springfield, leaving the local community in a state of chaos.
But Farage did not mention that on GMB.
Instead, he focused on Madeley’s reference to God, saying: “And I find your line of attacking those who believe that there are sometimes divine interventions, and that there are people out there who believe there is a God and sometimes they get spared, I find that line very cynical.”
Farage then recalled how he survived a plane crash in 2010, although he was “smashed to pieces”.
He added: “Who knows? Maybe even I believe that at times there is a higher intervention that can work in your favour.”
Madeley pushed back: “I doubt you would say God wants you to be MP for Clacton in the same way that Donald Trump says he thinks God wants him to be president of the United States.”
He said: “Do you know what? British armies for centuries have fought saying ‘God is on our side.’ People need to believe in something.
“And if you were faced with the prospect of walking out of your front door and someone might shoot you every day, because it’s happened twice in the last two months, the fact that he has a religious faith, maybe that’s what is giving him the strength to continue.”
Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in the summer, while another gunman was found near his Florida club over the weekend when the ex-president was playing golf.