In addition to the lie that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio are eating cats and dogs , J.D. Vance also made the false claim that a young resident of Springfield named Aiden Clark was "murdered" in a car crash involving a minivan driven by a Haitian immigrant. This lie was debunked by Aiden Clark's father who said his son's death was purely accidental. That father, Nathan Clark publicly condemned Vance and Donald Trump for exploiting his son's death for political gain." The father asked Trump and Vance to apologize for misrepresenting the death of his son. Not surprising, no such apology has been offered by either man.
This fits a pattern of behavior by both Vance and Trump. As recently as September 7, 2024, Donald Trump refused to apologize to Yousef Salam, one of the so-called "Central Park Five" consisting of African American and Hispanic teenagers who were wrongly accused, convicted, and imprisoned for more than a decade for the crime of sexually assaulting a white woman in Central Park in New York in 1989. Trump took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the death penalty for those young men. He even coined the phrase "wilding" as a way to refer to the Central Park Five as animals on the prowl.
Those young men were found innocent when another man confessed to the crime and his confession of guilt was confirmed by DNA evidence.
The charges against the now "exonerated five" were vacated in 2022. Yousef Salam is now a member of the New York City Council. Salam confronted Trump in the Spin Room after the recent Presidential debate in Philadelphia asking if he was ready to apologize in front of the cameras about his actions that were intended to send that young man and his friends to death by lethal injection. Trump simply turned way from Yousef Salam and never said a word.
We dare not forget about the "birther" narrative launched by Donald Trump in 2007 arguing that Barack Obama was unqualified to be President of the United States because he was not born in this country. Even when confronted with definitive proof that President Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, Trump refused to retract his false claim, and, of course he has never apologized for his actions.
Trump has referred to Kamala Harris as a "fascist, Marxist, communist." Needless to say, it is politically and historically impossible to be both a fascist and a communist since those are two polar opposite forms of government. When that was brought to his attention by a reporter, he once again refused to apologize.
This fits a pattern of behavior by both Vance and Trump. As recently as September 7, 2024, Donald Trump refused to apologize to Yousef Salam, one of the so-called "Central Park Five" consisting of African American and Hispanic teenagers who were wrongly accused, convicted, and imprisoned for more than a decade for the crime of sexually assaulting a white woman in Central Park in New York in 1989. Trump took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the death penalty for those young men. He even coined the phrase "wilding" as a way to refer to the Central Park Five as animals on the prowl.
Those young men were found innocent when another man confessed to the crime and his confession of guilt was confirmed by DNA evidence.
The charges against the now "exonerated five" were vacated in 2022. Yousef Salam is now a member of the New York City Council. Salam confronted Trump in the Spin Room after the recent Presidential debate in Philadelphia asking if he was ready to apologize in front of the cameras about his actions that were intended to send that young man and his friends to death by lethal injection. Trump simply turned way from Yousef Salam and never said a word.
We dare not forget about the "birther" narrative launched by Donald Trump in 2007 arguing that Barack Obama was unqualified to be President of the United States because he was not born in this country. Even when confronted with definitive proof that President Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, Trump refused to retract his false claim, and, of course he has never apologized for his actions.
Trump has referred to Kamala Harris as a "fascist, Marxist, communist." Needless to say, it is politically and historically impossible to be both a fascist and a communist since those are two polar opposite forms of government. When that was brought to his attention by a reporter, he once again refused to apologize.
I suppose we can thank Trump's former attorney, Roy Cohen whose advice to Trump was "never apologize to anyone about anything." When it comes to Donald Trump and J. D. Vance, the words of the song by Elton John seem to apply: "Sorry seems to be the hardest word."
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The Rev. Dr. Marvin A. McMickle, pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, is interim senior minister, First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland. He served as president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, New York, from 2011 to 2019.
