Elon Musk shares video of Haitian woman, backs Trump's 'eating pets' claim during US presidential debate

Elon Musk shared a TikTok videopurportedly featuring a woman ofHaitian descentsharing reasons why Haitians eat cats. This comes after former United States president and Republican nomineeDonald Trump made claims during the presidentialdebate with Vice President and Democratic hopeful Kamala Harris, saying that illegal immigrants from Haiti were eating pets in acity in the US state of Ohio.

Musk, who has endorsed Trump ahead of the US presidential election, shared the post after several media outlets were fact-checking claims made by the former president.

The woman, named Rebekah Faidia on TikTok, also speaks about the 'voodoo' practices in Haiti, describing them as "truly demonic". She said that her father immigrated from Haiti to the US in the late 1960s as a teenager.

Noting that the majority of the island does practice voodoo, she said, "My father and I are now estranged, but I did know him in my very, very young years. When he immigrated, he was one person, and they weren't sending thousands of Haitians to one area...he said that the majority of the island does practice voodoo."

She further said that Haitians eat cats for two reasons, survival and animal sacrifices for the religion.

"This is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. You can't just go to a food bank like you can here (in the US)... People in the US have a really hard time imagining that type of thing, but it is true. Second, they do animal sacrifices for their religion, voodoo. They make these animal sacrifices to these gods for different reasons," she said.

Faidia,defending the former president, said, "It is not racist" to acknowledge the problem, adding that everyone just wants to joke about Trump saying this rather than actually checking if this is real.

"You all just want to joke about Trump and say that he's crazy for saying that this is happening instead of actually checking at all to see if this is happening," she added.

This comes after Trump,during his debate with Democratic nomineeHarris, claimedthat illegal Haitian immigrants in Ohio were "eating dogs and pets".

Right after saying this, he was immediately fact-checked by the debate moderators, who said that there was no proof of that.

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What did Trump say?

"In Springfield, they are eating the dogs -- the people that came in -- they are eating the cats," Trump said during the debate.

"They are eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what's happening in our country, and it's a shame," he added.

Following Trump's statement, Harris criticised his rhetoric as extreme and unsubstantiated.

(With inputs from agencies)