Ohio dad says Trump, Vance are exploiting his dead son for political gain

The father of an 11-year-old Ohio boy who died last year after a minivan driven by a Haitian immigrant struck his school bus called Donald Trump and JD Vance “morally bankrupt politicians” and accused the pair, as well as other Republican politicians, of using his family’s tragedy for political clout.

Speaking during public comment at a meeting of the Springfield City Commission, just an hour before the presidential debate Tuesday night, Nathan Clark denounced the Republican presidential ticket and called on the presidential nominee and his running mate to apologize.

“Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose,” Clark said, according to a livestream of the meeting.

“This needs to stop now,” he added. “I will listen to them one more time to hear their apologies.”

Clark’s impassioned speech came after Vance thrust the incident into the national spotlight with a post on X earlier in the day. He alluded to the boy, Aiden Clark, writing that “a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant.”

In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who've said their neighbors' pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.

Do you know…

— JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href=«https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1833505359513661762?ref_src=» https:>September 10, 2024

And on Monday, the Trump campaign posted on social media about Aiden, including his photo and that of Hermanio Joseph, the Haitian immigrant who was driving the vehicle that struck the bus.

Standing next to his wife, Daniella, Clark continued.

“I wish that my son, Aiden Clark, was killed by a 60-year-old