During a Monday roundtable, the “America First” president suggested violence in Chicago was “worse than any war zone that we’re in.”
According to President Donald Trump, some U.S. cities may be getting in the way of his mission to “Keep America Great.”
On Monday, the “America First” president showed his patriotism by calling Chicago “worse than any war zone that we’re in.” The comments came during a roundtable titled “People Positively Impacted By Law Enforcement.”
“When you have 22 people killed in one weekend in Chicago—when you have 88 shootings, it’s not even conceivable,” Trump said. “It’s worse than Afghanistan, I hate to say it.”
This is the second time in recent weeks the president has attacked cities he considers “liberally run or radical lib.” In a Fox News interview last month, Sean Hannity asked the president about violence in places like Detroit, Oakland, and Seattle. The president said living in those places was comparable to “like living in hell.”
“I don’t know how people pursue their happiness and their dreams in life if they don’t have basic, fundamental security,” Hannity said during the interview.
RELATED: Trump Said Living in Detroit Is ‘Like Living In Hell.’ Here’s What Michiganders Had to Say Back.
Trump’s comparisons were quickly noticed by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who assured Michiganders “know better.”
In fact, the president has a history of describing an American city as being “worse” than what he considers to be a violence-stricken country.
At a 2019 campaign rally in Cincinnati, the president said “the homicide rate in Baltimore is significantly higher than El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala.”
“I believe it’s higher than — give me a place that you think is pretty bad.” Trump took suggestions from the crowd and then said, “The guy says ‘Afghanistan.’ I believe it’s higher than Afghanistan.”
This came days after the president tweeted disparaging remarks about Baltimore in an attack against Congressman Elijah Cummings, who represented that district until he died in 2019 and had criticized conditions at the U.S.-Mexican border during a congressional hearing. Trump called the city “a rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.”
A few days after the scuffle with Baltimore, the president continued to wield insults at Democratic leadership and other American cities, including San Francisco.
After Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended Cummings and deemed the president’s tweet as “racist,” the president returned attacks.
“Speaking of failing badly, has anyone seen what is happening to Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco,” the president tweeted. “It is not even recognizeable lately. Something must be done before it is too late,” misspelling recognizable.
The president is an equal opportunist in criticism of American cities, even calling his own birthplace of New York City “dirty and unsafe.”
“New York can never be great again under the current leadership of Governor Andrew Cuomo (the brother of Fredo), or Mayor Bill DeBlasio,” Trump tweeted in November 2019, misspelling the governor’s surname and using a slur for Cuomo’s CNN anchor sibling, Chris Cuomo.
“Cuomo has weaponized the prosecutors to do his dirty work (and to keep him out of jams) … NYC is getting dirty & unsafe again, as our great police are being disrespected, even with water dumped on them, because a Mayor and Governor just don’t ‘have their backs,” the president added.
Despite trashing the city, Trump ended his tweet storm with: “I Love New York!”
In October 2019, the president visited Chicago and called the city a haven for criminals that is “embarrassing to us as a nation.” At the time, Trump s delivering a speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference and blasted the city for refusing to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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“Chicago is, unfortunately, the worst sanctuary city in America,” Trump said. “Chicago protects criminals at a level few could even imagine. Last year, in Cook County alone, ICE asked local law enforcement people to ‘please, pretty please, we beg you, we’ll do anything necessary to stop crime. We want to stop crime. Please detain 1,162 people, please, but in each case, the detainer was denied.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who has called the tactics utilized by ICE as “xenophobic” and “racist,” refused to meet with the president during that visit.
“It’s no surprise that @realDonaldTrump brought his insulting, ignorant buffoonery to Chicago,” the mayor tweeted. “Luckily, in this city, we know the truth and we will not let anyone — no matter how high the office — denigrate who we are as a people or our status as a welcoming city.”
“Rather than belittle Chicago’s communities with hateful and dishonest rhetoric, he needs to go back to D.C. and face his fate,” Lightfoot said, apparently referring to the House impeachment inquiry against the president at the time.
Brandon Gates Brandon Gates is a social editor at COURIER. Prior to joining Courier he worked as a local tv reporter in Augusta, Ga. and had stints in public relations and foreign media. In his free time, Brandon writes for a sketch comedy show in NYC and practices yoga. He is also a powerlifting devotee.
