Former Chicago mayor: Trump ‘making up his own facts’ about city’s crime rate
Related Video: Trump Blasts Chicago Leaders, Crime As National Guard Threat Looms | SUNRISE
Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) pushed back on President Trump’s threat to target Chicago next, saying he is “making up his own” facts about the Windy City’s crime rate.
“Listen, the crime rate has gone down. You heard the numbers of decreases in homicides and shootings and other violent crimes that have gone down and have been going down for the last four years,” Lightfoot told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on “The Arena.”
“We can‘t ignore that because the president is making up his own [facts],” she continued. “And we also know there are red cities in red states that have higher per capita rates of gun violence and other violent crime that we‘re not hearing coming out of the president‘s mouth as the places where he really wants to go.”
On Tuesday, President Trump said it was a matter of when, not if, he would deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, citing the city’s gun violence problems.
“Well, we’re going in. I didn’t say when. We’re going in,” Trump said. “Look, I have an obligation. This isn’t a political thing. I have an obligation.”
Trump’s comments follow his use of federal force in both Los Angeles, to quell anti-immigration raid protests, and in Washington, D.C. over crime in the nation’s capital, which both drew heavy backlash from Democrats and local residents.
“At least 54 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, 8 people were killed. The last two weekends were similar,” the president wrote Tuesday in a post on Truth Social, later referencing Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D). “Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far. Pritzker needs help badly, he just doesn’t know it yet,”
Pritzker, in a subsequent post on social platform X, said Tuesday that Trump’s “absurd characterizations don’t match what’s happening here.”
“There’s no emergency that warrants deploying troops in Chicago,” the Democratic governor said. “He’s insulting Chicagoans by calling our home a hellhole — and anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting them, too.”
Trump has often traded barbs with Pritzker and current Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) over the city in recent days. Both have doubled down on their vow to fight back against a federal takeover.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.