Democrat Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson stated on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is criticizing his handling of crime because he is “intimidated” by the “intellectual prowess of black men.”
A reporter asked the mayor during a press conference for his response to Trump calling Johnson and Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker “incompetent” over their handling of crime in Chicago. The mayor said that Trump is using “petite and puerile” insults toward his handling of crime simply because he is “intimidated” by his leadership.
“The president has always been intimidated by the intellectual prowess of black men, and so of course he would speak in those petite and puerile terms because he’s small,” Johnson said.
WATCH:
After Trump deployed the National Guard in Washington, D.C., he warned on Monday that the federal government may crackdown on crime in other Americans cities like Chicago. He expressed hope that his actions in Washington would influence other major cities to “self-clean up.”
“I’m going to look at New York in a little while,” Trump said. “And if we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster.”
Johnson accused Trump of spreading misinformation about the crime rates in Chicago and that sending in the National Guard would “only serve to destabilize [the] city” and “undermine” public safety.
Pritzker brushed off Trump’s insults by saying he will “reject criticism” from someone who allegedly “went bankrupt six times” and who supposedly “cheats at golf.”
“I reject criticism, and don’t really want to respond to criticism from Donald Trump, who inherited his money and then went bankrupt six times and then defrauded his business partners. And by the way, he cheats at golf too,” Pritzker said.
Both Pritzker and Johnson argued that Trump would violate the U.S. Constitution if he deployed the National Guard to Chicago.
There have been 246 homicides in Chicago as of August 8, which is 110 fewer incidents in comparison to 2024, according to the Chicago Tribune. Total violent crime reportedly decreased by 22% in the first half of 2025 in comparison to the previous year.
In Washington, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) data shows that violent crime has only gone down by 10% since 2024, despite the Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD) data indicating that violent crime decreased by 26%. The MPD’s crime statistics exclude aggravated and felony assault.
The MPD suspended its a police commander in May and opened an investigation into whether he manipulated data to make it appear as if crime had decreased at large rates. The Washington Police Union accused the MPD in July of falsifying crime statistics to exaggerate a decrease in violent crimes.
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