Chicago, IL — Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a recent interview that President Donald Trump hasn’t done enough to help Chicago. She went on to say that the blame for the steep rise in violent crime on her watch was due in part to “too many illegal guns on the street.”
You can watch her interview here, or read the transcript below:
Chicago’s mayor blames Trump for her city’s soaring murder rate:
“If the president was really committed to helping us deal with our violence, he would do some easy things … He would push to make sure that people who were banned from getting on airplanes can’t get guns.” pic.twitter.com/2S0idD0yQd
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 14, 2020
Check out the partial transcript here. Emphasis added.
ANDREA MITCHELL: I want to also ask you about the violence this past weekend in Chicago, at least 60 shootings. The president jumped all over this, comparing it to — saying the city is worse than Afghanistan. your reaction as you’re trying to come to grips with all of this?
MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT: Well, look, if you go back over many years, President Trump has said a lot of disparaging things about the city of Chicago. He likes to use us as a political punching bag. But if the president was really committed to helping us deal with our violence, he would do some easy things. One is, he would push for universal background checks. He would push for an assault weapons ban. He would push to make sure that people who were banned from getting on airplanes can’t get guns. This is the kind of thing that federal leadership can do. […]
As long as we are challenged with having states surrounding us, notably Indiana, that has very lax gun laws, where somebody can drive across the border and literally load up a vehicle with military-grade weapons and bring them back to the city of Chicago, we’re going to continue to be challenged,” she continued. “We’re doing an all-hands-on-deck strategy. We’re really focusing on the root causes of the violence. But fundamentally we have too many illegal guns on our street, and that is a direct result of a failure of federal leadership, which is why we need change in November. And we need the kind of leadership that Joe Biden is going to bring to our country.
This is exactly what you’d expect from radical left Mayor Lightfoot.
She won’t admit that President Trump has already offered to help Chicago. Earlier in July, President Trump tweeted:
Chicago and New York City crime numbers are way up. 67 people shot in Chicago, 13 killed. Shootings up significantly in NYC where people are demanding that @NYGovCuomo & @NYCMayor act now. Federal Government ready, willing and able to help, if asked!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2020
Meanwhile, the black on black murder rate is 84% higher than last year at this time. But that’s also Donald Trump’s fault. Trump and those sonsofbiches in Indiana. What a joke.
Just imagine all the help Joe Biden offers these big cities! An octogenarian struggling with dementia is hardly who most Americans would look to for leadership! Then again, for folks as crazy as Lori Lightfood, Babbling Biden might just have some insight!