Trump: Living in Democrat-Run Cities is Like “Living in Hell”

In a town hall event with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Thursday night, President Donald Trump said that Democrat-run cities around the country were turning into hellscapes of chaos and murder. Citing the rising rates of violent crime in Chicago, Baltimore, and Detroit among others, Trump said that the Democrat mayors of those cities should be held responsible for the soaring devastation.

“Chicago is an example, it is worse than Afghanistan,” Trump said. “These cities, it’s like living in hell.”

President Trump has long held Chicago up as an example of unacceptable violence in our metropolitan streets, and it was to the subject of the Windy City that he returned when it was reported that there were 18 murders in a single day on May 31. As for Baltimore and Detroit, both of them have seen their murder rates go up in 2020 – an increase that neither of these already-dangerous cities could afford. Trump said these cities were evidence that defunding the police is the very last thing that America should be working towards.

Wading into controversial waters, Trump said that he is still a proponent of the stop-and-frisk techniques that former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani used to clean up the Big Apple.

“It’s very controversial to stay, stop and frisk,” Trump said. “You take guns away… Rudy Giuliani was a great mayor. He did it in New York.”

Democrats, Black Lives Matter, and more than a few reform-minded Republicans have criticized stop-and-frisk policies as being unduly burdensome to minorities, but President Trump and Giuliani have maintained that these programs are the sort of proactive policing that big cities need to keep their crime rates under control. The data is mixed…and, of course, endlessly subject to interpretation depending on what message you want to get across.

Trump also took aim at Seattle, where – despite promises – city leaders have yet to dismantle the “autonomous zone” that occupiers have maintained control of for weeks.

“If they don’t do something with Seattle, we’re going to do that — we’re going to go in there,” Trump said. “Because what’s happening, they’re taking over American cities.”

Trump’s remarks came on the same day that reports surfaced about a rich, white liberal neighborhood in Minneapolis where homeless people have taken over a local park. Why? Because the residents have committed to a new course of action: Never calling the police, no matter what happens.

If this kind of mentality prevails in this country, you won’t have to move to Chicago or Detroit to find out what “living in hell” feels like.