Daniel Slim/AFP/Getty Images
Downtown Milwaukee photographed on April 8, 2024.
CNN
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Democrats are seizing on Donald Trump’s description of Milwaukee as a “terrible” city, seeking to make the former president pay a political price for insulting the most populous region in a key battleground state that will host the Republican National Convention in July.
“In some of the states that are decided at the very end, it could be that Donald Trump ends up losing the election,” Cavalier Johnson, the Democratic mayor of Wisconsin’s largest city, told CNN’s Laura Coates on Thursday night.
The Democratic National Committee said Friday it would install 10 billboards featuring Trump’s remarks around the city, and President Joe Biden’s campaign immediately began selling T-shirts and stickers emblazoned with an image of Wisconsin, Milwaukee’s location and the words “(Not a) terrible city.”
Meanwhile, Republican leaders took to social media to highlight the former president’s comments, which were allegedly made during a closed-door meeting with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
Biden posted a photo of himself holding a Milwaukee Bucks jersey alongside members of his team who visited the White House after winning the 2021 NBA championship.
“I happen to love Milwaukee,” Biden wrote.
And Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, wrote on social media, “Add this to the list of things Donald Trump is wrong about,” adding a clown emoji.
As Trump lambasted House Republicans on Thursday about crime rates and so-called election integrity issues, the former president described Milwaukee as “terrible,” according to a source in the chamber.
The Trump campaign pushed back against that interpretation of his remarks.
“He never said anything that has been misrepresented in the past, he was just talking about how terrible crime and voter fraud are,” campaign spokesman Steven Chang said on social media on Thursday.
Democratic Party signs feature quotes from Trump, Punchbowl News reporter Jake Sherman reported Thursday, after posting on social media that Trump said, “Milwaukee, where we’re holding our convention, is a bad city.”
The comments quickly gained traction in Wisconsin, one of the most battleground states in recent presidential elections, where the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel featured them as its front-page story on Friday.
“Trump: Milwaukee is ‘terrible,'” it read.
Milwaukee is a Democratic stronghold, and Trump and his allies have long singled it out, without evidence, as a city rife with voter fraud. The so-called “WOW counties” of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington have long formed a red collar around blue cities. But the suburban parts of these counties have mirrored a national shift in the Trump era, with Democrats gaining ground and eroding counties that were previously large Republican margins.
Trump is scheduled to visit Racine, Wisconsin, next week for a campaign trip, where he could address reports of his private remarks about Milwaukee.
Some Republican lawmakers in attendance denied hearing Trump’s remarks.
“No, that’s not what I’ve heard at all,” Rep. Corey Mills, D-Fla., said on “CNN This Morning” on Friday.
He said several Republican lawmakers were present but didn’t agree with that explanation.
“Nobody’s heard that,” Mills said, explaining that the word “terrible” could have been used in a different context.
Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, who was in attendance Thursday, clarified to CNN that Trump was “referring specifically to crime in Milwaukee” and not the city itself.
Milwaukee Mayor Johnson told CNN the city is “moving away from the problems around crime that have intensified since the pandemic.”
CNN’s Kahnita Ayer, Melanie Zanona and Annie Grayer contributed to this report.
