Hours later, few could agree on exactly what former President Donald J. Trump said about Milwaukee when he met with House Republicans in Washington on Thursday.
But on the day that Trump returned to Capitol Hill to unite Republican lawmakers, more than three years after a group of his supporters staged a violent campaign to keep him in the White House, much of the attention was focused on his off-base comments, including about densely populated cities in key battleground states that will soon host nominating conventions.
During a meeting with lawmakers at the Capitol Hill Club, Trump complained that pop music mogul Taylor Swift would endorse President Biden over him, according to people at the venue. Trump has previously argued that Swift, who supported Biden in 2020 but not this year, should back him instead.
Trump falsely claimed that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter once told him that he and his mother might have been compatible, which some lawmakers interpreted as referring to a romantic relationship while others argued she was simply referring to a working partnership. One of Pelosi’s daughters fired back on social media, calling Trump’s statement a lie.
And perhaps most shockingly, he sparked controversy by making disparaging remarks about the crime rate in Milwaukee, the most populous city in the battleground state of Wisconsin and home to the Republican National Convention in July.
Trump’s exact wording and level of disdain for the city were disputed by his allies, including those in attendance, but campaign spokesman Steven Chang acknowledged on X that Trump had criticized the city’s crime rate and how it contributed to his loss in the 2020 election, which Trump still claims he won.
Democrats, likely eager to gain an advantage in the battleground state, were quick to seize on the comments. “Let’s be clear: Milwaukee is not a terrible city, and Wisconsinites should remember how Donald Trump thinks of them when they vote in November,” Alex Floyd, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.
But the furor over Trump’s remarks was reminiscent of the furor that surrounded the conference during his presidency, when attention-grabbing remarks leaked by attendees often overshadowed the agenda.
Trump has a tumbleweed style, and during campaign speeches he often veers off topic and talks that are barely related to the subject he was originally intended to discuss.
But with friends, Trump tends to be more freewheeling, and the urge to entertain, honed over years as a celebrity and tabloid fixture rather than a commanding politician, leads to faux humor that often doesn’t work well with anyone other than his intended audience.
Trump seems somewhat aware of the reception his aides receive, and at times, he and his aides appear to enjoy it.
At a weekend rally in Las Vegas, where supporters stood for hours in triple-digit temperatures, Trump joked with the crowd: “I don’t want to lose to anybody. I need all of you voters. I don’t care about you guys. I just want your vote. I don’t care.”
Then, after a brief pause, he seemed to anticipate the outrage that was to follow. “Look, the press is going to pick it up and say, ‘He said a horrible thing,'” Trump said.
Trump himself did not address the controversy over his Milwaukee remarks, which began when Punchbowl News reported that he had called the city “horrible.” Chang, the Trump spokesman, called the outlet’s report “wrong” and used an expletive, saying Trump was denouncing “how terrible crime and voter fraud is.”
Milwaukee’s mayor and Wisconsin’s governor, both Democrats, denounced Trump’s criticism of the city, which is set to host thousands of Republican representatives and dignitaries from July 15-18.
“If Donald Trump wants to talk about things he thinks are terrible, we’ve all lived through his presidency, and we’ll say the same to you,” the city’s mayor, Cavalier Johnson, said at a news conference Thursday.
“So I think it’s actually odd to insult the state that hosts the tournament,” he added.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisconsin, who attended President Trump’s rally on Thursday and at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. I wrote to X Trump argued that his criticism of Milwaukee was justified, linking to a now-outdated report from more than a year ago that found Milwaukee had the third-highest violent crime rate of any large city in the country.
Disparaging Milwaukee is a staple of Wisconsin Republicans and their allies in the local conservative media, who have made it central to their political identity. Republicans who have controlled the state Legislature since 2011 have for years ignored the state’s largest city and its voters.
Reid J. Epstein Contributed report.
