Chicago Politics

Mayor Johnson Rejects Trump’s Threat to Occupy Chicago with National Guard

Description

Mayor Brandon Johnson and CNN’s Anderson Cooper discuss President Trump’s threat to call on the National Guard to occupy Chicago, as well as the historic decline in violent crime in Chicago over the past year.

Transcript

0:01 Jeff Zeleny, thanks. I'm joined now by the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson. Mayor, appreciate you being with us. The president obviously has a long history of attacking your city. Today, he referred to it as a killing field. What's your message to the president now that Chicago has been singled out as the next potential target for this kind of action? Well, first of all, what the president is proposing is a military occupation of the city of Chicago and cities across America. Our city is not calling for that. In fact, In fact, I don't know of any cities in America that are calling for federal troops to occupy their cities.

0:35 This is clearly unconstitutional. It's illegal and it's costly. The fact of the matter is, is that we're doing really good work in the city of Chicago. Community safety is my top priority, and that's why I've worked hard to bring people together to drive violence down in Chicago. Homicides are down nearly 32 percent. Shootings and shooting victims are down nearly 40 percent. Robberies are down 35 percent. Carjackings are down significantly. Is there more work to be done? Of course it is.

1:05 Is sending military troops into cities a way to actually drive community safety? Absolutely not. I want to just play something else he said recently about you and your city. Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent. And we'll straighten that one out probably next. That will be our next one after this. and it won't even be tough. And the people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to come.

1:38 They're wearing red hats, just like this one, but they're wearing red hats. African-American ladies, beautiful ladies are saying, please, President Trump, come to Chicago, please. Do you believe that citizens of Chicago would welcome federal intervention? Not in this regard. Here's what the people of Chicago are calling for. And we've been calling for this repeatedly. We're looking for investments into affordable housing. I'm on pace to build nearly 10,000 affordable homes by the end of my first term.

2:13 We're looking for investments in workforce. We've hired 31,119 young people for summer jobs. The people of Chicago are calling for investments in our mental health care services. I've reopened mental health clinics and expanded behavioral mental health services across the city. We've revamped our entire detectives division so that we can actually solve violent crimes in the city of Chicago. We've already closed 76 percent of our cases.

2:43 It's the highest clearance rate that we've had in over a decade. The way we build safe and affordable communities across this country is by investing in them. If the president was serious about driving violence down in Chicago and in cities across America, he would return the eight hundred million dollars that he took away from violence prevention back in April. If he was serious about driving violence down in the city of Chicago, he would return Medicaid. Snap. He would he would not defund our public education system.

3:16 This president has demonstrated that he is not willing to cooperate with cities in America to ensure that the federal government actually shows up for working people. That's what we're doing in Chicago. That's what many of our mayors are doing across this country. The president really should be working with us to develop safe communities and affordable communities. Mr. Mayor, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you very much, Mayor Brandon Johnson.

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