US Democrats have seized on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Milwaukee as “a terrible city” by blasting the unflattering description on billboards – a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican national convention, where the former president is expected to attend. will meet. the party’s presidential candidate in November.
Trump reportedly made the comment Thursday during a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters forced their way into Congress on January 6, 2021, to try to stop Joe Biden’s victory over him.
Republican party figures sought to contain the fallout from a political own goal over a city purposefully chosen to host the convention on July 15-18, as Wisconsin is expected to be key to the outcome of the 2024 election.
According to numerous polls, Trump and Biden are running neck and neck in the state.
The comment calling Milwaukee terrible, initially reported on X (formerly Twitter) by Jake Sherman, a reporter for the political website Punchbowl, drew immediate condemnation from Democrats. Republicans – recognizing the extent of the potential damage – initially denied the comment had been made, before attempting to soften the blow by placing it in different contexts.
In a sign of the high stakes, the Democratic election machine quickly ordered the installation of several billboards in Milwaukee, the local newspaper Journal Sentinel reported.
One featured a photo of Trump next to an image of the X-post that broke the story. “TRUMP TO HOUSE REPUBLICANS: ‘Milwaukee, where we are holding our convention, is a terrible city,’” it read.
The other showed the incriminating quote next to a photo of the former president against a red background.
Ten billboards are planned to be placed throughout the city in the run-up to the convention to maximize the impact of the words.
Sherman’s post, which had generated nearly five million views by Thursday evening, sparked a political firestorm and was immediately criticized by Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson.
“If Donald Trump wants to talk about things he finds terrible, we have all lived through his presidency. So, right back to you, buddy,” Johnson said, as reported by NBC.
He added: “It’s kind of strange that he would insult the largest city in Wisconsin because he’s running for president – he absolutely wants to win Wisconsin, win the election. So insulting the state that organizes your conference is actually quite bizarre, I think. It’s a bit unhinged.”
Addy Toevs, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said Trump had “made clear his contempt for the people of Wisconsin and their home.”
He added: “The disgust is mutual: In 2020, Wisconsin handed Trump a one-way ticket back to exile at Mar-a-Lago and sent President Biden to the Oval Office. They will do it again in November.”
Both Republicans and Democrats identified Wisconsin as a must-win state in the November poll. Biden won the election by a margin of about 21,000 votes in the 2020 election, although Trump questioned a number of votes in his quest to prove the election was “stolen.”
Trump won a narrow victory in the state in the 2016 election, a result that played a crucial role in his victory over Hillary Clinton.
Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, north of Chicago and east of the state capital Madison, Milwaukee is a white, largely industrial minority city that votes Democratic, with a long history of segregation laws against black residents. African Americans make up nearly 39% of the population, of which about 20% are Hispanic or Latino.
In a tacit acknowledgment of the possible self-harm inflicted, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, described reporting of the comment as “complete nonsense.”
“He never said it in the way it has been wrongly characterized,” Cheung posted on X, emphasizing that Trump had referenced crime and election issues.
Joanna Walters contributed reporting
