Former President Donald Trump again expressed his feelings about Milwaukee this week, amid continued speculation about his comments about the host city of the Republican National Convention and reports that he planned to remain in Chicago during the event.
“I love Milwaukee. I was the one who picked Milwaukee [for the convention]“I have to tell you,” he told a crowd in Racine on Tuesday, accusing Democrats of lying. “These lying people say, ‘Oh, he doesn’t like Milwaukee’ — I love Milwaukee.”
Trump’s view of Milwaukee — a majority-minority city he labels as crime-ridden and corrupt — was in the spotlight a month before the Republican National Convention. Last week, several media outlets reported that Trump called it a “terrible city” during a closed-door meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill. Although his campaign said Trump was referring to crime and voter fraud, several lawmakers offered markedly different explanations for the former president’s comment.
Trump went on the defensive again on Tuesday. The New York Times reported that he planned to stay in Chicago for the three-day convention, but then changed accommodations when reporters began asking his campaign about it. Several city officials also told NBC News that security measures had been put in place for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s stay at Trump Tower in Chicago.
After professing his love for Milwaukee at his rally on Tuesday, Trump himself insisted he would remain in the city for the duration of the convention. “I always planned to stay here,” he told local NBC affiliate WTMJ.
Milwaukee, like other Democratic-led cities in battleground states where Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020, was one of the main targets of Trump’s false allegations of voter fraud in that election. Trump has continued to deny Wisconsin’s election results in the years since.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
