Trump Claims Chicago Is Worse Than War-Torn 'Places In Middle East'

By Stephen Gossett in News on Feb 7, 2017 6:10PM

Getty Images / Photo: Chip Somodevilla

Giving that poor horse's skeleton another gratuitous flog, President Donald Trump chastised Chicago for its violent crime while speaking with a group of sheriffs on Tuesday morning in Washington D.C. "Chicago is worse than some places in Middle East where there are wars going on," the president remarked, according to NBC's Mary Ann Ahern.

Trump made the comments while meeting with members of the National Sheriffs’ Association, a move intended to carry through on his law-and-order campaign pledges.

Trump also said the nation's murder rate is the highest it's been in 47 years; but as the Tribune points out, FBI data shows the rate was lower in 2015, the most recent year in which stats were available, than it was in each year between 1996 and 2009.

Despite the fact that Chicago ranks outside the top ten in terms of homicide per capita, Donald Trump has of course singled out Chicago for violent crime both during the campaign and since being sworn in.

Perhaps the most infamous recent instance came last month, when Trump cryptically threatened on Twitter to "send in the feds" if Chicago didn't fix its "carnage." The next day, in an interview with ABC News, Trump said Chicago is "like a war zone" and compared the city to Afghanistan. At a Black History Month listening session with Trump, Ohio pastor Darrell Scott said he was in contact with "top gang thugs in Chicago" on ways to curb violence in the city—a claim he quickly walked back.

At the meeting on Tuesday, Trump also dropped another ear-catching bon mot. He joked he would "destroy" the career of a state senator who was taking action with which a sheriff did not agree.