Rahm Slams Trump For Debating Inaguration Crowd Size & Tone Of His Speech

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jan 23, 2017 10:53PM

Rahm Emanuel slammed President Donald Trump's Inauguration Speech and post-inauguration comments in a press conference Monday, saying that, “You didn’t get elected to debate the crowd size at your inaugural ... You got elected to make sure that people have a job, that the economy continues to grow, people have security as it relates to their kids’ education. It wasn’t about your crowd size. It was about their lives and their jobs," according to the Sun-Times.

Emanuel spoke to reporters following the ribbon-cutting for an Uptown domestic violence shelter.

"I definitely can tell you on Saturday at the parade — people were not talking about the crowd size on Friday. They were talking about jobs, education, health care, security,” Emanuel said, suggesting that Trump's comments show he is out-of-touch with what Americans care most about in their day to day lives.

Emanuel, who previously worked for former-president Barack Obama and supported Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, also criticized Trump's inauguration address.

“The speech missed an opportunity to speak to our better angels as a country,” he said.

He also responded to the way Trump's administration has commented on and portrayed Chicago's surge in homicides and entrenched problem with gun violence—particularly by calling out Chicago on the White House website in a new page about law enforcement:

“Professionalism and pro-active policing go together. They’re heads and tails of the same issue. … The whole effort is about creating clear professional standards and the training that goes with it, the support that goes with it so that officers can have the certainty to do their job,” the mayor said.

“But, if you look at the last year across the country and then say, ‘The only answer is to go to stop-and-frisk. That’s it,’ that’s not where the world is today.”