Former President Donald Trump has found himself addressing his feelings on Milwaukee again this week, amid ongoing speculation about his comments on the Republican National Convention’s host city and reports that he was planning to stay in Chicago during the event.
“I love Milwaukee. I was the one that picked Milwaukee [for the convention], I have to tell you,” he told a crowd in Racine on Tuesday as he accused Democrats of lying. “These lying people, they say, ‘Oh, he doesn’t like Milwaukee’ — I love Milwaukee.”
Trump’s view of Milwaukee — a majority-minority city that he has decried as crime-ridden and corrupt — has been under the spotlight a month before the Republican National Convention. Last week, several media outlets reported that Trump called it a “horrible city” in a closed-door meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill. Although his campaign said that Trump was referring to crime and voter fraud, several lawmakers offered distinctly different accounts of the former president’s comment.
Trump went on the defense again Tuesday. The New York Times reported that he had planned to stay in Chicago during the three-day convention but then changed accommodation arrangements when reporters began asking his campaign about it. Various city officials also told NBC News that safety measures had been underway for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee to stay at Trump Tower in Chicago.
After professing his love for Milwaukee at his rally Tuesday, Trump himself insisted that he was already going to stay in the city during the convention. “I was always planning on staying here,” he told local NBC affiliate WTMJ.
Milwaukee, like other Democratic-led cities in battleground states that Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020, was among the chief 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.
