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After Trump tweeted misleading information about violence in Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot understandably responded with a vengeance.
Ivanka Trump -- senior adviser to a racist president who rolled back gun control measures passed under President Obama -- used her Twitter feed to comment on this weekend's mass shootings, making a specific mention of violence in Chicago.
\u201cWith 7 dead and 52 wounded near a playground in the Windy City- and little national outrage or media coverage- we mustn\u2019t become numb to the violence faced by inner city communities every day.\u201d— Ivanka Trump (@Ivanka Trump) 1565108028
The tweet remains up as of Tuesday evening, even though it is highly misleading and could be interpreted as race-baiting -- seven people weren't killed and 52 people were not injured in one mass shooting in Chicago, such as the incidents that took place in Texas and Ohio. While the city did see a burst of violence this weekend, Trump linking it with the organized massacres in El Paso and Dayton caught the ire of Lori Lightfoot, Chicago's out mayor.
In a weekly meeting she holds with Chicago Police, Lightfoot commented on Trump's tweets.
"It wasn't a playground, it was a park. It wasn't seven dead. It wasn't 52 wounded in one incident, which is what this suggests. It's misleading," Lightfoot said, according to the Chicago Tribune, which described the mayor as "livid." "It's important when we're talking about people's lives to actually get the facts correct, which one can easily do if you actually cared about getting it right."
Lightfoot continued:
"That's the danger of somebody with a platform and audience ... that doesn't know what they're talking about and getting the fundamental facts wrong that they can easily figure out if they had the decency to actually reach out to us if they wanted to be a constructive and engaged partner... What I'm focused on is actually helping run the city of Chicago and working hard every day with the superintendent and his leadership team to keep people in our city safe. I'm not going to be distracted by nonsense tweets from people who don't know what they're talking about."
Lightfoot, a former attorney and federal prosecutor, caught heat for meeting with Ivanka Trump in May. The mayor defended her decision, saying she'll listen to anyone willing to help Chicago.
But Lightfoot's tolerance for the Trumps may have reached a breaking point. The mayor on Monday had harsh words for the president, saying his rhetoric is encouraging hate and violence; the shooter in El Paso wrote a manifesto echoing much of Trump's racist talking points. Lightfoot said gun reform could happen if Trump led the way.
"What he's been doing is blowing every racist, xenophobic dog whistle and when you do that, when you blow that kind of dog whistle, animals come out," Lightfoot said. "If the president weighs in, if he shows these Republicans that they can actually have courage, we can get this done. But if he stands back and continues to do what he's been doing and he just tweets and he demonizes and he skims the surface, it matters not."
