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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) compared President Trump to a terrorist after the president threatened to withhold federal funding for sanctuary cities.
“Trying to hold people hostage and manipulating them to succumb to his will, and then hold up our tax dollars, that is how terrorists behave,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “Look, he’s not going to hold the people of Chicago ransom.”
Since starting his second term, Trump has set his sights on sanctuary cities, or jurisdictions that limit the amount of information it will share with federal immigration officers.
In February, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies and departments to refrain from providing funds to states and localities that could “facilitate the subsidization or promotion of illegal immigration, or abet so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”
Chicago is a sanctuary city, and could lose up to $3.5 billion if Trump holds firm.
The nation’s third largest city received almost $2.5 billion total in federal funding last year. But with an anticipated $1.12 billion budget shortfall, the city’s budget this year is relying on $2.7 billion in federal grants.
“These aren’t threats anymore,” Johnson said. “These are real, adversarial attacks against working people.”
The mayor said he has no plans to travel to the White House to try to discuss the threats with the president.
“There’s a long history of Black political leaders talking to people who may not see us as first class,” Johnson said.
“Outside of a 2016 Cubs World Series ring, I’m not kissing a ring, okay? The president of the United States of America has an open invitation to the fifth floor of the greatest freakin’ city in the world, the City of Chicago. He can come talk to me,” he added.
“I have a responsibility to working people, and advocating on behalf of working people, but trying to force your will to break the spirit of working people in order to have a conversation? That’s terrorism. We’re not going to negotiate with terrorists.”
Johnson is not the first Chicago mayor to have a hostile relationship with Trump.
Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) often found herself at odds with the president during his first administration.
In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, Lightfoot accused Trump of dishonoring Floyd’s memory after the president suggested those protesting his death should be shot.
“I will code what I really want to say to Donald Trump. It’s two words. It begins with F and it ends with you,” Lightfoot said at the time.
