Politically Unstable: Chicago’s crime crisis

There’s been a war of words between President Trump and Chicago’s mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois governor JB Pritzker over sending the National Guard to the city. How big of a problem is crime in Chicago? What caused this crisis?

Rod Blagojevich, former Democratic governor of Illinois, joins Washington Times Commentary Editor Kelly Sadler on Politically Unstable to discuss.

[SADLER] A lot has been coming from JD Pritzker. As he’s taking a walk on the beach, he’s saying Chicago’s safe in the morning. Brandon Johnson is also saying that crime is not a problem in the city of Chicago, and they’re working on it, and they’re making their own strides. What say you to the state of Chicago, of Illinois, the crime problem and what the current leadership there should be doing? 

[BLAGOJEVICH] Well, for Governor Pritzker and for Mayor Johnson to say crime is not a problem in Chicago, it’s the same lies that they told them about President Biden being cognitively fit to be president. It was obvious that he wasn’t. They were lying to us about something we knew wasn’t true. Eventually, they even admitted the lie by forcing him out of the presidential race. And this is the same sort of thing. Crime is a very serious problem in Chicago. Tell that to the families who lost 285 people to murders this year in Chicago alone. In fact, this past weekend, seven people were murdered and 12 others were shot. The weekend before that, the numbers were even higher. 

We are averaging more than a murder a day in Chicago. And as of this past week, we’ve had 147,899 reported crimes in Chicago. That’s averaging almost 600 crimes a day. So for the mayor and for Governor Pritzker to say that crime is not a problem and that violent crime is not a problem is a flat-out lie. And they’re lying about something that’s critical. It’s literally life and death. They’re lying about something that they have a responsibility to do, and that is to keep people safe. The first duty of government is public safety. The mayor and the governor have a responsibility to do everything possible within what’s legal and lawful and moral and ethical to save lives, and for them to turn down President Trump’s offer of help — and by the way, we know what works with President Trump is to what the National Guard with federal enforcement aid officers, because we see what’s happening in Washington, D.C. — for Governor Pritzker and for Brandon Johnson to turn down that offer of help isn’t just the wrong thing to do. It’s an immoral thing to do because they can literally save lives. 

And here’s something that I think is important for your listeners to know. 80% of the murder victims of Chicago are black. 95% of the murder victims of Chicago are Black and Latino. So the very people the Democratic Party claims they are for are the very ones who are dying, and they’re the ones that Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson refused to help. And worse than that, they’re not even not wanting the help from President Trump, Governor Pritzker has said he’s going to go to court. They are threatening to block President Trump’s offer to come in and save lives. But the Democratic Party today it’s all rhetoric, it’s all talk, it’s all politics over public safety, and Black lives matter to them only when it comes to votes. 

Watch the video for the full conversation.

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