Chicago Mayor Slams Trump’s Crime Crackdown, Says Locking Up Criminals is ‘Racist, Immoral, Unholy’

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) delivered a fiery critique of America’s incarceration system Monday, calling it “racist, immoral, and unholy” and arguing that federal intervention would do little to curb crime in the city. 

Johnson urged investment in communities over military deployments or National Guard involvement, framing prisons as an ineffective solution to violence.

Speaking at a Monday press event alongside Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, Johnson framed incarceration as an ineffective tool against crime. 

“We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence. We’ve already tried that. And we’ve ended up with the largest prison population in the world without solving the problems of crime and violence,” he said. 

The mayor added that the nation’s reliance on prisons is “racist, immoral, and unholy,” emphasizing that residents want stronger community services rather than federal involvement. 

“As the mayor of this city, I can tell you that Chicagoans are not calling for military occupation. They are calling for the same thing that we’ve been calling for for some time. And that’s investment,” Johnson said. 

Trump countered by pointing to Washington, D.C., as an example of his strategy’s success, noting the city’s recent drop in violent crime. 

“The incompetent Mayor of Chicago just stated that, in DC, where crime has been brought down to almost nothing, there have been no murders in 9 days, something which hasn’t happened in years, and people are safe again, only nine people have been arrested. That is wrong, hundreds of criminals have been held, captured, and arrested, and their guns have been taken away. DC IS SAFE AND BOOMING!!!” he wrote on social media. 

The White House reinforced the president’s message with a fact sheet highlighting Chicago’s persistent crime challenges, including holding the highest number of murders in the nation for 13 consecutive years. 

In 2024, the city’s murder rate was reportedly three times higher than Los Angeles, five times higher than New York City, and 15 times higher than Delhi, India, according to BizPac Review.

Johnson dismissed Trump’s tactics as a costly stunt, arguing taxpayer dollars should instead go toward local services. 

“What safe cities across America all have in common — they invest in people, and that’s what we’re doing in Chicago,” he said. 

Earlier, in an MSNBC interview, Johnson addressed how the city would respond if federal forces were sent, stressing that such a presence was unnecessary,” Breitbart reports.

“Well, again, the city of Chicago does not need a military-occupied state. That is not who we are,” Johnson said. 

He also questioned the authority of federal troops, noting, “These are federal troops; they do not go through the training that our police officers go through. So they cannot even enact police authority.”

Johnson criticized Trump for the apparent inefficiency of his approach in D.C., stating, “The president has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to what, arrest nine people in D.C.? You know that clearly he’s demonstrated that he doesn’t have a level of consciousness to understand what it takes to run cities, not to mention an entire country.”

Ending his remarks, Johnson warned that any attempt to impose federal control would face resistance. 

“The people of this city are accustomed to rising up against tyranny. And if that’s necessary, I believe that the people of Chicago will stand firm alongside me as I work every single day to protect the people of this city,” he said.

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