Donald Trump recently claimed that “African-American ladies, beautiful ladies” from Chicago are urging him to visit the city and send in the National Guard as part of his promised nationwide crime crackdown.
“Chicago is a mess, you have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent,” Trump said. “We’ll straighten that one out, probably next. That will probably be our next one after this.”
He went on to add, “And the people in Chicago… are screaming for us to come. They’re wearing red hats, just like this one. African American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, ‘Please President Trump, come to Chicago.’”
According to ABC7 Chicago, Police Superintendent Larry Snelling announced on Jan. 1 that 2024 was the first year in five years the city recorded fewer than 600 murders. Snelling described the year as one of progress, highlighting a 7 percent drop in shootings compared to the previous year and a 25 percent decline in robberies after establishing a special task force.
Trump’s recent comments describing Chicago as “a mess” follow his familiar pattern of exaggerating urban crime rates — as he’s done with Washington, D.C. — to justify his proposed government interventions.
While Trump claimed his call to send the National Guard to Chicago was driven by requests from “African-American ladies, beautiful ladies,” his record tells a different story about his concern for Black women.
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, shared by The Black Wall Street Times, shows that over 300,000 Black women lost their jobs between February and July. His administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, along with layoffs and budget cuts, hit Black women particularly hard — a demographic that makes up 12 percent of the federal workforce.
In July, the agency reported a national unemployment rate of 4.2 percent, yet the figure for Black women stood at 6.3 percent.
In response to Trump’s claims, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (IL-02) fired back in August, firmly rejecting the idea that Black women wanted his intervention.
“President Trump, let me be absolutely clear: you are not welcomed in Chicago. Do not send the National Guard into our city. And you have no authority to claim what Black women want,” Kelly said, emphasizing that deploying the Guard “threatens Black communities that have already been over-policed and under-invested in for generations.”
