Seven members of Congress have debunked the misleading media claim that former President Donald Trump supposedly called Milwaukee a “horrible city” during a closed-door meeting with members of the U.S. House. We round up their comments below.
“I was in the meeting. President Trump never disparaged Milwaukee. Just another Democrat hoax,” U.S. Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana wrote.
The claim first originated from a reporter for a Washington D.C. area site called Punchbowl News and ricocheted throughout the media, sending Democrats rushing to their keyboards to post their sputtering outrage on social media. The Punchbowl News reporter claimed Trump said, “Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city.”
The only problem is that the claim is misleading at best, completely lacking context. Members of Congress who were actually in the closed-door meeting, which was not open to the press, said that Trump did not disparage or insult Milwaukee, where the upcoming Republican National Convention will be held. Rather, they say he was expressing specific and legitimate concerns about election integrity and crime, not trashing the city as a whole.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung wrote on X that Trump “was talking about how terrible crime and voter fraud are.”
That didn’t stop the liberal myth from being endlessly perpetuated, with Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers saying, “We know he said that. He’s the biggest con we’ve seen, and he’ll continue to do that.”
Apparently, Evers has decided to ignore the seven members of Congress who say that, actually, it’s not that simple.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other media outlets reported as a fact that Trump made the “horrible city” comment, even dropping the attribution – that the claim came from a single reporter for Punchbowl News. Other news outlets were careful to only say that Trump used the word “horrible” when discussing Milwaukee.
“That odor that’s in the air right now is the stench of desperation from Democrats who are grasping at straws to salvage Joe Biden’s failing re-elect bid. Instead of pouncing on yet another fake news hit on President Trump, Biden and Democrats ought to spend their time and energy doing something about their horrendous record on inflation, crime, and immigration– the real issues driving Americans to the polls this November, said RNC Spokesman Kush Desai.
Milwaukee has a host of problems, from recent years of record homicide numbers to a reckless driving epidemic. Milwaukee Public Schools is in a fiscal meltdown, and the city begged to raise its sales tax to prevent bankruptcy.
Here is a round-up of comments from the members of Congress who are debunking the claim:
Rep. Claudia Tenney (NY-24)
“President Trump was responding directly to my question about the lack of ELECTION INTEGRITY by election officials in certain US cities including Milwaukee. President Trump made no derogatory remarks about the great citizens and communities in those cities.
Much like New Yorkers, Wisconsinites are fed up with violent crime and rampant voter fraud.
Democrats know the voters are on our side, so they’re trying to twist President Trump’s words.”
Rep. Bryan Steil (WI-01)
“I was in the room. President Trump did not say this. There is no better place than Wisconsin in July.”
Steil also said to WISN-TV, “He wasn’t talking about the city. He was talking about specific issues in the city. I think it was horrible that a 9-year-old boy was killed on the north side of Milwaukee yesterday. We’ve had challenges in the city as it relates to the public school system.”
Rep. Glenn Grothman (WI-06)
“Well, he said nothing that I considered an insult to Milwaukee,” Grothman told The Hill.
“He made it clear we had to do better in Milwaukee, as we have to do in many of the big cities in the northern United States. But having been born in Milwaukee raised right north of Milwaukee, there was nothing I found offensive. I think you had, like always, some mainstream media personalities, who like to think of an excuse to drag down President Trump, and that’s not true.”
“He said nothing that I consider to be a criticism of Milwaukee, other than that we’ve got to get more of them to be voting Republican in the future.”
Grothman said Trump spoke for an hour and told The Hill that it’s too bad he couldn’t speak “without having a devious reporter mischaracterizing what you say. And that’s what happened here.”
Grothman made similar comments in an interview with Wisconsin Right Now.
He told WRN that Trump said he “felt we have to do better in big northern cities. He mentioned Milwaukee.” He said that Trump was referring to the GOP winning elections and said something to the effect that “our performance has to improve, which everyone knows. For us to win Wisconsin, we have to do better in Milwaukee and Madison.”
He said that Trump was meeting with Republican congressmen to “give us a pep talk.” Grothman said it went “fantastically well. Everyone was enthralled. Trump is always great in private and in public.” He said that Donald Trump “said we have to do better in Milwaukee.”
Asked what specific words Trump used, and whether he used the words “horrible city,” Grothman said that it was a 70-minute speech, and he doesn’t remember every word Trump said in it but that he doesn’t believe Trump “said anything derogatory about Milwaukee,” other than referring to the problems the GOP has in winning elections there.
Rep. Tom Tiffany (WI-07)
Tiffany told ABC News that he never heard Trump use the phrase “horrible city.”
“What I heard is to make sure there’s election integrity in Milwaukee,” Tiffany told ABC. “He’s talking about the states that are in play and the states of greatest importance and Wisconsin is top of the list.”
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (WI-03)
“Another classic example of sh*tty reporting by a Democratic Party shill pretending to be a journalist.” He said that the claim was “lies” through “omission,” and added that Trump “was specifically referring to” the “CRIME RATE in Milwaukee.”
Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (WI-05)
“Congresswoman Claudia Tenney from New York raised her hand and asked a question that related to elections and election integrity,” Fitzgerald said to WISN. “And the president began to answer by saying that there are 19 specific places throughout the nation that they’re very concerned about. And one of the places that he was concerned about was the city of Milwaukee. And so that’s that’s where the comment came from.”
Rep. Jim Banks (IN-03)
“I was in the meeting. President Trump never disparaged Milwaukee. Just another Democrat hoax.”
