Chicago Mayor Lightfoot to Trump: 

‘What I really want to say … begins 

with F and it ends with U’

CHICAGO — Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Friday ripped President Donald Trump, saying he’s fomenting violence and playing to racist urges for political gain in response to the killing of a black man by a Minneapolis police officer and subsequent rioting.

Lightfoot’s comments were an apparent response to Trump tweeting a message that included “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” in reply to rioting in Minneapolis and elsewhere following the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck while he was in custody. Lightfoot said the president cannot be allowed to divide and destabilize the country.

“He wants to show failures on the part of Democratic local leaders, to throw red meat to his base,” Lightfoot said in opening remarks at an afternoon news conference. “His goal is to polarize, to destabilize local government and inflame racist urges. We can absolutely not let him prevail. And I will code what I really want to say to Donald Trump. It’s two words. It begins with F and it ends with U.”

Asked later whether she should have used that language toward Trump, in light of former first lady Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” mantra, Lightfoot didn’t back down.

“I don’t take the bait every time, but this time, when we are suffering pain and trauma at the killing of a black man in the street, to try to, for political gain, and blow the dog whistle to his base, I’m a black woman, and a leader, and I feel an obligation to speak out when something as offensive as that is said by anyone, but particularly the president,” she said. “And I make no apologies whatsoever for my word choice, and the way in which I’m calling him out for what he said.”

The angry reaction to Trump from Illinois Democrats wasn’t contained to City Hall.

“From the very moment that I announced my decision to run for governor three plus years ago, I said that this president was a racist, misogynist, homophobe, a xenophobe, and I was right then and I’m right now,” Pritzker said. “His tweets, his reaction, his failure to address the racism that exists in America, his stoking of the flames in sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle, ways is completely unacceptable. It’s reprehensible, in fact.”

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said in a statement that she’s “disgusted by our president’s hateful and racist rhetoric in the wake of the uprisings in Minneapolis.”

And Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle released a statement saying there’s “a pervasive and tragic history of racism in our country, and a United States president who provokes it.”

“As we grieve Mr. Floyd’s death, President Trump is inciting violence against the protesters,” Preckwinkle said. “We cannot stand idly by as he does this, and must affirm the right to peaceful, open protests of police brutality.”

Trump later tweeted again, saying in two tweets: “Looting leads to shooting, and that’s why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night — or look at what just happened in Louisville with 7 people shot. I don’t want this to happen, and that’s what the expression put out last night means. …

“ … It was spoken as a fact, not as a statement. It’s very simple, nobody should have any problem with this other than the haters, and those looking to cause trouble on social media. Honor the memory of George Floyd!”

———

(Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin contributed to this story.)

WATCH: Prisoners at Chicago correctional facility bang on the walls in solidarity with GEORGE FLOYD protesters

May 29, 2020 By Matthew Chapman


On Friday, as protests raged across the nation over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Chicago protesters were joined by the inmates of a correctional facility, who audibly banked on the walls in solidarity.

Watch below:

Not sure if you can hear…but the people locked inside the correctional center are banging on the walls like crazy. #chicagoprotest pic.twitter.com/e4bMxtiAh9
— Jonathan Ballew (@JCB_Journo) May 30, 2020

"We love you" the crowd chants to those inside.#chicagoprotest pic.twitter.com/kH1Ch0T7nA
— Jonathan Ballew (@JCB_Journo) May 30, 2020


Lights flashing inside #chicagoprotest pic.twitter.com/Ohv5zrEJgQ
— Jonathan Ballew (@JCB_Journo) May 30, 2020