Milwaukee Democratic Mayor Cavalier Johnson defended his city, which is set to host the Republican National Convention this summer, after former President Donald Trump called the city “horrible" in a closed-door meeting with House Republicans earlier Thursday.
“This is a great place, and the former president and every Republican who’ll have the chance to come to our great city, they’ll see that when they’re here on the ground in Milwaukee for the convention,” Johnson told CNN’s Laura Coates Thursday night.
Johnson added that insulting the home of tens of thousands of Republican voters in Wisconsin, a swing state, could be politically costly for the former president as he seeks to return to the White House.
“In a state that’s decided on a razor’s edge, that may ultimately cost Donald Trump the election,” Johnson said.
Biden won Wisconsin in 2020 by fewer than 21,000 votes.
Trump visited Capitol Hill Thursday for the closed-door meeting with House Republicans. During a rant on crime rates and so-called election integrity issues, the former president called Milwaukee a “horrible” city, according to a source in the room.
Wisconsin GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who was in the room, made clear to CNN that Trump was “specifically referring to crime in Milwaukee” and not the city itself.
Johnson told Coates that the city is “pulling ourselves out of issues around crime that raged after the pandemic.”
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