In a closed-door meeting with GOP members of Congress on Capitol Hill on Thursday, former President Donald Trump reportedly used the word “horrible” when talking about Milwaukee, the Wisconsin city that’s hosting the Republican National Convention next month.
“Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city,” Trump said, as first reported by Punchbowl News.
Whether the expected 2024 Republican presidential nominee will even be in attendance is still up in the air. Trump’s summer plans got complicated after he was convicted by a New York City jury of 34 felonies last month for falsifying documents to cover up a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, a porn star, ahead of the 2016 election. Just four days before the RNC’s July 15 start date, Trump is scheduled to appear for his sentencing date in the Empire State.
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While NBC News has reported that both Mar-a-Lago and the Milwaukee convention sites are preparing for a convention Trump may not attend, his team has ensured that the candidate will visit the Midwest state in a few weeks.
“At no time has convention planning involved any option than President Trump in person to accept his formal nomination as president,” senior adviser Brian Hughes told NBC.
In the days following Trump’s meeting with Republican lawmakers, his campaign team and allies across the country have come to the former president’s defense—with some claiming they never heard the word “horrible” uttered and others saying the media has taken the comments out of context.
“Wrong. Total bullshit,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said on X, formerly Twitter. “He never said it like how it’s been falsely characterized as. He was talking about how terrible crime and voter fraud are.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was eager to deny the remarks, telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday evening, “No, I didn’t hear it, and I was sitting right next to him.” What Johnson seemed unaware of, though, was that Trump himself had been on Fox News to clarify what he meant by the statements.
“I love Milwaukee, I have great friends in Milwaukee, but it’s as you know, the crime numbers are terrible. We have to be very careful. But I was referring to also the election, the the ballots, the, the way it went down, it was very bad in Milwaukee. Very, very bad,” Trump told Aishah Hasnie.
Republican Congressman Bryan Steil of Wisconsin also switched up his script.
