In a town hall style interview on Fox News, President Trump claims that stop and frisk policy would help major cities decrease crime.
Speaking with Sean Hannity, Trump name dropped Oakland, Chicago, Detroit and Baltimore as cities that have more crime than Honduras and Afghanistan.
“Everybody gets upset when I say that they say ‘oh that’s a racist statement.’ It’s not racist. Frankly Black people come up to me and say ‘thank you sir for saying it,'” Trump told Hannity. “These cities, it’s like living in hell.”
Trump went on to praise his personal attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani who has taken credit for the stop and frisk policy that the Supreme Court found unfairly targeted minorities and was ruled unconstitutional.
“[Rudy Giuliani] started it and it worked great. [Michael] Bloomberg blew it because he went crazy with it and ultimately took away a lot of rights.”
In his 2020 Presidential bid, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was hammered by democrats for upholding the stop and frisk policy in New York City. Bloomberg apologized for defending the policy prior to announcing what would be a short run for the presidency.
Since he began his run for the highest office, Trump has advocated for stop and frisk specifically in Chicago but in his three-and-a-half years in office he has not taken action in the city. Trump has gone as far as threatening to send “the feds” to Chicago to help limit the violent crime.
