Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) told radio host Joe Madison early Wednesday that President Donald Trump was seeking to instigate a race war, and also bizarrely suggested the president would use the opportunity to come out as a Ku Klux Klan leader.
Rush, a longtime Chicago resident and member of the House since 1992, made the remarks as part of a lengthy response to Madison about the possibility of Trump sending in federal agents to quell violence in Chicago.
“Any time you send a group of armed bandits, outlaws — no uniform, no name, no insignia, no identification — and you just snatch up innocent people, and you take them off [to] some unrecognized, some unknown place, you are really terrorizing our nation, you’re terrorizing communities,” said Rush.
“For Trump to talk about sending federal agents in Chicago — we won’t stand for it,” he continued. “I think what Trump is really trying to do, my friend, I think that Trump is really trying to instigate a race war. He wants to have a reaction.”
Rush explained that if the president were to send “armed agents” into certain parts of Chicago, such as the “hardcore Southside,” violence could break out.
“I’m not advocating that,” said Rush, who made clear that he doesn’t endorse an outbreak of violence. “I just know that that’s Trump’s game plan. Trump wants to instigate a race war.”
“He wants to have black folks fighting white folks so he can rise up and say ‘I’m the real Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and I’m the president. Re-elect me.’ That’s what he’s trying to do,” said the congressman.
The Democratic congressman made the remarks on the same day that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden declared that Trump was the first racist president to ever be elected in the United States, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
According to NBC News Chicago, Trump later said in a speech on Wednesday afternoon, after the congressman’s remarks, that he was planning on sending in federal agents to Chicago to “help drive down violent crime,” an idea he initially floated on Twitter over the weekend.
The Radical Left Democrats, who totally control Biden, will destroy our Country as we know it. Unimaginably bad things would happen to America. Look at Portland, where the pols are just fine with 50 days of anarchy. We sent in help. Look at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. NO!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2020
After Trump’s tweet, but before his announced decision to send federal agents, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Twitter that she would not allow “Donald Trump’s troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents” under any circumstances.
Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump’s troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.
— Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) July 21, 2020
The mayor’s office has since confirmed that “federal resources” will be sent into the city, but in a press release, seemed to rebuke concerns these resources were going to “terrorize our residents,” as she had said in her previous statement.
“Mayor Lightfoot maintains that all resources will be investigatory in nature and be coordinated through the U.S. attorney’s office,” said the mayor’s office, reports Fox News. “The Mayor has made clear that if there is any deviation from what has been announced, we will pursue all available legal options to protect Chicagoans.”