Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has ignited a firestorm after unleashing a blistering tirade against President Donald Trump, accusing him of “declaring war on poor people” instead of waging the kind of war on poverty championed by past presidents.
The remarks, delivered in a Q&A session following a statement out of the city hall yesterday, took aim at Trump’s character as well as his policies. Johnson called the former president “small” and claimed Trump was intimidated by intelligent African Americans like himself.
On Reddit, reactions ranged from gleeful to scathing. One top comment read, “That is the language you need to deal with Donald Trump.” Another mocked Trump’s notorious sensitivity to personal insults: “People call him small not because they care, but because it’s guaranteed to get a reaction out of him as a malignant narcissist.” Others saw the insult as calculated. “Trump will know EXACTLY what that means,” one user wrote, “What a zinger.”
The verbal volley comes on the heels of another tense exchange between the two leaders. Earlier this month, Trump threatened to deploy the National Guard in Chicago, claiming the city’s crime levels warranted federal intervention. Johnson hit back with a sharply worded statement pointing out that homicides in Chicago had fallen by more than 30 percent and shootings by nearly 40 percent in the past year.
Instead of troops, Johnson argued, the city needed the return of federal funding slashed by the Trump administration– cuts that totaled over $950 million for anti-violence programs nationwide, including $158 million earmarked for Chicago. “Sending in the National Guard would only serve to destabilize our city and undermine our public safety efforts,” Johnson said at the time.
Trump has yet to respond directly to Johnson’s latest remarks, though many online are betting he will. As one Redditor quipped, “If that boy could read…” while another predicted, “They’ll just show him the ‘he’s small’ part, and he’ll shake his tiny hands and demand to know, ‘Who is he! How dare he say this about me?’”
Whether Johnson’s comments are likely to escalate their feud, but he’s clearly not in the mood for backing down.
