Trump Does Damage Control on 'Horrible' Milwaukee Line

As Democrats try to capitalize on Donald Trump's description of Milwaukee as "horrible," the former president is clarifying: "I love Milwaukee," he told a rally Tuesday in Racine, located in the same swing state of Wisconsin, reports the Guardian. Last week, Trump referred to Milwaukee—site of the upcoming GOP convention—as a "horrible city" in a closed-door meeting of GOP lawmakers in DC. Trump and his allies have since insisted he was referring only to the city's crime rate, and the former president emphasized the point on Tuesday:

• "These lying people that they say: 'Oh, he doesn't like Milwaukee.' I love Milwaukee. I said, you gotta fix the crime. But I'm the one that picked Milwaukee, and the Democrats, or the radical-left lunatics, as I call them, what they say is just so terrible. They lie, lie, lie."

• Switch in lodging? The controversy appears to have affected Trump's lodging during the July convention. The New York Times, ABC7, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report that Trump planned to stay in his own hotel about 90 miles away in Chicago during the convention, which surely would have fed into the Democrats' narrative about him disliking Milwaukee. However, Trump now says he will stay in the host city. In fact, "he was always planning on staying in Milwaukee," a campaign aide tells Politico.
• No harm: Coverage of the Racine rally seems unanimous in reporting that Trump's supporters in Wisconsin were not bothered by the Milwaukee comment. "It's the violence, and that's what he was referring to," one attendee tells the Journal Sentinel, voicing a typical sentiment. "Milwaukee is a beautiful city, if you go to the right place."

(More Donald Trump stories.)