Businessman Donald Trump brought his nascent bid for the Republican presidential nomination to town Monday, warning that crime in Chicago is “out of control” and hurting the city’s image worldwide.
His appearance before the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board and for a speech at the City Club of Chicago came the same day NBC announced it was cutting ties with Trump, star of the long-running reality television program “Celebrity Apprentice.” The network cited his remarks from his presidential kickoff speech earlier this month that Latino immigration brings drugs, crime and rapists to the United States.
Trump stood by those comments during the editorial board visit, adding, “I have many friends in Mexico. I have great relationships in Mexico.”
But much of his remarks to the Tribune focused on crime in Chicago, which he said is damaging the city’s reputation.
“Crime in Chicago is out of control and I will tell you, outside of Chicago, it’s a huge negative and a huge talking point, a huge negative for Chicago,” he said.
“You’ve got to stop it. You’re not going to stop it by being nice. You’re going to stop it by being one tough son of a bitch,” Trump said.
Trump acknowledged there have been cases of police brutality but said he believed police today are not as tough as when he was growing up in the mid-1960s.
“You need tough cookies. These are tough kids. These are not babies. These are tough, tough kids. If they saw you walking down the street, they wouldn’t give a damn about you,” he said. “You can’t be so gentle with these people.”
“I’m a big fan of the police, but I think the police now are afraid to act. They’re afraid to be tough.”
He recalled how police dealt with gangs when he was in his late teens in the mid-1960s, when he said he and his father would regularly visit a White Castle in Brooklyn.
“They were very good,” he said of the well-known burgers. “I don’t know if they’re even still around.”
Trump said gangs would inhabit the restaurant “and these cops would walk in there and they had sticks in those days and they’d break up those gangs and those gang members were petrified of those guys. Petrified,” Trump said.
“You have some rough cops, but the cops aren’t so rough today, to put it mildly, OK? And today the kids are shouting at the cops and calling them all sorts of names and laughing at them like it’s a joke. Different world.
“Today if the cops ever did that they’d have ’em arrested and given the electric chair,” Trump said. “They didn’t do wrong. They were just forceful. They were strong. And today it’s not even politically correct to say that.”
However, Trump said, business at his namesake hotel property along the Chicago River has not been affected by any negative impressions of crime in the city.
Trump addressed a wide range of topics with characteristic bombast and sarcasm.
He was critical of the Illinois economy but also criticized the economies of two states headed by potential rivals for the Republican nomination, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as a “disaster.” Still, he contended taxes in Chicago were too high and driving away business.
Trump also derided politicians as “all talk, no action.”
“Nobody knows politicians better than I do. I give a lot of money to Democrats, as a businessperson. For instance, I give to everybody. Everybody loves me, you know? They all love me,” Trump said.
He had kind words, though, for one Democrat from Illinois, disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who did a stint on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010 before he was convicted and sentenced to 14 years behind bars on federal corruption charges stemming in part from attempts to sell a U.S. Senate seat.
“It was good having him on. I found him to be, I can only speak for myself, I found him to be a very nice guy. Not sophisticated. Had little knowledge of computers and things and you know we found that out. … We found him to be very nice,” Trump told the editorial board. “Now, he was under a lot of pressure at that point.
“I think that’s an awfully tough sentence that he got for what supposedly he did,” Trump added. “Because what he did is what politicians do all the time and make deals.”
But Trump wouldn’t say whether he would pardon Blagojevich if he were president, saying he didn’t have enough information about his crimes.
Outside the City Club, dozens of people protested across the street during his luncheon speech, waving American flags and holding signs reading “Hate speech is not presidential,” “Trump go home” and other slogans. Trump came into the event through the kitchen, avoiding the protesters.
After his City Club talk, Trump said he wasn’t surprised about NBC’s moves to separate itself from him as well as dropping the Trump-produced Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants. NBC’s move came after the Spanish-language network Univision announced last week it was dropping the pageants because of the comments.
Trump told reporters he wouldn’t apologize for his immigration comments.
“There’s no apology, because what I said was right,” he said.
