US President Donald Trump was asked by a Fox News reporter if he was trying to go to war with Chicago – but the world leader tore into the journalist in his blunt response. Trump, who was wearing a blue suit with a red tie, leaned towards the reporter and replied: “When you say that, darling, that’s fake news.”
He added: “I don’t go to war with the Department of Defence. Listen, be quiet. You don’t listen, you don’t listen, you never listen. That’s why you’re second grade. We’re not going to war, we’re gonna clean up our cities. We’re gonna clean them up so they don’t kill five people every weekend. That’s not war – that’s commonsense.”
It comes after the President signalled his intention to send soldiers to Chicago to increase the deportation of illegal immigrants by sharing an AI-generated image from Apocalypse Now on social media.
The image was of himself as a military officer in the movie Apocalypse Now, with the title changed to “Chipocalypse Now” over fire and the city skyline.
The post was captioned: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…” Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
The post was made as Trump ramped up his threats to deploy military personnel in Chicago, as well as federal authorities, as he has done in Washington, DC and Los Angeles.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, wrote on the social media platform in response to Trump’s post: “The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke.
“This is not normal. Donald Trump isn’t a strongman; he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”