Chicago mayor attacks Trump’s wealth policies — White House has a two-word suggestion

THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?

SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do).

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson accused Trump of engineering an enormous transfer of wealth to the richest Americans at the expense of descendants of enslaved people.
The White House responded that government payments based on race are unlawful and told Johnson to concentrate on reducing Chicago’s homicide rate.
Johnson’s administration already has a reparations task force and a Repair Chicago initiative, while the mayor points to falling crime figures as evidence of progress.

LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time).

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has found another reason to be furious with President Donald Trump.

This time, it isn’t just immigration enforcement, federal intervention or the president’s criticism of crime in the Windy City.

It’s money. Specifically, Johnson believes Trump is helping wealthy Americans while neglecting the demands of descendants of enslaved people.

And the White House has a suggestion for Chicago’s mayor: How about concentrating on the homicide rate?

The clash erupted Wednesday after Johnson’s appearance on the Native Land Pod podcast, where hosts Angela Rye, Bakari Sellers and Andrew Gillum discussed the city’s crime problems, public safety strategies and Trump’s criticism of Chicago’s leadership.

Johnson dismissed the president’s attacks as disingenuous, accusing him of presiding over what the mayor described as the largest transfer of wealth upward to America’s richest citizens.

He argued that the economic benefits came at the expense of education, housing, health care, transportation and jobs—areas he connected to longstanding demands for redress by descendants of formerly enslaved Americans.

Those are sweeping claims about federal economic policy, and Johnson did not provide a detailed calculation establishing the scale of the alleged wealth transfer during the remarks reviewed.

The White House wasn’t interested in debating his economics.

Instead, a spokesperson told Fox News Digital that race-based government payouts are illegal and urged the mayor to focus on bringing down Chicago’s homicide rate rather than supporting policies the administration considers unconstitutional.

White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster also defended the administration’s opposition to race-conscious government programs, saying Trump had been elected to restore merit-based policies and eliminate discriminatory preferences.

The administration argues that certain race-based programs violate federal civil-rights protections, but the constitutionality of any particular reparations program depends on its design and applicable law.

And while Johnson didn’t explicitly use the word “reparations” in the podcast interview, the issue is hardly foreign to his administration.

He signed an executive order establishing a 40-member reparations task force to examine historical harms suffered by Black Chicagoans and their ancestors. In March, the city announced Repair Chicago, a public engagement initiative intended to collect residents’ experiences and inform future recommendations concerning reparative policies.

The debate isn’t merely theoretical in the Chicago area.

Nearby Evanston launched a reparations program in 2021, offering eligible Black residents and qualifying descendants grants of up to $25,000 for housing-related purposes. According to the figures cited in Wednesday’s reporting, Evanston has distributed more than $7 million from a planned $20 million fund.

The Trump Justice Department has increased scrutiny of race-conscious programs, with Civil Rights Division officials signaling potential legal challenges to initiatives they believe distribute government benefits on impermissible racial grounds.

But Johnson had another complaint about Trump’s priorities.

He accused the president of reducing federal violence-prevention funding and cutting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives budget by 30 percent.

Johnson also maintained that cooperation between Chicago police and federal authorities has helped remove nearly 9,000 illegal firearms from the streets this year.

Those budget and enforcement figures were presented by the mayor; the reporting reviewed did not independently establish the precise funding reductions or firearms total.

The mayor argued that Trump was focusing on the wrong borders while illegal firearms continued entering Chicago.

Trump, meanwhile, had recently accused Chicago of experiencing a worsening violent-crime emergency and offered federal assistance if Johnson or Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker requested it.