Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner said Wednesday that Donald Trump’s administration has not contacted him about violence in Chicago.
Rauner, a Republican, made the comments in response to a question about Trump’s tweet Tuesday night, when the President wrote, “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!”
Asked on WGN radio’s “Steve Cochran Show” whether Trump has called him about helping to decrease violence in Chicago, Rauner replied, “He has not. Our administration, I’ve asked and it’s happened now for the last 18 months, our administration has been in conversations with members of at the DEA and at the FBI. We continue to talk to experts around the country, we continue to believe it’s not the right thing for us to send in the National Guard.”
Rauner also said that in addition to a surge of Illinois state police in the short term, he thinks the solution to the problem lies in “more equitable school funding, more equal school funding.”
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, said Wednesday that he would “welcome, always have, welcome federal participation in working with local law enforcement to dealing with guns and gangs,” adding that many guns come to Chicago from out of state.
Expanding on his tweet in an interview aired Wednesday night with ABC News’ David Muir, Trump said that “Chicago is like a war zone” and that it “can’t be a great city if people are shot walking down the street for a loaf of bread.”