CHICAGO _ Days after he came to Chicago and personally lobbed insults at police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Friday morning to continue his verbal assault on the city's top cop.
"Chicago will never stop its crime wave with the current Superintendent of Police. It just won't happen! Thank you to Kevin Graham and all of the GREAT Chicago Police Officers I just had the privilege to meet. Tremendous crime fighting potential if allowed to do your thing!"
Trump came to Chicago on Monday for a high-dollar fundraiser at Trump Tower, and for a speech at an international police chiefs conference. During his speech, Trump criticized Johnson, who had boycotted the remarks but attended other portions of the convention saying the president's address was not in line with his or the city's values.
Johnson's absence prompted the president to go on a highly personal attack against the police superintendent.
"There is one person who is not here today. We're in Chicago. I said, 'Where is he? I want to talk to him.' In fact, more than anyone else, he should be here, because maybe he could learn something," Trump said of Johnson before several hundred applauding convention attendees.
Trump on Monday called Johnson's rationale for avoiding his speech "a very insulting statement after all I've done for the police. And I've done more than any other president has ever done for the police."
"Here's a man who could not bother to show up for a meeting of police chiefs, the most respected people in the country, in his hometown and with the president of the United States. And you know why? It's because he's not doing his job."
Later Monday, Johnson defended his department and the "Chicago turnaround" by saying double-digit percentage declines in homicides and in shootings through mid-October, as well as in each of the past two years, were significant factors in a nationwide drop in violent crime.
"After today, I'm not even going to comment on this anymore because we have bigger challenges in this city than to be going back and forth, you know, on stuff like this," Johnson said. "Getting caught up in negativity is just never been something that I do, and I'm certainly not going to do it now."
In his Friday morning tweet, the president also thanked Graham, the president of the city's Fraternal Order of Police, who greeted him Monday after he landed at O'Hare International Airport.
