President Trump and Mayor Johnson spent another day talking at each other about crime in the city, and whether federal forces are needed on Chicago's streets to curb it.
Mayor Johnson's side of this exchange happened in the op-ed pages of Monday's edition of The New York Times, in which he wrote that the President's pledge to send in National Guard and other military assets was the "wrong solution to a real problem" and touted "a six-decade low" in violent crime tied to "effective collaboration between communities and law enforcement."
The mayor acknowledged that the level of violence in Chicago is "unacceptable," but insisted that "lowering crime rates here does not require an occupation of our city by the National Guard."
As for the President, who over the weekend shared an "Apocalypse Now"-styled meme on social media suggesting that Chicago would soon find out why he wants to call the Defense Department the War Department, he suggested Monday that he doesn't want to go to war with the city, and that his motivation is to help the people of Chicago.
"We'd love to go into Chicago and straighten it out," the President told an audience at the Museum of the Bible. "I don't know why Chicago's not calling and saying 'please, give us help.'"
He again cited recent violence numbers in Chicago ... where six people died over the weekend ... and claimed credit for a reduction in crime in Washington, D.C., where Guard troops have been on patrol for several weeks.