In a series of angry rants ahead of his arrest on 13 charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Donald Trump unleashed an attack on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and the city of Atlanta while falsely bragging about the success of his interview with Tucker Carlson.
Almost none of Trump’s claims are true.
“Why is there so much MURDER in Atlanta? Why is there so much Violent Crime? People are afraid to go outside to buy a loaf of bread!” said the ex-president, who has been criminally indicted four times and is now out on bail. His remarks Thursday add to what some have characterized as an attempt to promote racist attacks on those who are prosecuting him.
“One big reason is that failed District Attorney, Fani Willis, who is campaigning and fundraising off ‘get Trump’ (much like the others!), doesn’t have the Time, Money, or Interest to go after the real criminals, even the REALLY Violent ones, that are destroying Atlanta, and its once beautiful culture and way of life. This is yet another SAD DAY IN AMERICA!” Trump said via his social media platform Truth Social.
Just minutes earlier Trump had claimed the video of his interview with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who promotes white nationalism and authoritarian strongmen around the world, received “231,000,000 Views, and still counting.”
Experts say the metrics on the video which was posted to the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, are extremely flawed. A “view” could include anyone just scrolling past the post – without watching any portion of the video.
“The Biggest Video on Social Media, EVER, more than double the Super Bowl!” Trump claimed.
The most-viewed video on social media is “Baby Shark Dance,” according to Statista, with over 13 billion views.
“But please excuse me,” Trump continued sarcastically, “I have to start getting ready to head down to Atlanta, Georgia, where Murder and other Violent Crimes have reached levels never seen before, to get ARRESTED by a Radical Left, Lowlife District Attorney, Fani Willis, for A PERFECT PHONE CALL, and having the audacity to challenge a RIGGED & STOLEN ELECTION. THE EVIDENCE IS IRREFUTABLE! ARREST TIME: 7:30 P.M.”
Murder and violent crime in Atlanta are down, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which this week responded to another of Trump’s false claims.
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“In fact,” The Journal-Constitution reported, “violent crime is down more than 20% compared to this time last year, according to Atlanta Police Department data. Motor vehicle theft and theft from vehicles were the only areas of increase, records show. Data analyzed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show claims by Trump and his surrogates regarding crime in Atlanta are misleading at best.”
Meanwhile, the Associated Press this week reported “Donald Trump’s aggressive response to his fourth criminal indictment in five months follows a strategy he has long used against legal and political opponents: relentless attacks, often infused with language that is either overtly racist or is coded in ways that appeal to racists.”
Trump “has used terms such as ‘animal’ and ‘rabid’ to describe Black district attorneys. He has accused Black prosecutors of being ‘racist.’ He has made unsupported claims about their personal lives. And on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump has deployed terms that rhyme with racial slurs as some of his supporters post racist screeds about the same targets.”
“The rhetoric is a reminder of Trump’s tendency to use coded racial messaging as a signal to supporters, an approach he has deployed over several decades as he evolved from a New York City real estate tycoon to a reality television star and, eventually, the president. Even if he doesn’t explicitly employ racial slurs, his language recalls America’s history of portraying Black people as not fully human.”
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