After more than 100 people were shot in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend, Mayor Brandon Johnson held a news conference during which he hardened his stance on gun violence, saying “there will be consequences.”
In response to a question about gunshots in his own neighborhood, the mayor touched on the root causes of violence — particularly the correlation between poverty and violence.
Out of that tangent came a viral tweet in which The Blaze, a conservative media outlet, incorrectly said Johnson “blames President Richard Nixon for the violence in his city.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson blames President Richard Nixon for the violence in his city: “Black death has been unfortunately accepted in this country for a very long time. We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes.” pic.twitter.com/BRbMos5pKp
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) July 8, 2024
The tweet, with nearly a million views, caught the attention of the Richard Nixon Foundation, which operates the former president’s library and museum.
“Mayor Johnson’s reference to President Nixon is gratuitous and the facts are not on his side in his characterization of Richard Nixon and the Nixon administration’s civil rights record,” the foundation wrote as a preamble to a series of tweets defending Nixon’s record.
Mayor Johnson’s reference to President Nixon is gratuitous and the facts are not on his side in his characterization of Richard Nixon and the Nixon administration’s civil rights record.
— Richard Nixon Foundation (@nixonfoundation) July 9, 2024
Here are the facts: ???? https://t.co/bWBx5v7DJd
Other conservative media outlets, including Fox News and the Washington Examiner, picked up the story.
"Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson bizarrely blames Richard Nixon for surging gun violence," read the New York Post's online headline.
But Johnson didn’t blame Nixon for violence in Chicago. The mayor’s only mention of Nixon came after reflecting on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty.
“Black death has been unfortunately accepted in this country for a very long time,” the mayor said. “We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes and people mocked President Johnson, and we ended up with Richard Nixon."
After Johnson decided not to run again in 1968, a divided Democratic Party nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey to lead the ticket, only to see him lose to Nixon that November.
Before his mention of Nixon, Johnson said "we didn't get here overnight," not blaming any single person for the city's struggle with violence but instead pointing to poverty.
"The fact of the matter is where there is most violence, that’s where the poverty is most invasive," Johnson said. "This is not just unique to Chicago, this is all over the planet. Where there is poverty, there is destruction and terror and torment. Now as I said, and I’ll finish with this, we gotta hold people accountable. But you know what my ultimate goal is? Is to transform this city so we cut off the pipeline of boys between the ages of 10 and 19 being either victims or the perpetrators, so yeah it is personal."
The foundation’s post on X has garnered over a million views and thousands of interactions, with Nixon supporters jumping to the former president’s defense.
But although Johnson is a self-described progressive Democrat, he has been decidedly bipartisan when criticizing those he argues are responsible for creating an atmosphere that has allowed violence to flourish.
In a news conference in June, the mayor pointed to the “failures of previous administrations” of Chicago mayors, who he argued “have been intentional about leaving our communities behind.”
“This crisis did not show up with simply a bullet,” Johnson said in June. “This crisis showed up when previous administrations decided to give up on these communities.”
Chicago has been ruled by Democratic mayors since 1931.
Hear the mayor's most recent comments:
