(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Soon-to-be-ousted Late Show host Stephen Colbert cursed at President Donald Trump for threatening a federal takeover of crime-plagued Chicago, which the president called “the worst and most dangerous city in the world.”
“Two words, f*** you,” Colbert shouted on Wednesday’s episode of his CBS show, insisting visits to the Windy City served as evidence crime was not that bad.
“Fun fact: No. According to the FBI, 22 major cities have higher rates of murder than Chicago,” Colbert claimed. But the Media Research Center quickly fact-checked him, noting that the Newsweek article Colbert cited manipulated data.
“Fun fact: no. Colbert was citing a Newsweek article headlined ‘Full List of Major Cities With Higher Murder Rates Than Chicago.’ However, the list Newsweek provided was ‘of cities with more than 100,000 residents that have higher crime rates than Chicago, per the FBI report,’” the MRC noted.
In reality, Trump was referring to murder rates. FBI data ranks Chicago as the 8th most murderous city in the nation, according to Newsweek’s own reporting.
Despite these unsettling figures, Colbert painted the city as safe, going as far as reminiscing about the years he lived there.
He continued, “This is a scary time for the people of Chicago. And I love the people of Chicago. I used to be a people of Chicago. In fact, I lived there 11 years—I lived there seven years.”
“In fact, we took our show to Chicago last summer, had an amazing time, but come to think of it, you know what, a lot of us did come home murdered. That’s on me,” Colbert quipped.
Colbert’s tirade came as Trump weighed deploying the National Guard to Chicago, which suffered seven shooting deaths and over 50 injuries over Labor Day weekend.
Democrats have largely dismissed these grim numbers, but even MSNBC host Joe Scarborough urged local leaders to work with Trump to rein in the crime.
