A 15-year-old boy was shot dead driving through Chicago last weekend.
Fifteen more were shot the same night when masked gunmen opened fire on a park reunion.
Now Trump is telling the men responsible they have one phone call to make – and they still won't make it.
Forty-One Shot and the Mayor Has a "Strategy"
Forty-one people were shot in Chicago last weekend.
Three are dead.
One of them is 35-year-old Rontonio Guterz, shot six times at a neighborhood reunion in Washington Park – Chicago's largest mass shooting of 2026.
Another is 15-year-old Kyren Wormely, killed in a drive-by on the West Side.
Brandon Johnson's response: the city is focused on stopping "the flow of guns" into communities and investing in "resources that help prevent violence before it occurs."
That's it.
Trump went on Truth Social Tuesday and told Johnson and Governor JB Pritzker exactly what he'd do if they'd just pick up the phone.
"Chicago violence is unchecked and at record levels," Trump wrote. "The city will die if the Federal Government, a fine tuned crime fighting machine, is not invited in, by the Mayor or Governor, to HELP. I am awaiting the call."
He pointed to Washington, D.C., as proof his model works.
Pritzker's answer: Trump is "neither wanted nor needed" in Illinois.
1,255 shooting victims this year and counting – and the governor wants to talk about tariffs.
They Said No Before and People Died
This isn't new.
Trump made the same offer in 2017 – when Chicago recorded 762 murders, more than New York and Los Angeles combined.
Democrats said no then too.
They said no last year when Trump tried to deploy the National Guard – and the Supreme Court ultimately blocked it after lower courts sided against the administration.
https://twitter.com/TrumpTruthOnX/status/2094693704191901826?s=20
Same posture, same people, same results.
Chicago's homicide count did drop in 2025 – and the moment things started trending back up, Johnson declared victory and stopped answering the phone.
Homicides are up 2.9% from this point last year.
Shooting victims are up 11.4%.
And 15 people just got shot in a single incident in a single park on a single night.
Chicago's top cop said the Washington Park attack involved ski masks, a rifle, and at least 36 shell casings on the ground.
That's not a crime statistic.
That's a war zone.
Trump is right – and Pritzker and Johnson know it.
But Johnson dismissed Trump’s criticism.
"When you have a president who is literally defunding the operations that can actually assist us in creating safer communities, it's difficult to take anything that he says seriously," Johnson said. "I find him to be a sorry individual, and if he was serious about driving violence down not just in Chicago, but across the country, he would not be engaged in endless illegal wars."
"The president is investing more to bomb children than he is to feed children,” he continued. “He has an open invitation in Chicago and across this country to reverse the largest upward transfer of wealth that he placed into the hands of the ultra-rich and actually fund the institutions and operations that ultimately provide safety and security for the people of this city and in this nation."
Their refusal has nothing to do with what's best for the people of Chicago.
It's about ego, it's about Pritzker's 2028 presidential ambitions, and it's about refusing to give Trump a win even when Chicago residents are paying for it in blood.
The pastor who responded to the Washington Park massacre put it plainly: "We have a tendency to normalize 15 people that have been shot one day and by tomorrow the issue goes away."
https://twitter.com/IllinoisReview/status/2094884265125179627?s=20
It goes away in the headlines – and Brandon Johnson goes back to talking about de-escalation.
Trump is coming to the Chicago area later this month for the Presidents Cup at Medinah.
Pritzker told him to stay at the country club.
Forty-one shot and three dead, and the governor's priority is scoring points against a man offering free help.
The people of Chicago deserve leaders who love this city more than they hate Donald Trump.
They don't have them.
Sources:
- Donald Trump, Truth Social post, September 2, 2026.
- Sandy Fitzgerald, "Trump: Chicago 'Will Die' Without Federal Intervention on Crime," Newsmax, September 1, 2026.
- "POTUS Warns Chicago 'Will Die' Without Federal Help After 41 Shot Over the Weekend," RSB Network, September 1, 2026.
- "Chicago's Top Cop Says Washington Park Mass Shooting Was 'Somewhat Targeted,'" Chicago Sun-Times, September 1, 2026.
- "Man Killed in Chicago's Largest Mass Shooting of 2026 Was 'An Outgoing Person,'" Chicago Sun-Times, August 31, 2026.
- "'The City Will Die': Trump Rails Against Crime in Chicago, Offers Federal Assistance," Townhall, September 1, 2026.
