Pete Hegseth: Democratic leaders are ‘capitulating’ to anarchists, destructive forces


Democratic leaders in cities with high crime rates constantly capitulate to anarchists and destructive forces, “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host Pete Hegseth said Friday.

In an “Fox & Friends” interview with hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade, Hegseth said he agreed with President Trump’s remarks during Thursday night’s town hall meeting with Sean Hannity.

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The president stormed cities like Oakland, Chicago, and Baltimore, comparing some to Afghanistan and Honduras.

Trump also blamed the mayors of those cities, all of them Democrats, along with former President Barack Obama and presumed party presidential candidate Joe Biden, for the high rates of homicides and other violent crimes.

“Chicago is an example, it is worse than Afghanistan,” Trump told Hannity. “These cities, it’s like living in hell.”

“He is not wrong,” said Hegseth. “I mean, listen, one of the biggest lies: the left uses big lies. One of the biggest lies they are telling us is that American society is infected with systemic racism. We are all secretly racist. And we are all just around the corner from the corner still harbors racist feelings. “

“But if you look at these Democrat-controlled cities, many of them have black mayors, black police chiefs, black governors, black attorney generals who have been wonderfully chosen by the people to fix those same places. If those places are systematically racist So are your leaders perpetuating that? “he asked. “Can’t they fix it?”

“And why are each of these hotspots run by Democrats who effectively capitulate to Antifa, capitulate to Black Lives Matter, anarchists, and arsonists who burn down buildings and are doing nothing about it?” Hegseth added.

“When you are complicit and you can’t face it, of course it gets worse,” he concluded. “So the problem is that the president can only do so much at the federal level.”

Chicago, in particular, has become a target for criticism from the president, especially after the city reached a grim milestone late last month when it saw 18 murders in one day, making May 31 the deadliest day. of the city in 60 years. In addition, during the Father’s Day weekend, the city counted 104 shootings with 14 dead.

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That said, though, the murder rate in Chicago has declined in recent years. The country’s third largest city saw 490 murders in 2019 – a 13 percent drop from 564 in 2018 and a 35 percent drop from 756 in 2016, when Chicago reported its highest number of homicides in two decades. .

Both Baltimore and Detroit, two cities much smaller than Chicago, have seen their homicide rates increase in 2020, with Baltimore registering 159 murders to date and Detroit seeing a 30 percent increase in homicides as of June 18 with 129 murders.

Fox News’ Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report.