White House rejects Chicago mayor's reparations push, calls race-based programs illegal

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson took to a podcast Sunday to defend his city's approach to public safety, but the conversation quickly pivoted to a broader clash over wealth, race, and the role of federal power. Johnson was discussing crime reduction efforts in Chicago—where his administration reports double-digit drops in homicides, shootings, and violent crime since he took office in May 2023—when podcast hosts Angela Rye, Bakari Sellers, and Andrew Gillum brought up a recent Truth Social post from President Trump. Trump had written that Chicago was suffering an "unprecedented and particularly violent crime wave" and demanded that the mayor and Illinois governor request federal help to "extinguish it quickly and completely."

Johnson's response went beyond the immediate crime question. He accused Trump of enriching wealthy Americans while ignoring what he called the demands of "descendants of the formerly enslaved." The mayor framed it as a choice: Trump had orchestrated "the largest upward transfer of wealth into the hands of the ultrarich," Johnson said, "at the expense of the demands of those of us who are descendants of the formerly enslaved." He pointed to cuts in education, housing, healthcare, transportation, and job creation as areas where those demands had gone unmet. Johnson also claimed the Trump administration had cut the violence prevention budget by $800 million and reduced ATF funding by 30 percent—cuts he said undermined local police efforts to remove illegal weapons from Chicago streets. His department, he noted, had seized nearly 9,000 illegal weapons in a single year through coordination with federal agents.

The White House responded swiftly on Wednesday. A spokesperson told Fox News Digital that "government programs that dole out money based on race are illegal" and suggested Johnson would better serve Chicago by focusing on homicide reduction rather than what the administration called "divisive, unconstitutional government action." White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster added that President Trump had been elected with a mandate to "end divisive, racist policies and restore merit and efficiency," characterizing diversity and equity initiatives from the Biden years as destructive to the labor market and business operations.

Johnson had not used the word "reparations" explicitly during the podcast interview, but his office clarified afterward that his remarks aligned with the city's reparations work. In May 2023, Johnson signed an executive order establishing a 40-member reparations task force to address "historical harms committed against Black Chicagoans and their ancestors." In March of this year, he announced the Repair Chicago initiative, a public engagement effort designed to gather lived experiences from Black residents and inform future city policy and equity measures.

The conflict reflects a widening federal assault on local reparations programs. Evanston, Illinois, launched the nation's first municipally funded reparations initiative in 2021, offering $25,000 grants to eligible Black residents or their direct descendants for housing and home repairs, funded by taxes on legal recreational marijuana sales. The city has distributed more than $7 million of a $20 million fund to date, and in 2025 its Reparations Committee approved additional funding for 44 residents. But the Trump administration's Department of Justice has signaled it will challenge such race-conscious distribution models. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division previously told Fox News Digital that local officials pushing these measures are "virtue signaling" to win votes.

Federal intervention is expanding. In September of last year, the DOJ warned officials in Buncombe County, North Carolina, that it would investigate potential civil rights violations if local leaders approved recommendations from the Asheville-Buncombe Community Reparations Commission. The pattern suggests the administration intends to use federal enforcement power to block or dismantle local reparations efforts, even as cities like Chicago and Evanston argue they are addressing specific historical injustices within their own jurisdictions. Johnson's crime reduction numbers—homicides down 3.8 percent, shootings down 1.3 percent, robberies down 20.9 percent from the prior year—suggest his administration is pursuing both public safety and reparations work simultaneously, but the White House has made clear it sees the latter as legally and ideologically indefensible.