Ivanka Trump attempted to clap back at her father’s critics by firing off tweets without checking her facts first.
Ivanka was responding to critics who are pointing fingers at her father for his racist rhetoric as the cause of the latest mass shootings in El Paso, Tx, and Dayton, Ohio. In doing so, Ivanka tried to remind her 6 Million Twitter followers that Chicago had its deadliest weekend of the year.
Trump tweeted, “As we grieve over the evil mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, let us not overlook that Chicago experienced its deadliest weekend of the year.”
With 7 dead and 52 wounded near a playground in the Windy City- and little national outrage or media coverage- we mustn’t become numb to the violence faced by inner city communities every day.
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) August 6, 2019
Trump and her alternative facts claimed that Chicago shootings left seven dead and 52 wounded near a playground. The actual truth is that there was a shooting near a playground in Douglas Park, where seven people were injured, but there were no fatalities.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was described as “livid” about Ivanka’s error-filled tweet.
“It wasn’t a playground; it was a park. It wasn’t seven dead. It wasn’t 52 wounded in one incident, which is what this suggests. It’s misleading,” Lightfoot said. “It’s important when we’re talking about people’s lives to actually get the facts correct, which one can easily do if you actually cared about getting it right.”
Mayor Lightfoot and other Chicago officials want to focus on how best to run and protect the city and not have to address “ nonsense tweets from people who don’t know what they’re talking about,” the Mayor said.
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson also made a statement correcting Trump’s tweet.
“That’s not what happened,” Johnson said. “She’s conflating the whole weekend’s activity into one incident.”
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Ivanka Trump issued a statement on Tuesday and admitted the numbers in the tweet were “misleading,” but continued to stand by the overall message.
