During a recent interview, President Donald Trump invoked the “scary” prospect New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker as a supposed czar of urban housing that would be dropped into the middle of the suburbs if Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is elected.
Speaking with Fox News with host Laura Ingraham, the president painted a picture of low income housing causing crime and other problems, using Westchester County, just north of New York City as an example. However, Westchester County consistently ranks among the richest counties in the nation and has some of the safest communities.

“So you have this beautiful community in the suburbs, including...women, right? Women, they want security,” said Trump. “I ended where they build low income housing projects right in the middle of your neighborhood. If Biden gets in, he already said it’s going to go at a much higher rate than ever before and you know who’s going to be in charge it? Cory Booker, that’s gonna be nice, ok.”

It is unclear why he singled Booker out as someone who would disrupt suburban communities, but over the months of social unrest over police violence, he has been advocating “law and order” in response. His rhetoric over last week’s Republican National Convention reflected a position of shutting down the protests over repeated incidents of violence and blamed Democratic mayors for not handling them and has attacked Biden for not directly condemning the violence.

However, Joe Biden did take a firm stand against the violence that has wracked various cities across the nation. In a speech in Pittsburgh on Monday (Aug. 31), he balked at Trump’s notion that he was weak on it.
“I want to make it absolutely clear: Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted,” Biden said. “Violence will not bring change. It will only bring destruction. It’s not what Dr. King or John Lewis taught, and it must end.”

Later in the interview, Trump continued to boast that he has done “more than any president in the history of our country [for African Americans] except for maybe Abraham Lincoln.” He also attacked Biden again over the 1994 crime bill which he sponsored, which is blamed for increasing incarceration levels for African Americans and said the then-Delaware senator called them “superpredators.”

But that is actually a misquote. The “superpredators” remark is actually attributed to then-First Lady Hillary Clinton in a 1996 speech she gave in Keene, N.H., which later served to alienate some Black voters from her.
Trump went on to say that African American communities actually do want law and order and policing, and reject the violence that has come from the demonstrations.
“They’re being affected in a much harsher, meaner matter than anybody else,” said Trump. “That includes Hispanics...look, they want law and order, they want the police...they’ve gotten along with the police and the police have been very badly mistreated because you have one bad apple and it becomes the story for weeks.”

Later Tuesday (Sept. 1), Trump was expected in Kenosha, Wisc., the site of more than a week of protests after the police shooting of Jacob Blake. The demonstrations turned deadly after teenage gunman Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two protesters. He is charged with homicide and is awaiting extradition later this month.
Regarding Booker, some took to social media to reject Trump’s criticism of him, suggesting that Trump is using a stereotype of Black men to scare voters. They used images of Booker actually being helpful in the community, a juxtaposition of him actually creating crime and mayhem in the suburbs.