Republican lawmakers scrambled to clean up the mess after Donald Trump trashed Milwaukee as a "horrible city."
The presumptive GOP nominee slandered the host city for this summer's Republican National Convention during a meeting Thursday on Capitol Hill with the party's House delegation, and the Milwaukee Journal Statesman reported that lawmakers appeared to be caught off guard by the bombshell that Punchbowl News dropped into the news cycle.
GOP members of Wisconsin's congressional delegation offered varying reactions to Trump's remark, which came five days before he is scheduled to hold a campaign rally in nearby Racine.
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"U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman of the Sixth Congressional District and U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald of the Fifth Congressional District, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Trump made the comments when speaking about the upcoming election," the newspaper reported. "Grothman said Trump 'was concerned about the election in Milwaukee' and said he thought Trump 'felt we need to do better in urban centers around the country.' He suggested Trump had concerns that Republicans 'didn’t do very well in Milwaukee.'"
An aide to Fitzgerald also claimed that Trump's comments "were about election integrity," in reference to his continued insistence that fraudulent absentee ballots in Milwaukee had cost him a 2020 election win in Wisconsin, where there of the former president's allies have been charged with crimes related to his effort to overturn his loss.
A spokesman for the state Republican Party agreed the former president's remarks must have been about fraud and his election loss.
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"Election integrity in Wisconsin matters, and the Republican Party of Wisconsin is doing its part to protect the vote," said Matt Fisher, spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
A spokesman for the GOP convention told WDJT-TV that Trump "was referencing the ongoing political game the City and County are playing with Pere Marquette Park. Despite concerns being raised months ago, the City has still not designated a first amendment zone."
Another lawmaker who was present during the meeting insisted that Trump never even made the comment.
"Rep. Bryan Steil, who represents the state's First Congressional District, said 'I was in the room. President Trump did not say this. There is no better place than Wisconsin in July,'" the Journal Sentinel reported.