The annual turkey pardoning usually brings jokes, lighthearted banter, and the ceremonial saving of a bird.
But this year, President Trump veered sharply away from tradition, using his remarks to tear into Chicago’s leadership after the horrific attack on 26-year-old Bethany McGee, the woman set on fire aboard a Chicago L train.
“They burned this beautiful woman riding in a train,” Trump said, visibly angry. “A man was arrested 72 times. Think of that. And they’ll let him out again. The liberal judges will let him out again.”
The case has shocked the country. According to investigative reporting, McGee, a business analyst, was sitting on the train when 50-year-old Lawrence Reed, a career criminal with 72 prior arrests, allegedly doused her in gasoline and lit her ablaze.
Inside Edition’s report describes McGee engulfed in flames, desperately trying to smother the fire by rolling on the floor of the train before collapsing on the platform as bystanders rushed to help. She suffered burns over 60% of her body.
Trump didn’t mince words about how someone with that record was walking free:
“We’re ready to go. We’ve been moving toward Chicago… It’s horrible what’s happening,” he said. “We could make Chicago a safe city in a period of four weeks… eight weeks… nine weeks, ten weeks. It would be totally safe.”
He slammed both Chicago’s mayor and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, calling the governor “a big fat slob” and accusing state leadership of blocking federal help.
“He ought to invite us in… Please make Chicago safe. We’re going to lose a great city if we don’t do it quickly.” Trump doubled down, saying his administration had turned other cities around nearly “instantly” and could do the same in Chicago if allowed.
Authorities say Reed should never have been on the street to begin with. Just three months ago he was charged with knocking a social worker unconscious.
As one official put it: Reed had “plenty of second chances by the criminal justice system,” and the result is an innocent woman fighting for her life.
The attack echoes August’s fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zerutskaya on a Charlotte commuter train, another unprovoked assault by a violent offender roaming free.
For Trump, McGee’s case is not an isolated tragedy but proof of a deeper collapse in urban criminal justice. “If you look at the crime that’s taken place in Chicago in the last two weeks… it’s out of control.”
At the end of his remarks, Trump returned briefly to Thanksgiving themes, but even then couldn’t let the issue go. “When I talk about Pritzker, I get angry because he’s not letting us do the job.”
The message was unmistakable: Chicago’s violent crime problem isn’t a mystery, and it isn’t inevitable. It’s leadership. And Trump is making it clear exactly who he blames for it.
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