Former President Donald Trump Saturday called the situation in the Atlanta suburb of Buckhead, which has been stopped in its bid to separate from Atlanta and become an independent city, "nothing short of disgraceful" and a "regional embarrassment."
"The good people of Buckhead don’t want to be a part of defunding the police and the high crime that’s plaguing their communities," Trump said in a statement, posted on Twitter by his spokeswoman, Liz Harrington.
The effort by Buckhead to secede from Atlanta was rejected earlier this month after Georgia House Speaker David Ralston and other state Republicans agreed that new Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens should be given time to enact a plan for curbing violent crime before the legislation would be considered that would split up the city, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Trump on Saturday, citing the Buckhead situation, laid into "RINOs" (Republicans in Name Only) including Ralston, slamming "Governor Brian Kemp, the man responsible, along with his puppet master Mitch McConnell, for the loss of two Senate Seats and 2020 Presidential Vote, Lt. Governor Jeff Duncan, Speaker David Ralston, and State Senators Butch Miller, Jeff Mullis, and John Albers."
He added they "always talk a big game but they don’t deliver. What good is having Republican leaders if they are unwilling to fight for what they campaigned on? Every RINO must go! Let the voters decide on the very popular City of Buckhead proposal!"
Ralston said he took his stance on the Buckhead measure after Duncan, also the state Senate president, announced his opposition to the proposal through an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and said he would put Buckhead's plans on pause until 2023.
"It takes two chambers to pass a bill," Ralston told the paper. "The Senate was very clear, and I respect their decision. The problem of how we got here is not solved — that being the crime problem — and I’m going to be watching to see what actions are taken by the leadership of the city of Atlanta."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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