Lori Lightfoot denounces ‘toxicity in our public discourse’ a week after cursing out Justice Clarence Thomas

While speaking at a news conference on Tuesday regarding public safety and the passage of the U.S. Senate’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act on gun control, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) expressed concerns over “toxicity in our public discourse.”

“Gun violence obviously is deep and widespread and pervasive. We saw that play out again in Highland Park yesterday,” Lightfoot said, referring to an attack on a Fourth of July parade that left seven dead and dozens wounded. “In order for us to make meaningful progress, all of us have to be aligned.”

“The toxicity in our public discourse is a thing that I think we should all be concerned about. We have got to focus on what brings us together and not what tears us apart, and we’ve got to get back to respect for each other and respect for community. That’s the thing that concerns me the most over the arc of the last two years,” the mayor said, according to Newsweek.

Her comments come a week after she was filmed at a pride event where she cursed out Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over the Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“Now we know what happened with the Supreme Court yesterday, and if you read Clarence Thomas’ concurrence, he said,” Lightfoot began before she was interrupted by someone in the crowd. She responded by yelling, “F**k Clarence Thomas!” She continued, “He thinks that we are going to stand idly by while they take our rights. Our right to marry, our right to have children.”

The mayor Tweeted after the pride event, “I said what I said,” sharing a picture of herself pointing to a man wearing a shirt that reads, “Fuck Clarence Thomas.”

As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, Lightfoot further expressed her contempt for Thomas in a fundraising email last week, stating: “That’s why, when someone in the crowd at an event this weekend yelled, ‘F**** Clarence Thomas,’ I yelled it right back. And I meant it.”

She added, “Clarence Thomas wants to make women and members of the LGBTQ+ community second-class citizens. His beliefs are a direct attack on my personhood, and I will condemn them EVERY CHANCE I GET.”