The opening salvo in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s third budget cycle was directed clearly and unequivocally at President Donald Trump, but it also carried a pointed message to aldermen.

Employing dark imagery of federal troops waiting to touch down in Chicago and immigration agents snatching mothers outside schools, the freshman chief executive’s 2026 budget address repeatedly cast his $16.6 billion spending plan as the city’s best response to President Donald Trump.

“This is not rhetoric. This is a reality,” the mayor told aldermen. “The ‘Protecting Chicago’ budget protects Chicagoans from Trump’s cuts and his attacks on our city. It protects the services and programs that Chicagoans rely upon.”

However, Johnson’s rhetoric around his first Trump-era budget does not, in fact, match the

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