In a closed-door meeting with GOP members of Congress on Capitol Hill on Thursday, former President Donald Trump reportedly used the word “horrible” when talking about Milwaukee, the Wisconsin city that’s hosting the Republican National Convention next month.

“Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city,” Trump said, as first reported by Punchbowl News.

Whether the expected 2024 Republican presidential nominee will even be in attendance is still up in the air. Trump’s summer plans got complicated after he was convicted by a New York City jury of 34 felonies last month for falsifying documents to cover up a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, a porn star, ahead of the 2016 election. Just four days before the RNC’s July 15 start date, Trump is scheduled to appear for his sentencing date in the Empire State.

While NBC News has reported that both Mar-a-Lago and the Milwaukee convention sites are preparing for a convention Trump may not attend, his team has ensured that the candidate will visit the Midwest state in a few weeks.

“At no time has convention planning involved any option than President Trump in person to accept his formal nomination as president,” senior adviser Brian Hughes told NBC.

In the days following Trump’s meeting with Republican lawmakers, his campaign team and allies across the country have come to the former president’s defense—with some claiming they never heard the word “horrible” uttered and others saying the media has taken the comments out of context.

“Wrong. Total bullshit,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said on X, formerly Twitter. “He never said it like how it’s been falsely characterized as. He was talking about how terrible crime and voter fraud are.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was eager to deny the remarks, telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday evening, “No, I didn’t hear it, and I was sitting right next to him.” What Johnson seemed unaware of, though, was that Trump himself had been on Fox News to clarify what he meant by the statements.

“I love Milwaukee, I have great friends in Milwaukee, but it’s as you know, the crime numbers are terrible. We have to be very careful. But I was referring to also the election, the the ballots, the, the way it went down, it was very bad in Milwaukee. Very, very bad,” Trump told Aishah Hasnie.

Republican Congressman Bryan Steil of Wisconsin also switched up his script.

“I was in the room. President Trump did not say this,” Steil said on social media. “There is no better place than Wisconsin in July.” When a local WISN 12 News reporter asked if he would acknowledge that these words came out of Trump’s mouth, Stiel responded, “He wasn’t talking about the city. He was talking about specific issues in the city.”

This isn’t the first time Trump has shaded the state—he’s been talking negatively about its standing for years. On the campaign trail back in 2016, he said that the state had declined under then-Governor Scott Walker, a Republican. “I thought Wisconsin was doing well,” Trump said, per Mother Jones. “And it’s not true! It’s okay, it’s in the middle of the pack. Nothing spectacular.”

Democrats, both nationally and locally, have seized the opportunity to use Trump’s comments ahead of the RNC.

Three hours after the remarks were reported, President Joe Biden posted a photo on X of him posing with a Milwaukee Bucks jersey and players after their 2021 NBA championship with the caption, “I happen to love Milwaukee.” In 2020, Biden won the state by around 21,000 votes or less than one percentage point.

Milwaukee’s Democratic Mayor Cavalier Johnson told reporters, “If Donald Trump wants to talk about things that he thinks are horrible, all of us lived through his presidency, so right back at ya, buddy.”

The Democratic National Committee is funding billboards in 10 locations across Milwaukee, Axios reported. Half of the billboards will show Trump’s comments in all caps, while the other half will feature the X post from Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman, who reported the news.

While Milwaukee does face concerns about violent crime in the city, as of 2022, according to the FBI and local police reporting, crime rates per capita in Milwaukee were lower than the national average, and violent crime was on the decline.

Trump and his team have used Wisconsin, whose swing state status makes it highly coveted, as a sort of epicenter for its Big Lie movement—which claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump by Biden. Despite federal and journalistic investigations finding no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Wisconsin, Trump continues to claim interference in the last presidential election (and hint at it in the next one).

Trump’s comments and backlash come as the RNC has been wrestling with security concerns, sponsorships, and marketing snafus.

On Thursday, Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin also posted on social media.

“Milwaukee makes the greatest beer, brats, and motorcycles in the world. It’s home to some of our most vibrant communities, hardest workers, and is a part of what makes Wisconsin the best state in the nation,” she wrote. “Donald Trump wouldn’t understand even if a jury told him so.”