March 07, 2025 11:20 AM UTC

Mayor Mike Coffman's Feckless Fake Resistance Goes On

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Aurora Sentinel’s Cassandra Ballard reports today on the fallout over Tuesday night’s address by President Donald Trump to a joint session of Congress, in which the long-debunked and reborn falsehoods about the supposed “takeover” of the city of Aurora by migrant gangs continued to flow freely from the presidential piehole:

During his speech to members of Congress, Trump made false claims he’s repeated before about Aurora being overrun and destroyed by recent migrants, and especially migrants linked to gangs.

Local elected officials have also repeatedly denied his allegations and narrative, including statements by Trump and his supporters insisting that members of criminal gangs, such as the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, have not taken over the city or parts of it…

Mayor Mike Coffman said he was “very disappointed” that Trump named Aurora in his speech without mentioning the work of the city and Aurora Police Department in successfully pursuing the limited Venezuelan gang presence in Aurora.

The problem former Republican Congressman now Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman faces from these falsehoods in Trump’s speech Tuesday is the same as last year when the fictional takeover of the city became a major talking point for Trump’s campaign. In addition to being factually untrue, the false impression Trump is creating of a lawless city overrun by migrant gangs does real economic harm to the city. After Trump again on Tuesday that Aurora had “buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption,” Coffman was once again obliged to politely defend his city’s reputation:

Trump’s callout of Aurora again Tuesday night prompted a host of local and state officials to push back against comments and narrative, pointing out that it will drive people — and their money — from the city.

“This was underserved and will cause both long-term reputational and economic harm to our city,” Coffman said in an email.

It’s not that Coffman is wrong. Like he has been most of the time with a few damaging exceptions, Coffman has been correct in pushing back against this damaging false narrative about his city. Coffman has pushed back–again, consistently with a few problematic exceptions–since long before the anecdotes about migrant crime in the city were picked up and further hyperbolized by the Trump campaign.

But Coffman’s resistance to the lies spread about Aurora has always been tempered by his desire as a partisan Republican to avoid a direct confrontation with Trump. That’s why Coffman’s pushback this week has consisted of responses to emailed requests for comment from local newspapers instead of taking Trump’s lies on aggressively in national media. With no offense to the Aurora Sentinel, why isn’t Mayor Mike appearing on CNN to say the same thing where millions of Americans will see it?

We all know the reason. Trump might see it too.

And so what looks like courage in the pages of the local newspaper plays out as something else.