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South Dakota governor slams Seattle at RNC and Durkan hits back

caption: A crowd of around 1,000 people march toward Seattle City Hall during a Defund The Police march from the King County Juvenile Detention Center on Wednesday August 5, 2020, in Seattle.
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A crowd of around 1,000 people march toward Seattle City Hall during a Defund The Police march from the King County Juvenile Detention Center on Wednesday August 5, 2020, in Seattle.
KUOW Photo/Megan Farmer

Mayor Jenny Durkan says a speaker at the Republican National Convention has Seattle all wrong.

On Wednesday night, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem delivered a speech to the televised convention, slamming the response by Democratic mayors in Seattle, Portland and elsewhere to citizens' protests against police violence.

Noem declared these cities have been overrun by mobs.

“There's looting, chaos, destruction and murder,” Noem said. “People who can afford to flee have fled. But those who can't ... good, hard-working Americans ... are left to fend for themselves.”

She went on to intimate that all that stood in the way of the utter destruction of America was Donald Trump.

That didn't set well with Durkan, who responded in an interview on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show.

"Her caricature of the great cities across America is not only wrong, it’s purposely wrong,” Durkan said. “She needs to get off Twitter and get off Fox News and come see our city."

Durkan went on to say people are not fleeing Seattle. She pointed to the city's soaring home prices and declining crime rate as proof.

And she said she was glad to raise her sons in Seattle. "I would not have raised them anywhere else."

There has been violence during protests in Seattle, but whose fault that is has been a matter of debate. Most of the demonstrations have been peaceful.

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