Rep. Ayanna Pressley says, like Trump, his attempt to reinstate death penalty is ‘flawed and deeply racist’

The U.S. congresswoman from Massachusetts said capital punishment has been “disproportionately weaponized” against Black and brown communities.

U.S. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., slammed President Donald Trump for calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty in Washington, D.C.

“Like Donald Trump himself, the death penalty is flawed and deeply racist. It is a fundamentally unjust punishment that has no place in any society,” said Pressley in a statement after Trump said on Tuesday that the death penalty is a “very strong preventative” against crime.

Pressley, who has sponsored federal legislation to prohibit the death penalty, noted that capital punishment has been “disproportionately weaponized against Black and brown communities,” adding “[it] failed to make America any safer—which is why we’ve worked persistently to abolish it and successfully partnered with President [Joe] Biden to re-sentence most of federal death row.”

An execution of a defendant has not happened in Washington, D.C., since 1957. The D.C. Council moved to abolish the death penalty in 1981.

Pressley recalled the ’80s, when Trump, then just a New York real estate mogul and tabloid figure, took out a nearly six-figure newspaper ad calling for the Central Park Five, then teenage Black and Latino boys, to be executed. In 2002, the five men were exonerated and are now known as the Exonerated Five.

“In 1989, Donald Trump paid for multiple ads calling for the execution of five innocent teenagers of color who were coerced and beaten to confess to a murder they did not commit,” said Pressley. “To this day, he has yet to change his views or apologize to these men—who have since been exonerated—and is now seeking to expand capital punishment in Washington, D.C. and across the country.”

The Massachusetts congresswoman excoriated President Trump’s first seven months since returning to the White House, describing his second term as a host of “broken promises.”

“Rather than militarize our cities, weaponize the federal government to terrorize communities, and continue distracting from his many broken promises, Donald Trump should instead prioritize what actually keeps people safe: community-based, trauma-informed solutions like affordable housing, mental health care, and gun violence prevention programs—the same initiatives he has attacked and defunded since taking office,” said Pressley. “That’s how we break cycles of violence and build safe, healthy, and thriving communities.”

Since 2019, during Trump’s first term in office, Congresswoman Pressley has introduced the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act alongside Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill. If passed into law, the bill would prohibit the use of the death penalty at the federal level and require re-sentencing of those currently on death row.

Pressley has also been a vocal criminal justice advocate in Congress since her election in 2018. During former President Joe Biden’s presidency, Pressley urged him to use his clemency powers to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

After Biden commuted the sentences of 37 mostly Black and brown individuals on death row and re-sentenced them to life in prison during his final days in office, Pressley applauded him.

“There is no action more powerful or righteous than sparing someone’s life,” said Pressley. “The President’s decision to commute the death sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row is a historic and groundbreaking act of compassion that will save lives, address the deep racial disparities in our criminal legal system, and send a powerful message about redemption, decency, and humanity.”