Donald Trump supporters listen to the presidential candidate during a rally outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on April 21. | Getty Harrisburg rejects Trump's 'war zone' line

Pennsylvania’s capital city said Donald Trump made “an unfortunate mistake” when he said it “looked like a war zone” from the window of his plane.

“Mr. Trump has made an unfortunate mistake in disparaging Pennsylvania’s capital city after a mere glance from the window of his airplane. Harrisburg is renowned as the heart of our commonwealth and a capital of unique beauty and charm,” Joyce Davis, the city’s director of communications, said in a statement released Tuesday. “Mr. Trump should know that Harrisburg and its residents are an integral part of the United States, which he is vying to lead.”


Trump’s comment Tuesday about Harrisburg came just one day after he campaigned in the region. He spoke to a packed house in nearby Mechanicsburg on Monday night, lamenting the region’s loss of manufacturing jobs and pledging to bring them back.

But at a rally Tuesday in Northern Virginia, Trump said Harrisburg “looked like a war zone” as he flew above it on his way out of town, a characterization that the city objected to strongly enough to release a statement about it.

Trump’s war zone comment came amid a string of unusual statements at his Tuesday morning rally, where he also ejected a baby from the audience and accepted a Purple Heart from a veteran, commenting, “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.”