“Before the tents, squalor, filth, and Crime, it was the most beautiful Capital in the World. It will soon be that again,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
To this end, fears grew that the POTUS would deploy the National Guard in a militant-style crackdown, like he recently did in Los Angeles to tackle protests over immigration raids.
Now, those very fears have been confirmed as Trump declared a ‘public safety emergency’ in Washington, describing it as a ‘sanctuary for illegal alien criminals’ that has become marred by ‘lawlessness’ to the point it’s become ‘one of the most dangerous cities in the world’ with homicide rates higher than the likes of Bogotá or Mexico City.
‘Unsettling and unprecedented’
Although his statement is at odds with official statistics that show DC has a 30-year low in violent crime, the 79-year-old went on to invoke section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, confirming a federal takeover of DC’s Metropolitan police.
However, many have taken issue with the dangerous precedent he then appeared to set when he said officers can now ‘do whatever the hell they want’ when met with hostility in the city.
In the press conference, Trump said: “That’s the only language they [alleged criminals] understand. They like to spit in the face of the police. You spit, and we hit, and they can hit real hard.
“It’s a disgusting thing, I’ve watched that for years – police are told, ‘don’t do anything’ and people are spitting in their face and they’re not allowed to do anything, but now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.”
Washington, D. C., mayor Muriel Bowser responded to the news on Monday saying: “While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that, given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised.”
‘Not a slippery slope, a road map’
Reacting to the announcement on Reddit, residents dubbed the initiative sinister, writing: “The Trump police state is upon us.”
“Wow, what an evil b***ard. F*** you, Trump voters,” a second chimed.
“What a failure, impeachment immediately,” a third comment read.
A fourth expressed concern that the initiative inches closer to police state violence against citizens.
“Trump is normalizing the idea that police are so routinely the victims of physical abuse that they need extra special permission to break some skulls.
“At NO POINT have police been told, ‘you have to let citizens spit on you.’ It’s simply not a thing that has ever happened. To use it as justification to crank up state violence is a taking.
“It’s not a slippery slope. It’s a road map,” they added.
Still, Trump insists he’s been forced to take such ‘historic action’ to ‘rescue’ DC from ‘crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse’, adding: “This is liberation day in DC and we’re going to take our capital back.”
The takeover is expected to be in effect for 30 days, with 800 National Guard troops taking to the streets.
Did Trump break the law by using the National Guard to suppress LA protests?
This comes as a federal judge in San Francisco is hearing evidence as to whether Trump broke the law by using the National Guard in California in June to respond to immigration protests.
Five thousand National Guard members were sent to Los Angeles in June, and 300 still remain.
It was the first time in 60 years a president had done this without a state governor’s consent.
Judge Charles Breyer said the court must consider ‘whether the military was used to enforce domestic law, and if so, whether there continues to be a threat that it could be done again’.
The State of California wrote in a legal filing that ‘it simply is not the law that Defendants may deploy standing armies to the streets of California while California is powerless to do anything about that clear violation of the most fundamental principles of our Nation’s founding’.
The Trump administration argue the National Guard’s intervention is expressly supported by the statutes.