President Donald Trump is making it clear that Washington, DC, is just the beginning. Speaking Thursday at a U.S. Park Police facility, Trump told a crowd of law enforcement agents and National Guard members that his crackdown in the nation’s capital could soon spread elsewhere.
“We’re going to make it safe, and we’re going to then go on to other places, but we’re going to stay here for a while,” Trump said, standing before dozens of uniformed officers and Guard members.
This comes after the president ordered the federal government to seize control of DC’s police department while deploying more than 1,900 National Guard troops from multiple states. The move has drawn fierce backlash from city residents, 79 percent of whom oppose the takeover, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll.
Trump’s law-and-order push in DC is only possible because the city is not a state and has limited power to govern itself. That distinction allows the president to federalize its police force in a way he could not easily duplicate in other cities. Still, Trump left little doubt he wants to try.
Trump’s Thursday appearance came a day after Vice President JD Vance staged his own show of support, visiting National Guard members at a Shake Shack in Union Station. Protesters drowned out his remarks with chants of “shame,” “this is our city,” and “we want the military out of our streets.”
Despite the resistance, Trump has repeatedly claimed DC is safer since the federal takeover.
“Washington, D.C. is SAFE AGAIN! The crowds are coming back, the spirit is high, and our D.C. National Guard and Police are doing a fantastic job,” he wrote on Truth Social Friday morning.
But the operation goes beyond policing. The administration has also begun clearing homeless encampments. Asked where displaced people are being sent, Vance dismissed the question, saying it “betrays a certain misunderstanding of what we’re trying to do and what is the nature of real compassion.”
He argued the policy is meant to keep people with mental illness off the streets, asking, “Why have we convinced ourselves that it’s compassionate to allow a person who’s obviously a schizophrenic, or suffering from some other mental illness, why is it compassionate to let that person fester in the streets?”
Vance would not rule out expanding the model.
“We have focused on Washington, DC, because it’s a federal city under our jurisdiction. But we certainly hope that, whether it’s Atlanta or anywhere else, people are going to look around and say, ‘We don’t have to live like this,’” he said. “We hope that people see what we’re doing in Washington, DC, and follow our example all across the country.”
For Trump, the message was just as blunt. He wants troops and federal police not just in DC, but in other cities too.
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Where are they so compassionately sending the mentally ill, indigent, and homeless? Are we to be told about the humane care and attention that will finally be lavished upon them now that Mr Vance and Mr Trump are in charge? Just asking for a friend.