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Donald Trump ventured out into Washington, D.C. in a mission to thank federal and local law enforcement for their efforts to stymie violent crime. But in short remarks, Trump revealed his true intentions – to make the nation’s capital reflect one of his luxury golf clubs.
After he’s finished beautifying the city, and specifically the grass, the president claims it will look like Trump National Golf Club. ‘It’s going to go up like a miracle,’ he claimed. You do the job and safety and I’ll get this place fixed up physically and we’re going to be so proud of it at the end of six months. But let’s say at the end of a year, this place will be maxed out in terms of beauty.’ The president said earlier in the day that he would j oin a ‘patrol’ with military and law enforcement to survey the progress after he initiated a federal crime crackdown in the city. But in a far cry from riding alongside officers in the dark of night through DC’s most dangerous neighborhoods, the president played it safe, staking out a police headquarters in Anacostia hours before sunset. ‘It’s like a different place, it’s a different city,’ Trump touted, insisting: ‘Everybody’s safe now.’
Trump admitted that he even feels ‘more safe’ in D.C. and thanked a group of federal and local law enforcement officers and agents gathered in Anacostia, a D.C. neighborhood known for high crime rates. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller joined the president for his trip from the White House to the operations facility Thursday evening. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum were also at the event. The president said in an interview earlier in the day that he would go ‘on patrol.’ ‘I’m going to be going out tonight, I’m going to keep it a secret. But I’m going to go,’ Trump told Todd Starnes on his show Thursday.
The president federalized D.C. this month in a safety and ‘beautification’ effort. Beyond crime, Trump also wants to rid the streets of the homeless and clean up the graffiti. ‘It was worse than ever just a short while ago,’ Trump told the crowd in southeast D.C. ‘Right now, it’s better than it has been in years. And in a couple of weeks it’s going to be far better than that.’ ‘One of the things we’re going to be redoing is your parks,’ the president said. ‘I’m very good at grass because I have a lot of golf courses all over the place. I know more about grass than any human being, I think, anywhere in the world. And we’re going to be re-grassing all of your parks. You know, like everything else, grass has a life… The grass here died about 40 years ago,’ Trump lamented.
The crowd on Thursday consisted of Metro Police officers as well as agents with the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals and Homeland Security Investigations. Additionally, a handful of states have sent in National Guard forces to help – they were also at the short visit with the president the included pizza. ‘Because I sent in people to stop crime, they said, ‘he’s a dictator,’ Trump lamented in his interview on Thursday. ‘I’m going to be going out tonight, I think, with the police – and with the military, of course. We’re going to do a job. The National Guard is great,’ he said. While Trump has long floated federalizing Washington, D.C. to address spiking crime and homelessness, he got more serious in early August when a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer was attacked during an attempted carjacking.
Edward Coristine, 19, was left bloody and badly beaten on August 5 when he tried to stop a carjacking. Referencing this incident and other high-profile incidents, Trump deemed there was a ‘totally out of control’ crime emergency in the District that required federal intervention. On August 11, Trump announced in a news conference from the White House he was invoking the D.C. Home Rule Act in order to place MPD under federal control.
Trump has bragged that crime in the city has completely reversed since his action. And it’s true that there has been a decline. As of Thursday there were zero murders in D.C. for an entire week, marking a new record. Over the last five years, there has been an average of between .51 to 1 murders every day.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowers insists that crime was already on the decline, pointing to local police data that shows that violent crime is down 27 percent from last year, with homicides down 11 percent and robbery down 30 percent. ‘We are not experiencing a spike in crime. In fact, we’re watching our crime numbers go down,’ Bowser said on MSNBC this month.
But Trump insists the numbers are fraudulent. He confirmed this week that his administration is investigating allegations that the MPD cooked the books on violent crime stats.
