So... President Trump is going with a combination of ‘taking over the Washington dc police department’ and flooding the district with national guardsmen to help. Then add at least 100 FBI agents. Then getting the federal prosecutors in the dc district to take over criminal charges and sentences.
Geez. This might just work.
We’ve been talking the sorts of powers that a president of the United States does-and does not -have when it comes to the District of Columbia.
The federalists who founded the city didn’t want a local government. They-intentionally-did not want the district to be a part of any larger state.
This was going to be a small area of land that was going to be controlled by-and for-the federal government.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that congress decided the residents in that district needed the ‘home rule act’, which set up the parameters under which they could elect a mayor and city council and form a local government.
It's congress that has direct control over the local government and the ‘daily workings’ of dc, but the president and the executive branch have certain thing they can control and ‘do’, too-
Including- taking over the district of Columbia’s police force if it’s an emergency.
Well- president trump and his team consider the ‘state of Washington DC’ to be an emergency, and so, Trump is using his authority to take temporary control of the district’s police force.
But that’s just ‘step one’ in a much larger plan that has trump bringing the ‘numerous’ and ‘various’ forces of the federal government into play, here.
The FBI and ATF will have a role. The federal prosecutors will have more of a role. The president’s team will, apparently, lobby congress to change and ‘override’ the local laws in dc that have leftist prosecutors and judges refusing to lock up criminals...or go back to a ‘cash bail’ system.
This is going to be something to watch...and i hope the trump administration, collectively, can pull this off...because if they do...it could serve as a template for how to finally -dramatically-reduce crime in America’s other major cities.
In fact, right away at the news conference, yesterday, the president was talking about taking this template to New York and la and elsewhere-
Into the country’s biggest, bluest cities, to finally address the runaway crime problem that today’s Marxist leaning democrats and activists refuse to address.
And as you’d expect-those Marxist, America-hating activists and their democrat leaders leapt to decry this move as a federal overreach...and trump being a dictator.... etc. Blah, blah, yawn, yawn-
But- the interesting twist here, my friends, is that about 90 percent of the people who work in dc are lefties and democrats....and yet...they are so. Bleeping. Fed up. With dc crime...that most of them are quietly happy to see President Trump do something about it.
No kidding.
We’ll get to that- and how I believe the thoughtless, knee-jerk reaction to this by Hakeem Jefferies and Muriel Bowser and the other democrats is yet another tactical mistake: they were out blasting with both guns yesterday, assuming their activist media members and fellow leftists on cable were ‘in their corner’...but...a lot of them really aren’t.
In fact,
At one point of the press conference, president trump spoke directly to reporters and said, basically, I know you don’t want to ever give me a break or agree with me...but...don’t you want to be safe as you go about your life...living and working here?
Trump Federalizing DC Police: "Just Like We Did On Our Southern Border"
So-what’s president trump going to do?
As I say, it’s a multi-pronged plan that won’t all be implemented at once and yet should move fast:
At one point, President Trump said, as the president of the country, it’s gotten embarrassing to welcome other foreign leaders and dignitaries to dc.... when their first trip from the airport is through the squalor and slums of the city. They see the tent cities and string out junkies before they ever get to the nicer sections of dc...or pull up to the white house portico.
Trump: "It's Embarrassing" That DC Is So "Unsafe, Dirty, And Disgusting"
I give Trump credit for caring enough to do this-after decades of presidents and congresses basically decided that- no matter how bad the district gets- they’re not going to demand better. Do better. For the American people, for
U-s and foreign tourists and visitors. For those who simply want to come to dc to walk around our national museums and enjoy that part of the country.
He’s right.
And any listener who says ‘you wouldn’t be saying this, jay, if a democrat president was doing it’...
I say, ‘yes, i would’.
I guarantee you, if we had a democrat president who was concerned enough about crime to take over a big city police department and flood the zone with federal agents and actors- i would be giving that person a standing ovation.
We-used to have- democrats and left-wingers who cared about crime, too. Who supported doling out consequences to criminals including locking them away from society for a while.
Your young people should know that it’s only a ‘very recent thing’ that has today’s democrat party-not- supporting law and order.
Not supporting the judicial and prison system, etc.
If president Obama or Biden would have been frustrated enough or embarrassed enough to pull this same move, i would have been standing up and applauding- as would most conservatives and republicans.
Because-we! - want a civil society.
We! - want law and order.
We! - want to see criminals of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds punished and/or locked up- most especially those who have committed violent and heinous crimes.
No-
It’s your side of the aisle-on the left-who has abandoned all common sense and logic when it comes to catching, punishing, and locking up criminals.
You heard trump: as democrats diddled...the murder rate in dc has climbed above that of some of the worst third-world hell holes-globally.
As democrats diddled...the number of car thefts has doubled. The number of car accidents has tripled.
Oh-
And as for the bologna that’s being taken as gospel that ‘dc’s murder and crime rate have been falling his year’.... that’s mostly bologna.
First of all- 2023 was the worst year for homicides that was ever recorded in the district of Columbia. Ever. For as far back as records go.
Second- it’s therefore- not exactly a ‘win’ or ‘boasting’ to say that this year isn’t as bad as 2023 was...which is what these democrats and their accomplices in the news media are doing.
Third, folks-
Genuinely- third: Washington DC has had a police chief and a statistician who’ve been faking Washington DC’s crime numbers.
The police chief of DC that Trump just ‘put on ice for a while’- is- honest to god, the former head of DEI in that police department. Her name is Pamela Smith...and one of her more recent public appearances was ‘walking in the DC alphabet pride parade’ and handing out safe sex kits as she went.
No kidding.
Pamala smith is a large, thick woman. I’m going to assume lesbian. Her big ‘qualification’ for being Washington DC’s police chief was -apparently- that she was the last head of the DEI ‘wokeism department’... And we’re wondering why dc is such a criminal, dirty hell hole littered with tent cities and drug zombies?
Come on.
So, Trump stripped her of her authority-at least temporarily- to put some serious adults back in charge for a while.
But- completing my thought: in order to believe that crime is down in Washington DC...you need to ignore that the former police commissioner was suspended for faking the crime statistics....and that a lot of dc crime never gets reported.
On top of that-you must understand that-quite often-even after criminals have been arrested in dc- they are never charged. And so, they can’t be statistics in some crime log if they’re never charged with the crime and/or prosecuted.
None of DC’s current stats or claims about crime going down in that city can be believed. None are accurate.
According to criminologists-the truth is that the dc murder rate has doubled over just the last ten years.
And -the truth is- that no one in their right mind would say it’s safe to walk Washington DC’s streets at dawn, dusk, or in the dark, anymore.
photo credit: Getty Images
audio version of the segment here > Trump cracks down on crime in DC