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President Donald Trump delivered a rambling 10-minute pep talk to federal law enforcement carrying out his occupation of Washington on Thursday night instead of going on patrol with them, as he promised.
Trump showed up at the U.S. Park Police’s operations center along the Anacostia River, located 5.4 miles from the White House.
As is often the case with Trump, he told an unverifiable (and likely false, based on his track record of serial lying) story about supposedly receiving phone calls “thanking me for what we’ve done.” He also spoke about paving roads and passing tax cuts, subjects unrelated to the topic at hand but in line with his rambling and disconnected speaking style.
Trump also claimed that the crime numbers are “way down,” but crime was already down in D.C. following the administration of former President Joe Biden, and that has powered a lot of the backlash to Trump’s actions against a city with a distinctly large Black population.
The appearance was a far cry from the actions Trump had promised earlier in the day.
In a radio interview with right-wing conspiracy theorist Todd Starnes, Trump had said, “I’m going to be going out tonight, I think, with the police and with the military, of course. So we’re going to do a job.” That gave the impression Trump was going on patrol—instead the appearance was a tightly controlled miniature pep talk.
If Trump had actually gone out among D.C. residents, he might have run into a protest held at nearly the same time as his speech, where people were protesting his occupation of their city. Accompanied by go-go music, which originated in D.C., people spoke out against Trump and called for the heightened police presence to end.
“There is absolutely no circumstance that can justify this police invasion of Washington, D.C.,” one rally attendee told local station WUSA.
The hostile tone against Trump echoed the loud boos that Vice President JD Vance, White House aide Stephen Miller, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth encountered during their ill-fated trip to D.C.’s Union Station on Wednesday.
D.C. residents don’t want Trump’s troop presence. In a Washington Post-Schar School poll of D.C. residents, 79% of respondents said they strongly or somewhat oppose the ongoing occupation. The poll also showed that fear of crimes like theft, carjacking, assault, and burglary were all down from a year ago—sentiment running contrary to Trump’s false assertions.
Trump promised a show in Washington to prove he was wanted. Instead, he had to hide from a city that doesn’t want him or his enforcers around.
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Oliver Willis
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