President Donald Trump said he will patrol D.C. streets on Thursday night alongside the Metropolitan Police Department and National Guard troops, as his Administration continues its effort to crack down on crime and exert control over the nation’s capital.
“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,” Trump said in an interview with conservative talk show host Todd Starnes. “The National Guard is great. They’ve done a fantastic job.”
A White House official told TIME that details of the evening were still being worked out. It wasn’t immediately clear how the Secret Service would manage the President riding around with law enforcement.
The move comes more than a week after Trump took control of the city’s police department and deployed hundreds of National Guard troops across the city to crack down on what he referred to as unacceptable levels of crime, despite statistics showing violent crime has declined in the city. The Trump Administration has claimed that crime statistics reported by the city do not accurately reflect the state of crime in the nation’s capital.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday that 630 total arrests have been made in Washington since federal officers were deployed around the city on Aug. 7. Of those, 251 were arrests of immigrants in the country illegally.
A Washington Post-Schar School poll published Wednesday found roughly 80% of D.C. residents opposed Trump’s executive order to federalize the city’s police department, and 65% do not think Trump’s actions will make the city safer.
On Wednesday, Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller met with National Guard troops on duty at Union Station, the city’s main train station, to thank them for their work. Protesters booed and shouted as the officials handed out burgers to the troops.
“We’re going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old,” Miller said in response to the protesters. “And we’re going to get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington, D.C.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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