Donald Trump is in Egypt celebrating a historic ceasefire arrangement between Israel and Gaza—but he can’t stop fixating on the imagined crime crisis he believes is taking place back on U.S. soil.
Seated next to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Monday, Trump’s proud exaltation of the authoritarian state offered some startling insight into the way he seems to want to manage America.
“We’re in a country where a friend of mine is a very powerful leader, and my friend of mine is right here,” Trump said. “The reason I call him the general is because he’s both, and he’s good at both, he’s done a fantastic job.”
“They have very little crime, because they don’t play games, that’s why. They don’t play games like we do, in the United States, with governors that have no idea what they’re doing,” the U.S. president continued. “But they don’t have crime. I ask about crime and they almost don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
Egypt is categorized as “not free” by an analysis from Freedom House, a democracy advocacy organization that formed to rally the world against the threat of Nazi Germany nearly a century ago. Political opposition in Egypt is nearly nonexistent. Civil liberties that are currently taken for granted in the U.S., such as the right to protest or the freedom of the press, are choked by the tight fist of the Egyptian government, which has been dominated by the military since a 2013 coup.
“Most of Egypt’s provincial governors are former military or police commanders,” Freedom House assessed.
Why Trump might admire Egypt’s regime is no secret. Trump has made enemies out of his stateside opposition, publicly calling for the political persecution of Democratic lawmakers that have dared to object to his agenda, including Senator Adam Schiff, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, and more.
Just last week, the president threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a 19th-century law that would let him utilize the military for domestic purposes, to quell fictitious bedlam that he has claimed has taken over Democratic cities.
One such area that Trump has honed in on is Portland, Oregon, a city better known for Voodoo Doughnuts and cold brew than hellish riots. Late last month, the president ordered the National Guard to the hipster paradise, but his rationale for sending them was not informed by statistics or data—instead, it was because of something he saw on TV.
“I spoke to the governor, she was very nice,” Trump said at the time, referring to a phone call he had with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek. “But I said, ‘Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? My people tell me different.’ They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place.… It looks like terrible.”
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