President Donald Trump is masterminding a new way to seize power in the U.S.: taking over Washington, D.C.
The president said Tuesday that he’s “testing” a plan for the federal government to control and run the city.
Although Congress is able to review local laws or the city’s budget, the city has long been independent. D.C. residents have had the right to elect their own government legislation for more than 50 years.
But Trump is dead set on manning the D.C. ship, and so he’s working with the Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser to execute a federal takeover.
Trump’s reason for the move is purportedly to reduce crime in the city. But preliminary data from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department shows that violent crime is down 25 percent from this time last year and all crime is down by 8 percent.
“We could run D.C. I mean, we’re looking at D.C.,” Trump said during a Tuesday Cabinet meeting. “We’re thinking about doing it, to be honest with you. We want a capital that’s run flawlessly.”
Trump also claimed that he could “run” New York City.
When asked about the possibility of New York Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani winning the November mayoral elections, Trump said: “If a communist gets elected to run New York, it can never be the same.”
But, he added, “We have tremendous power at the White House to run places if we have to.”
Trump didn’t say who he’d appoint to oversee the city, but rather that he’d get the “best person” to run it.
“We would run it so good, it would be run so proper,” he said, adding, “The crime would be down to a minimal, would be much less.”
Trump said that his team is “thinking about doing it” and it “wouldn’t be hard” to do it.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly said that he wanted to “take over” D.C. In fact, his vow to “take over our horribly run” capital was one of his most commonly repeated phrases.
In March, he made the same threat.
“We’re cleaning up our city. We’re cleaning up this great capital, and we’re not going to have crime and we’re not going to stand for crime, and we’re going to take the graffiti down,” Trump said.
“We’re working with the administration, and if the administration can’t do the job… we’re gonna have to take it back and run it through the federal government,” he added.
Trump has also said he wants to “have a capital that can be the talk of the world.”
The post WATCH: Trump Announces Plan to Take Over U.S. Capital appeared first on The Daily Beast.
