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President Donald Trump called the spiraling crime in Washington, D.C., “embarrassing” as he prepares for high-stakes meetings with foreign leaders, pointing directly to his highly anticipated Friday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“This is an emergency,” Trump told the media during his press conference Monday morning announcing he is federalizing the. D.C. police force to curb crime in the city. “This is a tragic emergency. And it’s embarrassing for me to be up here.”
“You know, I’m going to see Putin. I’m going to Russia on Friday. I don’t like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once beautiful capital was, with graffiti all over the walls,” he continued.
Trump is scheduled to meet with Putin in Alaska Friday, which is strategically located between D.C. and Moscow.
Trump declared a crime emergency in the nation’s capital Monday and announced the National Guard and hundreds of other law enforcement officials from various agencies will descend on the city to prevent further crimes.
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“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,” he said. “And we’re not going to let it happen anymore. We’re not going to take it.”
Washington, D.C.’s crime rate spiraled followed the national increase in violent crimes in 2020, when social justice protests and riots broke out in cities nationwide at the height of pandemic.
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The crime trends in the nation’s capital have ebbed and flowed in the subsequent years, including carjackings, shootings and murders spiking before Trump reclaimed the Oval Office in January. The city has been plagued by a handful of high-profile crimes in recent weeks, including the fatal shooting of a congressional intern in June, the fatal shooting of a pair of Israeli embassy staffers in May, and a brutal attack on a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer earlier in August.
Local Democrat leaders have slammed Trump over the move to federalize the police, including D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb arguing on X that there is no crime emergency, pointing to how violent crimes have fallen “26% so far this year.”
Trump’s press conference comes just days ahead of his planned meeting with Putin Friday in Alaska to discuss the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
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“I think we’ll have constructive conversations,” Trump said Monday, previewing the Friday meeting with Putin. “Then after that meeting — immediately, maybe as I’m flying out, maybe as I’m leaving the room — I’ll be calling the European leaders who I get along with very well. And, you know, I have a great relationship, I think, with all of them, and I get along with Zelenskyy. But, you know, I disagree with what he’s done very, very severely disagree. This is a war that should have never happened, wouldn’t have happened. But I’ll be speaking to Zelenskyy. The next meeting will be with Zelenskyy and Putin or Zelenskyy and Putin and me. I’ll be there if they need, but I want to have a meeting set up between the two leaders.”
Trump said he will know if Putin is sincere about making aa deal to end the war within minutes of meeting with him. The president added that “land swapping” between the two nations will likely be part of the deal.
“We’re going to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin. And at the end of that meeting, probably in the first two minutes, I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made,” he said.
“How do you know,” a reporter responded.
“Because that’s what I do. I make deals,” Trump shot back before moving on to another question.
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