After announcing on Monday that he was taking federal control of the police department in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump insinuated in the White House briefing room that five other cities could face a similar effort from his administration, Newsweek reported.
Trump said the attempt to address crime and homelessness would "go further" than D.C., as he specifically named Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Oakland, California.
"We have other cities also that are bad. Very bad," Trump said during the press conference as he stood alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. "You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore there."
Trump added that "they're so far gone. We're not going to let it happen. We're not going to lose our cities over this."
When Trump said his administration is also considering sending the military into Chicago, he mocked Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, according to Mediaite.
“If we need to, we're gonna do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,” Trump said. “We have a mayor there who is totally incompetent. He's an incompetent man. And we have an incompetent governor there. Pritzker's an incompetent. His family threw him out of the business. And he ran for governor. And now I understand he wants to be president. But I noticed he lost a little weight, so now he has a chance.”
Trump then spoke about the Democrats' handling of the recent fires in Los Angeles before adding, “Hopefully LA is watching.”
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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