Trump’s Latest Made-Up Emergency
Weaponizing ‘Public Safety’ to Target the Poor
It is a truth rapidly gaining universal acknowledgement, that an "emergency" is defined as whatever Donald Trump feels like on any given day.
If you were hoping for a quiet week or thinking maybe the administration was ready to slow down, I'm sorry to disappoint you:
Katie Rogers - Aug. 11, 2025, 10:42 a.m. ET33 minutes ago
Trump says the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. will be placed under federal control. He is referring to a section of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act that grants him the authority to take over the police department when there are “special conditions of an emergency nature.”
As New York Times' Shawn McCreesh points out: "There is of course crime in Washington but President Trump is describing a Mad Max-like hellscape version of the city that many people who live here are unlikely to recognize. “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.
One thing that strikes me as I read through the New York Times live updates of this press conference is just how often the reporters' have to correct what Trump is saying in real time. McCreesh notes: “I’m going to Russia on Friday,” President Trump says at the news conference. He’s actually going to Alaska to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia." One can't help but notice how much leeway his supporters seem to grant Mr. Trump when they'd likely have been all over former President Biden for a gaffe like this.
So we've started the week with a formal declaration of a public safety emergency in Washington D.C., which attorney general Pam Bondi will oversee, despite no evidence to support this supposed emergency. They'll be conducting a federal takeover of the city's police forces and are also deploying National Guard members as well; 800 soldiers to start, with more if they feel it necessary.
The administration has not provided an answer for what they plan to do with the homeless people that President Trump is ordering kicked out of the city, but he did have time for discussing more important issues, like the $200 million ballroom they're working on.
"If our capital is dirty, our whole country is dirty," says President Trump at the press conference.
I've been trying to find words for why this press conference seems so icky to me, and I think it's the President's tendency to demonize the folks who are struggling the hardest; Like, even if you could somehow manage to look past the made-up emergency and the racist dog whistles, the fact remains...
We have an affordability crisis in America, and record homelessness as a result.
The Trump administration has elected to "solve" this problem... by criminalizing the homeless.
It's the kind of policy plan you can only put forth with a straight face if you don't believe we're all created equal.