Donald Trump went on a furious rant after a liberal think tank said the president’s costly National Guard deployments in cities did not reduce violent crime.
Analysis from the Center for American Progress found that the Trump administration’s crime crackdown in cities such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., cost American taxpayers more than $1.7 billion but had little effect.
A report from CAP published in July suggested that Trump tried to portray his troop-deployment efforts as a success by “exploiting” the fact that violent crime and murder were already declining in the cities his administration targeted with its “extreme interventions.”
On Monday, Chandler Hall, the associate director for public safety at CAP, discussed the analysis of whether there “actually was a change in the pre-existing trends” before Trump deployed troops to the cities during an interview on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
“We looked at what were the effects of the National Guard deployments, not just in D.C., but in all cities in which the National Guard were deployed,” Hall said. “What we find is that across multiple cities, multiple data sets, and multiple time windows, we find no effect that violent crime actually did change post the National Guard deployments in any of the cities.”
In a rambling Truth Social post of 190 words, Trump lashed out at Hall while also threatening to sue CAP for exposing his unnecessary $1.7 billion crackdown.’
“Chandler Hall, representing, on Television, the foolish Center for American Lack of Progress, stated that adding the National Guard to Cities, including our now Great Again, Washington, D.C., had ‘NO impact on Crime.’ How crazy is that,” Trump posted.
“Hall was met with furious dissent. The report is just another Radical Left SCAM, as are the people who fund this gaggle of Lunatics, including George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, Google, Apple, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, WellsFargo, Bank of America, Walmart, Toyota, T-Mobile, and NBC Universal. Foreign support includes the Embassy of Japan, the Korea Foundation, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (Taiwan), and the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates,” he continued. “The Dumocrats love it, and are against anything ‘TRUMP.’ These people, and others like them, are so bad for our Country. Their stated course is anything to hate or demean ‘TRUMP.’
The 80-year-old president also threatened that CAP would be “met with a lawsuit,” which is apparently being drawn up now.
“I am also strongly considering adding some of the contributors to this Fake Organization. Crime is way down since I took Office, and they know it. Liars, at this level, must be held accountable! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Trump, who spends an extraordinary amount of time watching cable news television as president, had his meltdown after managing to catch Hall on the relatively obscure Washington Journal program hosted on the C-SPAN television network.
Hall’s appearance on the show began at 9:25 a.m. ET on Monday morning, a period in which Trump’s public White House schedule listed him as taking part in “Executive Time.”
Analysis from the Daily Beast found that the 80-year-old president was only seen in public three times in Washington, D.C., before 11 a.m. during the entire month of June. On most of these days, Trump’s mornings were taken up with so-called “Executive Time.”
Trump’s post was shared alongside a clip of border czar Tom Homan praising the crackdown in D.C. during a Monday appearance on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show.
“I’ve lived in D.C. at least 15 years, and I wouldn’t walk the streets of D.C. without a concealed weapon,” Homan said. “President Trump has made Washington D.C. an example for the whole world. Over 16,000 arrests, almost 2,000 firearms taken off the street. Three dozen murder suspects taken off the street.”
In his Washington Journal appearance, Hall did state “in the interest of fairness” that the deployment of troops in areas like D.C. did result in a fall in “opportunistic property crime,” such as theft or vandalism.
Hall also noted that the nonpartisan D.C.-based think tank Niskanen Center issued a report in June revealing that Trump’s deployment of troops to the capital had no measurable effect on reducing violent crime.
Instead, the crackdown was merely a “blunt and expensive” stunt, as the troops’ presence in tourist areas only resulted in a 24-percent reduction in crimes such as theft and vandalism rather than violent crimes.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Center for American Progress for comment.
