President Donald Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night that the administration is eventually going to have to do “something that’s much stronger” to stop surging violence in multiple Democrat-controlled cities and signaled that he has tens of thousands of federal agents ready to be deployed to clean up the streets.
Trump’s remarks come after the administration has sent agents to Portland and Seattle to deal with riots from far-left extremists. The administration has also deployed a large number of agents to Kansas City, Chicago, and Albuquerque as a part of Operation Legend to help local officials clean up surging crime rates.
“I have offered them all, every one of them — and there’s 10 of them,” Trump said. “We’re offering all of them, let us go in. We will clean it up. We will clean it up.”
“We will go into all of the cities, any of the cities. We’re ready,” Trump continued. “We will put in 50,000, 60,000 people that really know what they’re doing. And they’re strong. They’re tough. And we could solve these problems so fast.”
“But, as you know, we have to be invited in,” Trump continued. “At some point, we’re going to have to do something that’s much stronger than being invited in. But we have to be invited in.”
Later in the interview, Trump noted that the cities are run by “very liberal people, you could say radical left in some cases, in some cases, just liberal Democrats.”
“If they invited us in, we’d go in with 50,000, 75,000 people,” Trump later added. “We would be able to solve it, like you wouldn’t believe, and quick. But they just don’t want to ask, maybe for political reasons. But they don’t want to ask. It’s a disgrace.”
According to the most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report, released in October 2019, the 83 federal law enforcement agencies employ approximately 132,000 full-time federal law enforcement officers. “About two-thirds of all full-time federal law enforcement officers worked for either Customs and Border Protection (33%), the Federal Bureau of Prisons (14%), the FBI (10%), or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (9%),” the report states. BJS also notes that state and local law enforcement agencies employ over 700,000 full-time officers.
Video and transcript below:
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But I heard you talking about the cities and the safeties of the cities. I have offered them all, every one of them — and there’s 10 of them. We’re offering all of them, let us go in. We will clean it up. We will clean it up.
Now, in Portland, we had to do it because that was — that’s — they’re anarchists. That’s even — that’s a level that people haven’t seen, but they’re anarchists. And they were going wild for 51 days. And we went in. And they have done a great job. They were going to rip down the courthouse, a big federal courthouse, gorgeous federal courthouse.
So, we went in. And we have been very, very strong. And we have this Mayor Wheeler, who I think is also — he’s also the police commissioner, as I understand it, in Portland.
FOX NEWS HOST SEAN HANNITY: Wheeler, yes.
TRUMP: Mayor Wheeler. And he’s — he made a fool out of himself last — he wanted to be among the people. So, he went into the crowd. And they knocked the hell out of him. That was the end of him. So, it was pretty, pretty pathetic.
But we want to go in and help the cities. We want to help Chicago. We want to help all of them. Detroit’s having problems. A very good police chief in Detroit, but they have problems.
We will go into all of the cities, any of the cities. We’re ready. We will put in 50,000, 60,000 people that really know what they’re doing. And they’re strong. They’re tough. And we could solve these problems so fast. But, as you know, we have to be invited in.
HANNITY: Mr. President, I want to ask you about that.
TRUMP: At some point, we’re going to have to do something that’s much stronger than being invited in. But we have to be invited in. Go ahead, Sean.
HANNITY: The acting DHS chief, Chad Wolf, there are statutory reasons and justification to protect federal buildings. That is what has been happening, when you talk about 100 agents.
We now have 15 mayors. We see this rise in homicides and shootings. One day right here on this program a couple of nights ago, 15 people shot in Chicago, last weekend, 70 people shot, 12 dead, a 10-year-old, 11-year-old shot.
You spoke to Horace Lorenzo Anderson Sr. I know you invited him to the White House. He lost his 19-year-old son. We lost an 8-year-old little girl in the CHAZ Autonomous Zone in Atlanta, a 1-year-old in Brooklyn, a 7-year-old little beautiful young girl in Chicago.
And they — the one thing that all of these cities have in common, they have been run by liberal Democratic mayors, liberal Democratic governors for decades.
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: What do you say to the people? Most people would argue, you don’t have a chance of winning New York, or Illinois, or California, or Washington state.
TRUMP: Well, you’re right. They’re run by very liberal people, you could say radical left in some cases, in some cases, just liberal Democrats. And they’re not taking care of their police. They’re not respecting the police. The police do an incredible job. It’s a very tough job. It’s a very dangerous job.
And these mayors and, by the way, governors and senators and congressmen, Democrat congressmen, they want to pass stuff to make the police — they want to take all of their power away. And you will have a bad situation, where you will have a bad cop, a very bad cop. And they have no idea the problem they cause.
But you have 99 percent great people that work hard and get paid not nearly enough. And the job they do is incredible. And these people are just taking all of their respect. They’re taking their guts out. And it’s a shame. It’s a shame.
And the police, they could do the job. In Seattle, they could. They knew that we were coming in. And they went in just before we got there. So, we were all set to move. But if we weren’t going to go in, if they thought that we weren’t coming in, it would still be bad. But those police can do the job. But the mayor and everybody tells them not to do it. The governor, they say not to do it. And it’s a philosophy.
And let me tell you, if Joe Biden ever got in, the whole country would be like that. We have a lot of great cities. We have a lot of very safe cities, great places, great states that don’t have any problems. And they look at the things that they see in Chicago, and they look at what they’re witnessing in Portland and all of these different places, and they can’t believe what’s going on.
But we have — we have great places. But we have some instances that nobody’s ever seen.
I spoke with the mayor of Chicago, Mayor Lightfoot, and had a great talk. But within minutes after that talk — you just reported it tonight — a couple of more people were shot. Young, very young children were shot.
HANNITY: Sad. So sad.
TRUMP: And it’s a shame. It’s a shame. And we could solve it. If they invited us in, we’d go in with 50,000, 75,000 people. We would be able to solve it, like you wouldn’t believe, and quick. But they just don’t want to ask, maybe for political reasons. But they don’t want to ask. It’s a disgrace.