White House endorses troop deployments in ‘every Democrat-run city’

A month after Donald Trump militarized Washington, D.C., the president and his team have generated all kinds of questions, including what other cities might be next on the Republican’s deployment list. The list isn’t short.

In recent weeks, the White House has pointed to Chicago — a city the president threatened in ridiculous ways over the weekend — and Baltimore, but there have also been public references to New York and San Francisco. Last week, Trump even raised the prospect of deploying the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, apparently because of something he’d seen on television the night before.

By some measures, it might be a mistake to speculate about which city might be targeted next, because from the White House’s perspective, every city in the country led by Democratic officials is on the list.

We know this for certain because Karoline Leavitt said so, out loud and on the record.

At the latest White House press briefing, the president’s press secretary was asked about high crime rates in red states and Trump’s willingness to address the issue. Leavitt offered a lengthy reply, which included a striking conclusion about the president’s preferred vision on Guard deployments.

“[T]hese are the bad guys that we are picking up in Washington, D.C., every day,” she told reporters. “The president would love to do this in every Democrat-run city across the country.”

For now, let’s not dwell too much on the “bad guys” claim, which is itself dubious. (The administration did, after all, recently try to prosecute a guy who threw a sandwich with felony assault.)

The more important detail is the vision Leavitt presented as if it were normal: According to the White House, the incumbent American president wants to deploy armed troops, acting at his direction, into “every” city in the U.S. run by members of the opposing political party.

I can appreciate why this seems trite, but it’s occasionally useful to consider the inverse. Imagine that a controversial, unpopular and scandal-plagued Democratic president, peddling absurd claims about conditions that do not exist, had endorsed deploying troops into every Republican-led area in the country because of concerns about how those communities were being run.

Then imagine what the reaction to such a declaration would be.

As for the nation’s capital, when Trump first announced his policy, it was presented as a 30-day endeavor — not because of will, but because under federal law, anything beyond 30 days requires congressional approval.

That window closes at midnight, but local residents shouldn’t expect much of a change. As The Washington Post reported, the close collaboration between the administration and law enforcement in D.C. is likely to continue: “Mayor Muriel Bowser signed an executive order last week for city police to assist federal efforts indefinitely. Trump is also likely to continue deployment of the National Guard in the city, and he is not backing off on Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts — neither of which need congressional approval.”

As for the near future, the president told reporters on Tuesday night that he and his team would announce “another city that we’re going to very shortly.” He added, “We’ll announce it probably tomorrow.” Watch this space.