Trump’s Move to “Federalize” Law Enforcement Comes Up Against Some Hard Facts

Trump made a comment about Baltimore yesterday during a press conference.  This came after his announcement that he was deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and that the federal government had taken control of the Washington, D.C. police department, in what he called a “historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.”  He went on to cite Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore and Oakland as cities facing serious crime problems — adding that Baltimore and Oakland are “so far gone” that “we don’t even mention [them] anymore.”

A problem arose, however, as problems so often do, when Trump’s statements are at odds with the facts.

From CBS News:.

Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott, who announced earlier this month that Baltimore’s violent crime rate is at its lowest in decades, responded in a social media post Monday afternoon.

“This is the latest effort by the president to distract from the issues he should be focused on — including the roller coaster of the U.S. economy thanks to his policies,” Scott wrote. “When it comes to public safety in Baltimore, he should turn off the right-wing propaganda and look at the facts. Baltimore is the safest it’s been in over 50 years. Homicides are down 28% this year alone, reaching the lowest level of any year on record.”

Not all of Trump’s critics would use the word “distraction” here; they assert that it’s something more pernicious.  Is the president, as some suggest, angling towards a way to impose martial law as a tool to prevent elections in 2026 and 2028?