The mayor of Kansas City, Mo., cast doubt on the effectiveness of President Trump’s crime crackdown in Washington, D.C., and argued the president’s tactics are “not a solution for anyone.”
“I think what most reasonable people would say is there are certainly situations where help could be a great thing for America’s cities,” Mayor Quinton Lucas (D) said in a CNN interview Wednesday morning. “But threats of takeovers — just sending hundreds of forces, troops in some ways, into America’s cities — is not something that’s making anyone safer, particularly if you think about what a lot of our urban violence is.”
Lucas, who has been a vocal advocate of stricter gun laws, said much of the violent crime in major cities is retaliatory and gun-related, rather than random street crimes.
“Bringing National Guard forces or making FBI agents come out of their usual investigative detail and walk around parks in your community is actually not a solution for anyone,” he said.
Trump declared a public safety emergency Monday and announced he was seizing control of the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Force and deploying hundreds of Nation Guard troops. The announcement ramped up the D.C. crime-fighting tactics Trump launched over the weekend by sending in officers from the FBI; Drug Enforcement Agency; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and other agencies.
The president has repeatedly suggested that he may try similar methods in other cities with high crime rates — particularly ones led by Democrats — like Lucas’s.
“I don’t think mayors have ever said we’ll refuse federal help — indeed, we’ve worked with the ATF, the FBI, on investigations for years,” the Kansas City mayor said. “Usually, you need folks to help you get guns off the streets, to do investigations on crime guns so you can actually get the evidence to convict people. That is collaboration.”
Lucas said he thinks that Trump may be motivated by politics rather than safety.
“What they’re doing now, I think it is a political stunt, and that’s what you’ll continue to see as he looks to other cities,” he said, adding that Trump is “not really interested in trying to save lives for us, but just exploiting the political issue.”
The administration has pushed back on suggestions from other Democratic mayors who have criticized Trump’s moves.
The White House pushed back on Lucas’s characterizations of Trump’s efforts.
“The Kansas City Mayor is wrong – and if he cared to look at the facts and use some common sense, he would know that,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement to The Hill. “In less than a week, President Trump’s actions to make DC safer have already removed over 100 violent criminals off of the streets.”
She also threw back the “political stunt” allegation at the mayor.
“This is a political stunt for Mayor Lucas and why the Democrats are so unpopular – it is all just an act to pretend that President Trump cracking down on crime is a bad thing when everyday Americans support tough on crime policies,” she said.
Updated at 5:17 p.m. EDT
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