Last week, President Donald Trump, citing Section 740 of the Washington, D.C., Home Rule Act, announced he was taking control of that city’s police department and also deploying 800 National Guard troops to its streets.
Section 740 says “whenever the President of the United States determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist which require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for Federal purposes, he may direct the Mayor to provide him, and the Mayor shall provide, such services of the Metropolitan Police force as the President may deem necessary and appropriate.” What “federal purposes” were being invoked? Who knows? The president’s also supposed to get approval from Congress after 30 days, but why get picky at this point?
As many have pointed out, crime in Washington, D.C., has dropped over the past few years, as it has in most of the nation. Undeterred by Facts (which should be the title of the inevitable Trump bio-pic), Trump vowed “historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse.” Worse! He added that he is considering similar moves in other cities.
That same night on The Five on Fox News, Memphis’ own Harold Ford Jr., who represented the 9th District in Congress for 10 years, praised Trump’s actions. “No one wants their pocketbook stolen,” Ford said. “No one wants their kids attacked. No one wants their sister or mom raped.”
Ford went on to criticize Democrats for not taking crime more seriously, then went full MAGA: “The president said … I hope we find a way to take it to Chicago and Baltimore and Memphis and Denver and Atlanta — other places where you have communities wracked by crime. Liberals don’t like crime; conservatives don’t like crime; Blacks don’t like crime; whites don’t like crime. Let’s get rid of it. That’s why I was pleased and encouraged by what the president did today.” In case you were wondering, Ford Jr. is touted as the “liberal” on The Five.
So what exactly were the “special conditions of an emergency nature” that provoked Trump to take over the D.C. police department? This: Several unnamed Black teenagers beat up a white teenager named Edward Coristine near Dupont Circle at 3 a.m. the preceding night. Two assailants, both 15, were quickly apprehended and put in juvenile jail, but Coristine, 19, had friends in high places, so things didn’t stop there. He’s a DOGE employee in the Social Security Administration, hired by Elon Musk. (He’d previously worked as an intern for a cybersecurity company, before being fired for leaking company secrets.) But Musk hired him, and his nickname is “Big Balls,” so obviously he’s good people.
The assault quickly grew into mythic status, with one right-wing pundit even asking Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt if the president might consider giving Coristine the Presidential Medal of Freedom in view of his “heroic actions just a few blocks from this building.” Rather than smacking her forehead in disbelief, Leavitt replied, “Perhaps it’s something he would consider.”
Well, of course, he would. He’s Donald “Big Diversion” Trump, and since the Presidential Medal of Freedom goes to “those who have made an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” who better to receive such an accolade than young Edward “Big Balls” Coristine?
Sure, it may sound crazy, but to be fair, previous controversial recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom have included Jimmy “Pea-Nuts” Carter, Lyndon “Large” Johnson, and Mother “Effing” Teresa, so there is precedent. And frankly, with his Trump-fluffing this week, Harold Ford Jr. may have also put himself in the running for one of those medals. He just needs a nickname. Or maybe “Junior” works.
With several GOP governors now pledging to send more National Guard troops to D.C., it’s fair to ask, how did the stalwart crime-fighters imported by Trump do? I think the best descriptor might be: “underwhelming.” On their first night on patrol, the 800 new rent-a-cops made 23 arrests, most of them for minor offenses. As one X user put it: “That’s a 37-1 ratio of force results. This isn’t a law enforcement surge — it’s political theatre with a federal budget” — which is a phrase you could apply to most of what’s happened during Trump’s first seven months in office.