Protesters boo Vance and Hegseth during National Guard visit

CNN

As Vice President JD Vance staged a lunch to thank the National Guard members that President Donald Trump deployed to Washington, DC, he was met with loud protesters at Union Station. #CNN #News  # news #breaking #24x7

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00:00Protesters showed up for Vice President J.D. Vance today as he and Defense Secretary Pete

00:20Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller made a lunch appearance with

00:25some National Guard members that President Trump deployed to Washington, D.C. And at

00:29times, the chants even drowned out Vance as he was speaking to reporters, prompting him

00:34and Miller to respond.

00:37I think you hear these guys outside here screaming at us. Of course, these are a bunch of crazy

00:42protesters. But I'll tell you, a couple of years ago when I brought my kids here, they

00:46were being screamed at by violent vagrants, and it was scaring the hell out of my kids.

00:52We're going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because

00:57they're all over 90 years old.

01:01So the moment illustrates a sharp divide between the Trump administration and D.C. residents

01:06who overwhelmingly voted against the president. And according to new polling, do not believe

01:12his federal takeover is making the city safer. While Democrats and local officials point to

01:16the statistics showing violent crime falling in recent years, Vance asserted today that those

01:22numbers are wrong.

01:23I think the crime statistics all over our country were massively underreported because

01:29a lot of people would pick up the phone, they'd call somebody, they'd try to get help and

01:33nobody would show up.

01:34Are you going to be releasing evidence of this?

01:36Of what? The D.C. has a terrible crime problem? You just got to look around.

01:41My political sources tonight are Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Trump White House communications

01:46director and Amisha Cross, Democratic strategist and former Obama campaign advisor. Alyssa, you

01:53know, if you live in D.C. or you have lived in D.C. any time recently, I have for well over

01:58a decade, full disclosure, the experience of living here kind of tracks with these statistics.

02:03But the dip in crime doesn't fit the Trump narrative. And so now you have administration

02:08officials like Vance saying, OK, the numbers are fake. How do you expect that they are

02:12going to try to prove that point?

02:14I don't know that they're going to try to prove it. Listen, I think that the White House

02:18is trying to go Democrats into arguing D.C., the nation's capital, is totally safe. There's

02:23nothing to see here. There are no, you know, camps set up and tents that you see around D.C.

02:29That's what they want. They want to have that fight because, well, the stats don't help

02:32their case. There's always going to be things you could point to, whether it's carjackings

02:35or violent attacks that take place. And as you and I were talking off air, we've lived

02:39in D.C. several years ago, it did get pretty bad. Coming out of COVID, there was just a

02:44spike in crime that was taking place. And now it's really evened out. But the stats don't

02:48really bear out what the White House is saying. But I would caution Democrats to go too far

02:53in arguing the other direction because there are always going to be bad actors that you can

02:57point to.

02:57Yeah, certainly. And Amisha, that's really the thing, because this focus on immigration and

03:02crime, public safety, that helped Trump. I mean, it helped win over some voters for him,

03:07even in states where maybe you think he wouldn't, New York, New Jersey, California in 2024.

03:12How do Democrats who know this and know that that narrative resonates walk that line between

03:19fighting back against what they're saying, which may be untrue, but not appearing soft on crime

03:26or impervious to some crime that is obviously happening?

03:30Partially, I think that they have to do it. They have a very thin line to walk, being

03:35that Trump was able to succeed because he perpetuated a crime narrative. We know that he ran

03:40on in 2020. And we know that he also ran on again in 2024. And to a certain extent, people

03:46believed it. He is somebody who pushes narrative. And narrative is what matters to people. It's

03:49how they feel. It's not necessarily what the polling shows or what the numbers and data

03:52show, regardless of the policy. I think that for Democrats, it is acknowledging that there

03:57are people who still feel unsafe in various cities across America, including in D.C. Yes,

04:01it's happening in certain pockets of the city, not all across the city. We are not living in a

04:05hellscape here in D.C. We can acknowledge that, but also that there are public and private

04:09partnerships that need to take place to ensure that the city is safe, that people need to be

04:14listened to in the communities, particularly the communities of color and black women who have

04:17called out for decades here in this city a lot of the tragic things that are happening in their

04:21communities, be it whether it's sexual assault, robbery, you name it. But in addition to that,

04:25I think that Democrats have to also call his bluff, be willing to call him out on working with the

04:31administration in ways that exist outside of the National Guard. We know that this is not what

04:36the National Guard is used for. We also know that in the states that have utilized sending National

04:40Guard troops to D.C., Mississippi, for instance, I have family in Mississippi. Mississippi in Jackson,

04:47Mississippi, the state capital, has a much higher crime rate than D.C. does. So if anybody needed

04:52the National Guard based on the epidemiology that Trump is using, keep him in Mississippi,

04:57I think that we need to refocus the effort, showcase why it's important to have reductions

05:01in crime, but also showcase how we get here and be willing to work with Republicans on that and bring

05:06them to the table, but not in the sense of the National Guard, because there are ways to do it

05:10scientific based. We know that they work. It's one of the reasons why crime has gone down in Chicago,

05:14in Baltimore, in D.C., you name it, since the pandemic.

05:17After 30 days, this federal takeover of D.C. police is going to turn into a pumpkin without

05:23Congress extending the authorization or authorizing an extension. What does it mean if Congress does

05:30go along with this? Do you expect, Amisha, there's a stomach for it? What do you think?

05:33I don't think there's. There's definitely not a stomach for it amongst the Democrats. I think

05:36that for Republicans, it's going to depend on what the numbers look like. I will give Trump this.

05:40He is very strategic in his timing. As we talked about before, you know, the show came back on,

05:45one of the things that is recognized here in D.C. and a lot of major cities is that the

05:49rise in crime, as well as the drop, is precipitated by young youth violence, for the most part,

05:55youth actors. School has started back. The reason why Trump created this messaging around the time,

06:01a week before school started back, was because at the end of the day, now these kids are in school.

06:05It was going to go down automatically. Towards the end of the summer, in every major city in America,

06:09crime tends to go down. That is something that we've seen season after season, year after year.

06:14So I think that he's going to use that as a means to showcase that his plan is working,

06:18irrespective to the fact that this is traditionally just how things work.

06:21What do you think of this perhaps being longer term?

06:24Well, listen, it's a tough question for Congress, because if you're a Republican in Congress,

06:28of course, you want to back the president's agenda, and you're going to get pressure to do that.

06:31But it's never been a Republican or conservative position to say that the entire United States

06:36taxpayer should be paying to secure the streets of D.C. That's simply not the case. And using the

06:40National Guard to do it rather than local law enforcement goes against decades of what we

06:45argued when we were talking about the responsibilities of our nation's capital versus

06:48the rest of the country. So I think it's kind of a tough argument to have. What I suspect is when

06:52this when this the statute runs out is that they're going to declare victory. They're going to talk

06:56about the number of arrests they were able to make. They're going to talk about certain pockets

06:59of the city they felt that they cleaned up, and then they're going to move on. But this won't be the

07:03last time. I mean, we saw it in L.A. where the National Guard was deployed. There are going to be other

07:07major cities where the White House decides that this is the time to use force. And I would just

07:11remind folks, the National Guard, this is something they can do. It's something they legally can. But

07:16this is a force that is big. It is diverse. It is politically diverse as well. These are not people

07:21who raise their hands to serve because they wanted to police the streets of the United States. They

07:25would have gone into policing if that's what they wanted to do. This is not the best use. We're in

07:29hurricane season. We're in a time when there are so many other things you could have our forces

07:33responding to that is not policing the streets of D.C. Yeah. As you say, kids are back in school.

07:38So are the kids of these Guard members, and they're missing it. Alyssa, Amisha,

07:42thank you so much for both of you being here tonight.

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