President Donald Trump is hoping to replicate his law enforcement efforts in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, in cities across the country, with the administration making moves to once again use the US military for its anti-crime agenda. #CNN #News
00:00At his cabinet meeting today, the president again weighed in on sending troops into American cities.
00:05I'm willing to go to Chicago, which is a big trouble, but we have a governor that refuses to admit his problems, huge problems.
00:16Baltimore, Westmore, was telling me he wants, I want to walk with the president.
00:19Well, I said, I want to walk with you too someday, but first you've got to clean up your crime because I'm not walking in Baltimore right now.
00:28Baltimore is a hellhole.
00:30And this guy, I don't even think he knows it.
00:32He's another candidate for president between him and Newscomb.
00:35You've got some real beauties, I'll tell you.
00:38But if we didn't go into Los Angeles, you wouldn't have the Olympics, in my opinion.
00:42You wouldn't have the Olympics.
00:46Also, for a third time in recent days, Mr. Trump talked about allegations he is acting like a dictator today,
00:52claiming that most people in America would be okay with that if crime is down.
00:55So the line is that I'm a dictator, but I stop crime.
01:01So a lot of people say, you know, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator.
01:04Most people say, if you call him a dictator, if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants.
01:10Well, the president reiterated today he is not a dictator, but his cabinet sure did spend a lot of time and effort showering him with praise over and over again.
01:20Mr. President, I invite you to see your big, beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor,
01:29because you are really the transformational president of the American worker.
01:33It is an honor to serve under your administration as the Labor Secretary,
01:37and we will kick off, and Republicans will own Labor Day again.
01:41Not Democrats.
01:42We will own it, because we are, and you are the president of the American worker.
01:46So thank you for everything that you've done.
01:47Thank you very much.
01:47Sir, as we've said very often, economic security is national security,
01:52and our country has never been so secure, thanks to you.
01:56You have brought us back from the edge.
01:59You have the overwhelming mandate from the American people.
02:04Thank you for reclaiming Labor Day for the American people.
02:08Thank you, sir.
02:08As we approach Labor Day weekend here, this is just such a great opportunity, really,
02:13to recognize your leadership as a true champion for working people.
02:17Well, Mr. President, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to work for you.
02:21And you committed when you ran for president to make America safe again.
02:26And today, the average family and individual that lives in this country is safer than they've been in years
02:31because of what you've done.
02:32Thank you for saving college football, by the way.
02:35We're all very grateful.
02:35The country just feels different.
02:39It just feels different.
02:40There's such an optimism and a love.
02:46There's a faith movement going through, especially with our younger Americans.
02:51I do believe we're in a revolution.
02:531776 was the first one.
02:561863 or so with Abraham Lincoln was the second.
02:59This is the third with Donald Trump leading the way.
03:02And we are saving America.
03:04Joining us now are CNN political commentators Van Jones and Alyssa Farah Griffin,
03:11two of the kindest and the bravest and the warmest, really most wonderful human beings
03:17that I personally have ever had the chance to know and serve.
03:20Alyssa, what do you make of the president's overall effort to consolidate and expand his power?
03:27How far do you think this goes?
03:31Certainly no one in his cabinet is going to push back on any of these efforts.
03:34Yeah, I mean, listen, his cabinet knows what they're expected to do when they show up to
03:40the cabinet meetings and it is to lavish the president with praise, as we heard there in
03:45that clip.
03:46In the first term, you heard a little bit of it, but this is kind of a new level of just
03:50thanking him.
03:51I'm surprised.
03:52I mean, it's so over the top.
03:53It's unbelievable.
03:55It's unbelievable.
03:57They really, they rattled quite a bit off.
03:59But listen, Donald Trump has always had an expansive view of the authority of the executive
04:04branch.
04:05I think in the first term, he adhered a lot more to a more conservative, constitutional,
04:09conservative sort of idea that there were separations of powers.
04:12There were some checks in place.
04:14He had people around him who I think affirmed that.
04:16I think now he's going to push it to the limit.
04:18This was something that was laid out when he ran for president.
04:22Advisors around him support it.
04:23And we've seen it in many, many ways.
04:26But the caution I give Republicans and people who may love everything that Donald Trump is
04:31doing is once you let that toothpaste out of the tube, the left is going to be able
04:35to use that same expansion of power on policies you don't like when they take back the White
04:40House.
04:40Once you expand the executive, there's no shrinking that again.
04:44And that's what concerns me just as much as what he may be doing in office.
04:47But the precedent, it sets down the road.
04:50Yeah.
04:51I mean, Van, the consolidation of his power extends to most of his presidency.
04:55He's targeting political enemies.
04:57You know, you talk about weaponization.
04:58I mean, you know, John Bolton's house is raided.
05:00He's imposing his will over museums and the arts.
05:03He's installing loyalists.
05:05I mean, is there anything beyond his reach, do you think?
05:09Or his attempt to reach?
05:11Well, not beyond his attempt.
05:12And here's the thing.
05:13Here's the thing.
05:14You know, a cabinet meeting is very important.
05:18Why?
05:19Americans have a bunch of problems.
05:22And when the cabinet meets, it's not supposed to be trying to make the president feel better.
05:26You're meeting to make Americans feel better.
05:28You've got a bunch of farmers right now because of these drought conditions.
05:31They don't know what they're going to do.
05:33There's nothing.
05:34We need a new farm bill.
05:36These people are not being talked about at all.
05:38You've got a bunch of people, young people, voted for Donald Trump, picked up a ballot in November, picked up a diploma in the spring, and can't get a job this summer.
05:46A massive collapse in college graduates getting a job.
05:51They weren't talked about literally at all.
05:52You've got energy prices that are starting to creep up.
05:55Why?
05:55Because Trump has tried to knock out renewable energy, and all these data centers now are sucking up all the energy.
06:00Now grandma can't pay her energy bill.
06:03Not talked about at all.
06:06So when you have actual the business of the American people not being discussed, this is not left or right.
06:11This is happening across the country.
06:13So that everybody can sit around and tickle the president's, the bottom of his feet, and make him feel happy.
06:18That is a catastrophe for ordinary people.
06:21You add to that this idea that he thinks that he can send, he's never sent an American troop against anybody but the American people.
06:28That's his view of what American military is for, is to go against the American people.
06:33None of this is working out very well, and it's easy to kind of get spun around.
06:37But at the end of the day, just talk to everyday people in your life and ask how things are going.
06:42They're not going well.
06:43The president spent three hours with people making him feel better, while most people are feeling a lot worse.
06:50Alyssa, I mean, obviously he's now focusing on crime and potentially sending the National Guard into other cities.
06:56That clearly, he believes, is a winning issue for him.
07:00Yeah, Donald Trump's made the calculation that he performs better being tough on crime than Democrats do.
07:08And I think heading into the midterms, he wants to create this juxtaposition of he is the president and the Republican Party is the party of taking action.
07:16Whereas these Democratic mayors and governors in these prominent liberal states, Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, Westmore and Baltimore, Gavin Newsom, have just dragged their feet and not addressed the issue.
07:26Now, well, the facts may not bear that out.
07:28We know the crime statistics are not necessarily in the president's favor.
07:33There is this sense that people feel that crime is bad in some of these places.
07:38So I think it will resonate with a lot of his supporters.
07:41And I think that there's a case that he's making that makes sense to the American public.
07:45But he's also motivated by action, simply.
07:48He wants to show that he is doing something.
07:51He sees this as sort of a juxtaposition to the prior administration, where a criticism was they're not doing enough.
07:57What is Joe Biden doing?
07:58He wants to show he's always doing something.
08:00What I'm curious to see is, do Democrats learn how to fight back beyond saying, actually, crime is not as bad as he's saying it is, and instead say, listen, crime is an issue, but is a federal takeover of American streets the answer?
08:13That's really, I think, where Democrats need to land on this.
08:15I agree 100 percent.
08:17Van, I want to please go ahead, Van.
08:19No, I just agree 100 percent.
08:21Listen, you know, you talked about Baltimore.
08:24You talked about Chicago.
08:25There are other places like Philadelphia.
08:26There are too many funerals.
08:28There are too many kids who are more used to, frankly, going to funerals than going to graduations.
08:33There are too many teddy bears on sidewalks with balloons and flowers because somebody got killed again this weekend.
08:39That's true.
08:40But when you talk to the people on the grassroots level, what do they want?
08:44Those grandmas who are on the front line, those coaches on the front line, none of them are calling for troops.
08:48They're saying, actually, under Biden, you finally got some dollars down to the grassroots level for violence interrupters, people who are being paid to go into neighborhoods and talk to these kids.
08:58And it turned out nothing stops a bullet like a job.
09:01And they were starting to bring it down.
09:03And they were finally seeing some hope.
09:06Guess what?
09:07The big, beautiful bill took all that away.
09:09So you actually have stopped the process of eliminating this youth violence.
09:14That's going to go in the wrong direction.
09:16And now you're sending in people whose job is not to talk to these young people, not to give them hope.
09:20Their only job of a soldier is to shoot somebody.
09:23So you're disrespecting local law enforcement that's been at the table with these grassroots groups, saying that, you know, you're no longer any good.
09:29And you're sending in people from other states with guns who have no training to help these young people.
09:35This is an unmitigated disaster for those of us who don't lie and pretend that crime isn't a problem.
09:41Crime is a problem.
09:42But the way you solve it is not by sending in troops from somebody else's state that they don't know a gang member from a basketball coach and expect things to work out well.
09:52This is a terrible idea, and he should get off of it.
09:54Because of that, you can't.
09:54I think this is a terrible idea.
09:55You have.
09:56There is no big stand in troops from you.
09:57No, no, no.
09:58There is no harm.
09:59But I don't salah.
10:00I don't right.
10:01And I think this is a great idea.
10:02There, too.
10:02Then in troops in opposition, come out of aim as a king.
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