President Donald Trump is threatening to sue a left-leaning think tank and perhaps some of its donors over the organization’s report that undermines the National Guard’s effect on violent crime in cities.
Trump went after the Center for American Progress in a Truth Social post late Monday night after Chandler Hall, the think tank’s associate director of public safety, spoke on C-Span about the recent report.
The center’s analysis, published July 13, found no evidence that National Guard deployments have reduced violent crime over the past year and estimated that the deployments would cost more than $1.7 billion in taxpayer money if they lasted through the end of this year. The president disagreed with its findings.
“Chandler Hall, representing, on Television, the foolish Center for American Lack of Progress, stated that adding the National Guard to Cities, including our now Great Again, Washington, D.C., had ‘NO impact on Crime.’ How crazy is that,” he said, adding that “Hall was met with furious dissent.”
Trump appeared to be referencing Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s interview with White House border czar Tom Homan, who praised his boss as the “greatest president in my lifetime” for cracking down on crime in Washington, D.C., and other major cities. Trump posted a clip of the interview on his Truth Social post.
His screed against the Center for American Progress came exactly one year after National Guard units were deployed in the capital to rein in homicides and other crimes.
Regarding the center’s report and Hall’s remarks on television, Trump vowed to bring a lawsuit, which he said, “is being drawn now.” He indicated that individuals and organizations that donate to the think tank could also be sued.
“I am also strongly considering adding some of the contributors to this Fake Organization,” Trump wrote. “Crime is way down since I took Office, and they know it. Liars, at this level, must be held accountable!”
He named some of these donors earlier in the post.
“The report is just another Radical Left SCAM, as are the people who fund this gaggle of Lunatics, including George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, Google, Apple, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, WellsFargo, Bank of America, Walmart, Toyota, T-Mobile, and NBC Universal,” Trump said. “Foreign support includes the Embassy of Japan, the Korea Foundation, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (Taiwan), and the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates.”
In the C-Span interview, Hall took issue with the Trump administration taking credit for the drastic drop in violent crime nationwide when those crimes were already on a downward trajectory before the Republican administration intervened.
“I think it’s unfortunate that the president is continuing to still choose to boast that these deployments, these very costly interventions, are showing any result to try to convince voters that they should sign on for more of these kinds of interventions and federal overreach when, again, there’s no proof that they have any effect,” he said.
ONE YEAR LATER, SOME DC RESIDENTS PRAISE TRUMP’S NATIONAL GUARD DEPLOYMENT
The Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force has made more than 16,000 arrests in Washington, D.C., since last August, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. The White House touted the figure on Monday.
Roughly 4,600 National Guard troops remain in the federal district, and they will stay until the next president’s inauguration in 2029 unless Trump terminates the order earlier than expected. The extended deployment will cost taxpayers at least $1.4 billion in additional expenses, according to information that the Department of War provided to Congress this month.