President Donald Trump has defended his latest wave of security measures in Washington, insisting he is not a dictator even as he claimed that some Americans would embrace one.
Trump spoke during a press conference at the Oval Office where he signed executive orders introducing stiffer penalties for suspects who burn the American flag and eliminating cashless bail.
The new measures come as part of his administration’s escalating crackdown on crime in Washington after he directed the Pentagon to create a specialised national force trained and equipped to handle public order issues in the capital.
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Dismissing criticism that the initiative amounts to authoritarianism, Trump said expanding the programme to other cities was necessary to address rising insecurity.
“As you all know Chicago is a killing field right now and they don’t acknowledge it and they say ‘We don’t need him. Freedom, freedom, he’s a dictator’. A lot of people are saying ‘maybe we like a dictator’,” Trump declared.
He added that “I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense and a smart person”.
Earlier this month, Trump announced a federal takeover of the Washington police under the Home Rule Act, which directs the city’s mayor to provide the president with police assistance for 30 days whenever “special conditions of an emergency exist.”
The president cited what he described as a sharp rise in violent crimes, homelessness, and lawlessness, claiming Washington had been “taken over by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals.”
This assertion, however, contrasts with figures from the Justice Department showing that violent crime in the city fell to a 30-year low last year.
In June, Trump also deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles after days of unrest sparked by immigration raids targeting undocumented migrants.
It was the first time a sitting US president had assumed direct control of the National Guard since the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which followed the brutal beating of Rodney King by four white police officers.