Trump’s Takeover of Washington, D.C., Is Hilariously Ineffective

The first night of Donald Trump’s takeover of the nation’s capital is in the books. As Trump would have us believe, he has begun to “liberate” Washington, D.C., from a crime surge (that actually does not exist). Troops have started clearing the streets of what he describes as a scourge of “violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people.”

Night one’s results are (to an extent) in: “As part of the president’s massive law enforcement surge,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday, “last night, approximately 850 officers and agents were surged across the city. They made a total of 23 arrests.”

For some perspective, according to the Police Scorecard, the D.C. police, between 2013 and 2023, made roughly 58.7 arrests on average each day.

Leavitt also provided a laundry list of the charges—ranging from fare dodging to homicide—that, without the raw information on individual cases, is pretty unhelpful in gauging the effectiveness of the effort: “Homicide, firearms offenses, possession with intent to distribute narcotics, fare evasion, lewd acts, stalking, possession of a high-capacity magazine, fleeing to elude in a vehicle, no permits, driving under the influence, reckless driving, and a bench warrant.”

Nonetheless, as Leavitt continued, “This is only the beginning.”

Trump’s D.C. takeover is planned to continue over the next 30 days or so—and with more cities to come, he says. And the troops he’s deploying have an apparent green light to abuse citizens at will: Now, the president says, they are “allowed to do whatever the hell they want.” According to social media dispatches from last night, this apparently includes bothering random D.C. residents simply going about their business. But who’s to say how extreme things will get?

The Department of Homeland Security is once again using their social media account to post blatant callbacks to white nationalist propaganda.

On Tuesday the DHS posted a picture of an animated Uncle Sam standing at a crossroads with multiple direction signs. The sign in his hand reads “Law and Order,” while the signs pointing every which way read “Cultural Decline,” “Homeland,” “Service,” “Invasion,” “Oppurtunity.” The image is a direct copy paste of an old 1936 cartoon referencing President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. In the original, the sign Uncle Sam holds reads “Prosperity,” while the others read “New Deal,” “Liberty,” “Depression,” “Inflation,” and “Opportunity.”

What’s most alarming is the DHS’s caption. They write “Which way, American Man?” a direct reference to the book “Which Way, Western Man?” written by infamous white supremacist William Gayley Simpson and published by neo-Nazi and National Alliance founder William Luther Pierce.

Simpson’s book is deeply racist and antisemitic, containing chapters titled “The Necessity of Eugenics,” “The Everlasting Truth About Race,” and “The Doctrine of the Thoroughbred,” among others.

“In the case of a country like the United States, if the original stock and its values are to survive, then all aliens, such as Negroes, Jews, and Orientals, will have to be put out and kept out. Immigration will have to be strictly limited to stocks most closely related, by blood and by tradition, to the stocks by which the country was originally founded,” Simpson writes in one chapter of his magnum opus of racism.

“The point is to reveal organized Jewry as a world power entrenched in every country of the White man’s world, operating freely across every nation’s frontiers, and engaged in a ruthless war for the destruction of them all,” he writes in another chapter. “Let me preface what I am about to say by declaring frankly that I am prepared to accept violence on the part of our people. The Jews’ hold on our throat is not going to be relaxed until we break their grip. Hitler felt that he had to take to the streets. All normal approach to his people was barred. Today, we are confronted with much the same situation here.”

In the latest instance of President Trump seeking to bend American cultural institutions to his will, the White House is set to overhaul the content and operations of the Smithsonian’s museums in anticipation of the United States Semiquincentennial.

A letter by administration officials Lindsey Halligan, Vince Haley, and Russ Vought—which was reported Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal—informed the Smithsonian Institute of a White House initiative to ensure its museums’ “alignment” with a history-whitewashing executive order that Trump signed in March.

The review, set to conclude at the beginning of 2026, will seek “to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions” by focusing on eight museums—including, among others, the Museums of American History, Natural History, African American History and Culture, and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Eventually, as part of this process, a team of Trump officials will be dispatched to the museums for “observational visits and walk-throughs … to document themes and messaging,” reports the WSJ.

The news suggests that Smithsonian exhibits or content that paint American history in anything but the rosiest light, or otherwise runs afoul of the MAGA worldview, could be in jeopardy.

Trump’s March executive order, for example, specifically targeted a Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibit titled “The Shape of Power” as evidence of the Smithsonian having been captured by “a divisive, race-centered ideology.” How so? Rather than supporting the scientific racist perspective that race is “a biological reality,” the exhibit claimed race is a social construct.

Not only will the Trump White House seek to root out certain content, it also plans to replace such “divisive or ideologically driven” material with that which is supposedly “unifying” and “historically accurate.” This, one can presume, means content that either whitewashes American history, or—given Trump’s recent moves to celebrate Confederates at U.S. institutions—perhaps portrays the ugliest aspects of it approvingly.

In the background of the White House’s bedlam, congressional Republicans have been quietly chipping away at the Affordable Care Act, threatening its efficacy.

Health care experts warn that the changes are tantamount to a partial repeal of President Barack Obama’s signature act, with more dire consequences than the conservative caucus’s failed 2017 effort to ditch the public health insurance system.

“The net effect of the changes they are making is a partial repeal of the ACA,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, told CNN Tuesday.

The Affordable Care Act’s marketplace insures roughly one in seven U.S. residents, according data from the Treasury Department. And it’s Donald Trump’s own supporters who are most likely to suffer the consequences of its elimination.

Paired with Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which gutted Medicaid coverage, a new rule for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services makes it significantly harder for people to enroll or renew their ACA coverage. The rule will raise out-of-pocket costs for enrollees, increase verification requirements, and ban certain groups of legal immigrants from accessing the plans, reported CNN.

Up to 1.8 million people are at risk of losing their Obamacare insurance plans, with the greatest losses occurring in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. North Carolina, which has a Democratic governor, also faces major ACA rescissions.

But it’s not clear if this attempt to carve up the ACA will actually result in the same midterm damages that Republicans suffered the last time they attempted to eliminate the popular program, in no small part because the changes are designed to be incremental.

“Many of the changes are so technical, it may be hard for the public to grasp what’s happening,” Levitt said. “Many of the changes will take years to take effect.”

Trump whisperer Laura Loomer and firebrand MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have filed yet another chapter in their yearslong public feud. This time, the girls are fighting over a Medal of Honor recipient who tackled a suicide bomber—whom Loomer has excoriated for the crime of being a Democrat.

“There are probably so many people who the Army could honor who have received the Medal of Honor. But who did the Army choose to honor instead on their social media page under the Trump admin? Florent Groberg, a Democrat who spoke at the 2016 DNC where he campaigned against Trump in support of Hillary Clinton and was praised by Obama,” Loomer posted over an Army tweet honoring Groberg’s act of valor.

“You’d think that the US Army of all places would actually invest in some proper vetting, but nope,” she continued. “Inadequacy, screw ups, and zero political knowledge of anything in the Trump era is totally accepted my many in this admin. Under the Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, there have been several instances of either him, or the Army promoting anti-Trump Leftists on their official social media channels.… Are we supposed to believe the Army couldn’t find a Republican and US born soldier? They had to find an immigrant who voted for Hillary Clinton and spoke at the DNC as Obama’s guest?”

Loomer was criticized widely for her comments, most pointedly by Greene—which led the Florida representative to realize that the influencer had blocked her on X.

“Of course, what a coward. I looked her up after I heard she attacked Medal of Honor recipient Florent Groberg, who risked his own life to heroically save his military brothers from a suicide bomber. What was Hero Florent Groberg’s Loomer crime? Nothing,” Greene wrote Monday on X. “He spoke at a Democrat convention. But Laura Loomer has ZERO respect or reverence for even the most heroic people in America. Ask any veteran, military member, and American, no one cares about his politics, the man was willing to die to save others from a suicide bomber. Shut up Laura.”

Greene attached a screenshot of Loomer’s block to her post.

“Laura Loomer will lie about and slander the best people in order to rip apart other Republicans she is trying to destroy.… Many people are asking who or what government or what intelligence agency has bankrolled the twice failed Congressional candidate, Laura Loomer all these years?’ Greene continued. “Because she has never had a real job, she is not legally allowed to own a gun, and she spends 100% of her time trying to funnel her lies and manipulated propaganda to the President of the United States. Many people need to wake up about her reporting. Researching facts and then spinning them into lies to serve her agenda doesn’t make her good or trustworthy. It makes her a liar and it makes her dangerous.”

This clearly struck a nerve with Loomer, as the terminally online commentator hit back, alleging that Greene had cheated on her then husband with a “polyamorous tantric sex guru” and had sabotaged Loomer’s 2023 congressional bid—not that it needed any sabotaging.

“You attacked me planted a story about me in the New York Times when Trump wanted to hire me in 2023. You made up lies because you couldn’t stand the idea of another woman in the GOP having success,” Loomer replied. “Speaking of lies, you ruined your entire family by cheating on your husband with a sex guru, and for the last 4 months, you have been doing nothing but spewing lies about the Trump admin because you don’t get enough attention from the Trump admin. I have had you blocked since 2023 when you called the Trump campaign and smeared me with lies because as a member of Congress you engage in Tortious interference and use your position to interfere in other peoples employment.

“You call yourself a Christian while you wreck your marriage like a whore and lie out of bloated horse face which has permanent damage from your years of alleged steroid use,” Loomer, who has her own plastic surgery speculations, continued. “Which is why you look like a Neanderthal.”

This is not the first time MTG and Loomer have clashed. Last year, MTG rightly called out Loomer for being racist after she said that if Kamala Harris won, “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand.” Loomer responded by calling MTG an antisemite (she is) for criticizing her.

Both of these women are bad actors. But even hard-line MAGA devotees can see that Loomer is in the wrong for attacking a veteran based on his voting record.