'These are dangerous times': Lawyer reveals Trump's plan behind his D.C. takeover bid

A progressive lawyer issued a stark warning on Monday after President Donald Trump announced he was federalizing the Washington, D.C. police force.

"These are dangerous times we live in," Marc Elias, a voting rights lawyer and founder of Democracy Docket, told progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen on his show "No Lies."

Trump announced on Monday that his administration was ending home rule for D.C. because of the District's crime rate. However, that explanation stands at odds with federal data, which shows crime in D.C. and across most of the U.S. reached a 30-year low in 2024.

Elias explained that the inconsistency in the narrative coming out of the Trump administration reveals that they may be after something more than reducing crime rates.

"It's going to spread from city to city, and then to the suburbs, and then to rural areas, until Trump feels like he has complete authority over local law enforcement," Elias said.

Elias pointed to Trump's response to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Los Angeles earlier this year as an example. Several experts concluded that Trump's sending the National Guard to the protests was largely a show of force.

To Elias, Trump was priming the American people to be used to seeing military officers working with local police.

"All of this is in furtherance of his efforts to undermine democracy, undermine the rule of law, to squelch and intimidate people who are willing to stand up and speak out, to intimidate and have large institutions, the legacy media, the universities, and the institutions all bow down," Elias added. "Free and fair elections are the crowned jewel, the cornerstone of what he wants to undermine."

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