Trump's shock troops: Coming to a city near you?

Agents from various federal and local agencies question a couple about a potential parking violation while eating McDonald's takeout on Aug. 12 in northwest Washington. The couple was released after a search of the car.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he will continue to take over American cities, no matter what Congress thinks.

“Well, if it's a national emergency, we can do it without Congress,” Trump said when asked whether he would ask Congress to extend his federal takeover of Washington beyond its 30-day limit. “But we expect to be to Congress, before Congress, very quickly. And again, we think the Democrats will not do anything to stop crime, but we think the Republicans will do it almost unanimously.”

“We’re going to need a crime bill that we’re going to be putting in, and it’s going to pertain initially to D.C.,” he said, without clarifying the specifics of what that bill would entail. However, that “initially” suggests that Trump sees his D.C. takeover as a blueprint for other Democratic cities.

Trump’s comments were made during a press event following his announcement of this year’s Kennedy Center honorees, the first since he commandeered the arts organization.

In his comments, he went on to compare the D.C. scheme to his failed border-wall plans, saying, “I just said, ‘Close the border,’ and they closed the border, and that was the end of it. I didn't go back to Congress, and we're going to do this very quickly, but we're going to want extensions. I don't want to call national emergency. If I have to, I will, but I think the Republicans in Congress will approve this pretty much unanimously."

Trump’s authoritarian project hinges on the fantasy that Democratic-led cities are teeming with violent crime, even as D.C.’s violent crime rate has been declining. Videos now circulating online show Trump’s shock troops roving empty streets, arresting sandwich-throwing citizens, while the crime crisis they were sent to quell has failed to materialize.

This isn’t about safety, it’s about power, and if Congress cannot stop it, D.C. may just be one of the first stops on the Trump administration’s “Make America A Police State” tour.