I'm glad Trump is focused on nonexistent DC crime wave, not his campaign promises
Crime and cleanliness in Washington, DC.
Making sure the White House is covered in fancy gold and has a giant new ballroom for events I will never be invited to attend.
Things like food prices, wars, health care and manufacturing jobs can wait. It's nice to finally have a president committed to sprucing up our nation's capital, which I have visited once in my life and will likely never see again because I'm scared to travel to big cities.
Trump swears he will stop DC's violent crime wave that doesn't exist
On Aug. 11, President Trump held a news conference at the White House announcing his plan to deploy the National Guard to Washington, DC, to stop a crime wave that he is patriotically claiming exists.
"I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse," Trump said. "This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we're going to take our capital back."
Oh, thank goodness. While data from the Washington, DC, police department shows violent crime has fallen to it lowest point since before the COVID-19 pandemic, I'm not one to trust numbers. I believe the president's claim that the capital is a rabid hellscape riddled with homeless encampments and presumably liberal graffiti, and I don't think the possibility of the federal government taking over the city is in any way an attempt to draw attention away from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
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I'm sure President Trump will release the Epstein files as soon as he's finished getting all the murderers out of Washington, adding additional gold trim to various parts of the White House and building a $200 million ballroom that's also covered in gold.
I voted for Trump mainly because I wanted more gold in the White House
When I voted for Trump, these were my priorities in order of importance:
End crime in our nation's capital and pardon the Jan. 6 rioters who patriotically attacked the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
Clean up our nation's capital, which has gone to hell in a handbasket since the Jan. 6 rioters left it clean and pristine.
Add extensive gold-plated or gold-painted fixtures, carvings and molding to the Oval Office and rooms throughout the White House.
Pave over the Rose Garden so it looks like a patio.
Add a massive ballroom to the White House, and don't skimp on the gold!
Spend hundreds of millions of dollars rehabbing a flying-palace jet so Trump can use it as a more gold-forward Air Force One.
I'm sure the Epstein files are coming as soon as DC is crime-free
I figured once those issues were all addressed, the president could move on to stuff like lowering grocery prices, making health care more affordable, ending the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and releasing the Epstein files.
So to all the haters who keep claiming Trump hasn't come through on any of his promises, how about you shut up. He's slapping gold up in the White House quicker than you can say 'It looks like Mar-a-Lago threw up in here!' and now he's tackling problems in the capital that I'm told by him are problems.
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Grocery prices are still high, but Trump has to deal with DC first
As Trump wrote on Truth Social on Aug. 10, Sunday: 'I will take care of our cherished Capital, and we will make it, truly, GREAT AGAIN! Before the tents, squalor, filth, and Crime, it was the most beautiful Capital in the World. It will soon be that again.'
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Personally, I'm 100% fine with my family rationing meat and not giving my children milk to drink if it means the 'tents, squalor, filth, and Crime' that I have not seen are eradicated from Washington, a place I have no plans to ever visit.
And my concerns about Trump's involvement with the world's most notorious sex trafficking case have been completely overridden by the thrill of seeing a White House slathered in excessive gold trim.
Better health care and an end to wars can wait until the White House's grand new ballroom is up and President Trump proudly soars over it in his flying palace.
This is exactly what I voted for, and I couldn't be happier. MAGA!
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump invents fake DC crime wave to shift focus from Epstein | Opinion
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