New US ambassador to Mexico formally arrives at time of busy binational agenda
Amb. Ron Johnson, who served as ambassador to El Salvador during the first administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, met with President Claudia Sheinbaum at the National Palace along with his wife Alina Johnson. He left without making comments to the press.
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Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
FBI sending 120 agents into DC streets as Trump targets carjacking and crime in capital
Amid President Donald Trump's crime crackdown in Washington, D.C., the FBI has started sending about 120 agents on overnight shifts to help local law enforcement battle carjackings and other violent crime, according to The Washington Post. This comes as Trump has threatened a federal takeover of the city, even as data shows violent crime plummeting in the nation's capital. The president was recently outraged after a young administration staffer was reportedly assaulted in an attempted carjacking. On Saturday, Trump announced that a Monday press conference would end violent crime in Washington. On Sunday, he took to Truth Social again, this time to call on the city's homeless to 'clear out' 'immediately.' The president compared his crime-battling action to his work restricting illegal immigration at the southern border. The FBI agents from the bureau's counterintelligence, public corruption, and other units are now set to take part in traffic stops, for which they lack the proper training, The Post noted. Trump ordered federal law enforcement agents from a number of agencies to be sent into city streets last week, and he said more juveniles should be charged in the justice system as adults. The paper found that the diversion to local crime has caused frustration at the FBI. Most of the 120 agents authorized by the administration to battle crime alongside D.C. police come from the Washington Field Office. FBI agents usually don't have the authority to conduct traffic stops, and people familiar with the situation told The Post that the agents could be dispatched to support other agencies. Federal land is all across the nation's capital, and local law enforcement often works side by side with federal agents to patrol it. However, these duties usually fall to the U.S. Park Police and the Secret Service, and not the FBI. Anonymous top officials in the D.C. police department told The Post that the Trump administration hasn't asked how to deploy these additional resources. As D.C. is not a state, federal authorities can exert more control over the city even as residents and local elected leaders protest. D.C. residents elect their own mayor and city council following the 1973 Home Rule Act. However, a federal takeover of Washington's police department would be an unusual use of power in a city where local leaders have few ways to resist federal intrusions. On Sunday morning, the FBI told The Post in a statement that 'Agents from the FBI Washington Field Office continue to participate in the increased federal law enforcement presence in D.C., which includes assisting our law enforcement partners.' Trump took to Truth Social on Sunday afternoon to call out the city's mayor. 'The Mayor of D.C., Muriel Bowser, is a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances, and the Crime Numbers get worse, and the City only gets dirtier and less attractive,' he said. Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday, Bowser said Washington was "not experiencing a crime spike." "It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023," she said. "We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low." The capital's police department reported that violent crime in the first seven months of this year was down by 26 percent compared with 2024. Overall, crime was down roughly seven percent. 'If the priority is to show force in an American city, we know he can do that here,' Bowser added. 'But it won't be because there's a spike in crime.'
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump's federal forces are ‘hitting the streets' of DC while critics claim takeover is attempted distraction from the ‘Epstein files'
President Donald Trump's federal forces are 'hitting the streets' of Washington, D.C., while critics claim the takeover is an attempted distraction from the so-called Epstein files fallout. Trump announced Monday he was placing the D.C. police department under direct federal control and deploying the National Guard to 'rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse,' despite crime figures declining for the past two years. 'This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we're gonna take our capital back,' Trump said during a press conference. 'We're taking it back. Under the authorities vested in me as the president of the United States, I'm officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.' In response, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the administration's plans are 'unsettling and unprecedented,' but she was 'not totally surprised' by them. The White House announced on X Monday evening, 'Multi-agency task forces are hitting the streets of Washington, D.C., cleaning up crime and keeping our neighborhoods SAFE,' adding authorities arrested 37 criminals, seized 11 illegal firearms and issued four narcotic charges. NPR reported small groups from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies were seen on the streets of Washington Sunday. The some 800 National Guard troops, which will be positioned in Washington starting this week, will not perform law enforcement tasks, The New York Times reported, citing Pentagon officials. When pressed about the National Guard's role, Defense Secretary Pete Hegeth said on Fox News Monday evening, 'We're not going to have National Guard just sitting there like this, seeing a crime committed and not do something about it. You can help somebody, interdict, temporarily detain like we did in Los Angeles, and hand over to law enforcement.' Trump's opponents quickly rebuked the administration's operation in D.C. Trump's old foe, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pointed out on X, 'Violent crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low,' sharing data from January, which stated overall violent crime was down 35 percent from 2023. Another Trump rival, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wrote: 'Donald Trump delayed deploying the National Guard on January 6th [2021] when our Capitol was under violent attack and lives were at stake. 'Now, he's activating the D.C. Guard to distract from his incompetent mishandling of tariffs, health care, education and immigration — just to name a few blunders.' Some of the president's critics believe the move has less to do with crime in D.C. and more to do with the administration's handling of documents related to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein's sex crimes. Last month, the Justice Department and FBI released a memo stating there was no so-called client list of powerful people who may have partaken in Epstein's crimes, that Epstein did, in fact, die by suicide, and 'no further disclosure [of information regarding Epstein] would be appropriate or warranted.' The memo sparked backlash, notably from Trump's own base, as it left many unanswered questions and concerns the government may be covering up materials that would be of interest to the public. Pete Buttigieg, who was transportation secretary under former President Joe Biden, blasted the federal takeover of Washington D.C. policing as 'dangerous, authoritarian actions' in a video posted to X. ' The president is doing this not in order to make the city safer— that's the job of local law enforcement — but to solve his own political problems. He needs to get his base talking and thinking about something besides his refusal to open up the Epstein files because he's mixed up in them,' Buttigieg said. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in relation to Epstein or his crimes. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported DOJ officials told Trump earlier this year his name, among others, appeared in the Epstein files. Trump had socialized with the convicted sex offender decades ago and a mention in the files does not mean there was any wrongdoing. Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, also claimed 'wannabe dictator' Trump wants to distract from the Epstein files. 'He's a pathetic wannabe dictator who wants to distract you from his connection to the Epstein files, skyrocketing costs, and his weak job numbers. Don't let him,' Murray wrote of Trump. Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, shared similar sentiments to other Trump critics: 'Trump's federal takeover of D.C. isn't about safety, it's about distracting Americans from, high prices, a bad jobs report, a falling economy, and the Epstein files.' 'I can tell you one thing for sure—crime is WAY up at the White House,' Representative Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote. 'Don't fall for the distraction. Trump could release the Epstein Files right now if he wanted to. Why won't he?' The Independent has reached out to the White House and D.C. police for comment. Trump had asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce 'any and all pertinent' grand jury transcripts in the criminal cases of Epstein and his close associate Ghislaine Maxwell, but so far, judges have denied most of the requests. A federal judge in New York is still considering releasing testimony in Epstein's 2019 investigation. During his press conference Monday, Trump also suggested he would 'look at' crime in at least two other major cities, New York City and Chicago. Trump called Chicago a 'disaster,' and said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker was 'incompetent.' Pritzker - a Democrat - said he took Trump's diss as a 'compliment.' 'Let's not lie to the public, you and I both know you have no authority to take over Chicago. By the way, where are the Epstein files?' he wrote.
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump wants to mobilize troops in DC – it went horribly for him in Los Angeles
Trump made a much-teased announcement on Monday that he would invoke a never-before-used presidential authority to seize control of Washington, D.C.'s police department from local control to his Attorney General Pam Bondi. The president also announced he would deploy the National Guard on the streets of the nation's capital as a plan to 'rescue' the city from rampant crime, despite the fact that crime dropped in Washington by 35 percent last year after it spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic. Trump had teased a federal takeover of Washington and has decried homelessness and graffiti in the city. Republicans have encroached on Washington, D.C's home rule for decades. The fact it is a majority Black city with a Black political establishment has also made it easy to attack the same way Trump has attacked Baltimore and other cities run by Black mayors. Of course, this is not the first time that Trump has taken control of a major American city. Earlier this year, after protests against raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles without the consent of the governor of California or the city's mayor. Trump may be hoping his actions will boost his approval ratings, which have been sagging in recent months. But a simple look at the numbers shows that it might backfire precipitously. First, let's get to the kernel of truth in Trump's idea. Voters in Democratic cities did vote against their leaders partially because of crime. New York City elected Eric Adams, a former police officer, as mayor in 2021. Voters in San Francisco kicked out mayor London Breed and voters in Los Angeles and Alameda beat back progressive prosecutors for lax policies toward crime. While almost no Democratic presidential candidate has supported defunding the police it became a tagline for Republicans use to hit at Democrats. That being said, it's fairly clear that Trump's approval ratings took a hit after he dispatched troops and the National Guard to Los Angeles. When Trump first came into office this year, and even after he began his tariff regime, Americans continued to support him on immigration. In February, according to an Economist/YouGov poll, he still cracked 50 percent approval on immigration. That number began to dip in April, after Trump sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the immigrant based in Maryland, to El Salvador. In April, Trump's approval number on immigration went to 45 percent. But by May, the same poll showed his approval on immigration started to rebound to 48 percent. That would go 'poof' in June once Trump began to send troops to Los Angeles. By the middle of June, a plurality of Americans thought that his response to the anti-ICE protests was too aggressive and 52 percent disapproved of his policies on immigration. By the end of June, 50 percent of Americans opposed Trump's policies on immigration. and his number has stubbornly stayed there. Not only that, as The Independent reported last month, polling from CBS News and CNN bore that out as well. The CNN poll also found that 59 percent of Americans opposed the deployment of National Guard troops without the consent of the governor and 55 percent of respondents said protesters were justified. While much of the attention when it comes to Trump's approval tends to focus on Jeffrey Epstein, it's clear that his approval began to collapse long before that scandal, when he began to deploy troops into the second-largest city in the United States. Trump may be trying to bait protesters by having troops roving throughout Washington in hopes that it will create the type of unrest that happened in 2020 and in Los Angeles. But the numbers show he might come to regret that. Voters may not like disorder and crime but they dislike overzealous responses from the government even more. Solve the daily Crossword
