Returning to Washington, D.C., for the first time since leaving office, former president Trump delivered a speech at the America First Policy Institute on Tuesday in which he accused the Democratic party of abdicating its responsibility to preserve law and order and promised that Republicans would pursue a laundry list of “brutally tough” solutions to crack-down on the “insanity” taking root in America’s cities.
“Our country is going to hell,” Trump declared. Under Democratic leadership, the nation has deteriorated into a “cesspool of crime…blood, death and destruction,” where the “streets are covered in needles and soaked with the blood of innocent people,” he said.
Over the course of his speech, Trump railed against the lax criminal-justice policies pushed by left-wing prosecutors that have led to surging violent crime rates in nearly every major American city. He described in graphic detail multiple recent senseless tragedies in which innocent victims, in Philadelphia and other Democratic-run cities, lost their lives to violent criminals who had previously been charged with crimes and released under cashless bail policies.
There is “no higher priority than stopping drugs from pouring in,” Trump said, advocating for the speedy prosecution and execution of drug dealers and flirting with the draconian approach of quasi-authoritarian countries, to stop the flow of narcotics into the country and clean up the streets.
“Countries without a drug problem are those that institute very steep punishment for drug crimes,” he said, praising China as a role model. By sentencing drug hustlers with the death penalty, “you save 500 lives because they kill on average 500 people,” he said. “It’s terrible to say.”
But even if the U.S. ferociously goes after drug smugglers, “it’s never going to be quite like China,” Trump lamented.
He demanded that the police be given back their authority, pensions, protections from liability, and prestige. The former president implored an unapologetic “return to stop and frisk policies in cities,” which he asserted is very effective at curtailing crime. There should be a nationwide Department of Homeland Security-led campaign to dismantle gangs, he argued, to “round up the killers and gang members and dealers and charge them with all the crimes.” Through this program, the National Guard should be deployed to the most dangerous neighborhoods of Chicago, San Francisco, etc. to thwart gang violence and bloody turf wars.
But currently, “there is no respect for the law and there is no order,” he said.
As for the homeless encampments taking over urban areas, Trump suggested that homeless people be relocated to special facilities on the outer edges of urban centers, where they would be housed in temporary shelters and provided drug and mental-health rehabilitation.
“People say ‘oh that’s horrible,” Trump said. “No, what’s horrible is what’s happening now.”
Trump then remarked on the gender ideology craze taking K-12 schools by storm, eliciting loud applause from the audience. He urged a stop to the “sexualization of minor children,” commenting that those who facilitate the gender transition of children via puberty blockers or reconstructive surgery, “are breaking the law and should be held fully accountable.”
“A society that refuses to protect its children is a society that will soon not be able to protect anyone,” he said, noting that such a failure is a “hallmark of societal decay.”
Before wrapping up the mostly forward looking speech, Trump resumed his complaints about the 2020 election, which he has falsely alleged was stolen by President Biden. After winning the office in 2016, “I won a second time,” he said. “I ran a second time and I did much better,” insisting that his 2020 ‘victory’ was even more overwhelming than the first.
“We may just have to do it again. We have to strengthen our country,” teasing a third presidential run.
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