During his nearly 90-minute Monday morning press conference declaring an “emergency” and announcing that he is federalizing the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police force despite crime being at a 30-year low, President Donald Trump appeared to confuse the U.S. state of Alaska with Russia—twice—leading critics to again express concerns.

“This is a tragic emergency,” Trump told reporters packed into the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. “And it’s embarrassing for me to be up here.”

“You know, I’m going to see Putin, I’m going to Russia on Friday,” Trump said, stressing “Putin” and “Russia.”

“I don’t like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once-beautiful capital was. With graffiti all over the walls,” he complained.

But the President’s remark about going to “Russia” was incorrect. The meeting on Friday with the Russian President is scheduled to be in Alaska, not Russia.

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The United States bought Alaska from Russia in 1867.

“The reason Putin wants to meet in Alaska is because he wants it back,” noted The Washington Spectator’s Dave Troy, a historian and researcher who has written extensively about Russia, on Saturday. “He thinks because it’s former Russian territory he’s psyop-ing and dominating Trump.”

Critics, some of whom described the event as “rambling,” blasted the President.

“Trump is going to Alaska on Friday, which the Kremlin has been demanding back recently. Maybe that’s the ‘territorial concession’ Trump keeps ranting about,” observed political commentator and Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky.

“He’s going to Russia? This doddering old man has no idea where he is or what he’s talking about,” snarked U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.

“Looking forward to all the articles about Trump’s cognitive decline,” wrote the political commentary account Blue Georgia.

“Since there are so many reporters in the briefing room listening to Trump ramble and rant and gaffe and dissemble, I assume there are going to be tons of stories about how mentally compromised the United States President is,” remarked The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell.

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“Russia has a tremendous advantage with its ‘Alaska is ours!’ operation it did not have with its ‘Crimea is ours!’ operation. In 2014, the Ukrainian government was unsteady but loyal to Ukraine. In 2025, the U.S. government is chaotic and headed by Trump who is loyal to Putin,” noted political scholar Dr. Michael MacKay.

“Russian and Ukrainian social media are lighting up with Trump’s revealing announcement: ‘I’m going to Russia on Friday to meet with Putin.’ They know Alaska is Russian America to Moscow imperialists. The Putin regime is looking good to win another stunning victory over the USA,” MacKay added.

“Trump announced, “I’m going to Russia” on Friday. This is a major foreign policy statement. Flanked by Hegseth & Bondi, who barely flinched, Trump declared an enormous diplomatic change. But it’s wrong. He’s going to Alaska. It’s not part of Russia (yet),” wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Laurie Garrett. “Hope Sen. Lisa Murkowski is paying attention.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Trump: It’s embarrassing. I’m going to see Putin. I’m going to Russia on Friday.

(Alaska) pic.twitter.com/ET7e6zMS3c

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 11, 2025

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Violent crime in Washington, D.C. fell by double digits in 2024 and again in the first half of 2025, yet on Monday, President Donald Trump officially declared a “public safety emergency” and said he is invoking federal “emergency” powers, federalizing the D.C. Metropolitan Police force, ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to seize control.

“This is an emergency,” Trump claimed to reporters at the White House.

He also is ordering the deployment of National Guard troops, FBI agents, Secret Service agents, and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers.

“We will bring in the military if needed,” Trump said, in addition to the National Guard.

“A federal takeover of the D.C. police force would be an extraordinary assertion of power in a place where local leaders have few avenues to resist federal encroachment,” The Washington Post had reported late Sunday night.

With the Secretaries of the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and Interior, and the FBI Director, President Trump at one point appeared to almost suggest a rollout of federal military troops into D.C. might be just the start, and other cities may see similar takeovers.

Multiple rankings of violent crime do not show Washington D.C., a city of just over 700,000 people, in the top 10 or top 25 most violent or dangerous cities per capita.

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U.S. News and World Report shows Memphis, Tennessee as the number one most dangerous place to live in the United States. Oakland, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit round out the top five. The majority of the top 25 are all in red states.

Security.org took a deep dive into crime statistics, and found that on a per capita basis, East St. Louis, Illinois tops their list of the 25 most dangerous cities. (The report from 2018 was updated in May.) Two cities in Alabama come in second and third, Chester, Pennsylvania, comes in fourth, and St. Louis, Missouri fifth.

“Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in January reported.

Last Tuesday, the President threatened to “federalize” Washington, D.C., after a DOGE employee allegedly was ““beaten mercilessly by local thugs,” according to Trump.

The President is offering a different point of view, alleging on Sunday that in D.C., “the Crime Numbers get worse.”

“Washington, D.C. will be LIBERATED today!” he continued on Monday morning. “Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER! I quickly fixed the Border (ZERO ILLEGALS in last 3 months!), D.C. is next!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT”

And claiming that this is “all going to happen very fast,” also on Sunday Trump wrote: “The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”

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Does Trump have the legal authority to mount a federal takeover of Washington, D.C.?

“He could theoretically do this for up to 30 days under the city’s Home Rule Charter by claiming an ’emergency,’ which the Charter doesn’t define with specificity,” wrote Professor of Law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance on Sunday.

Critics have been blasting the President.

“Crime rates are down in D.C., there are no riots or other unusual threats- so why are there soldiers on our streets? ‘Police State’ used to refer to other countries, not ours,” wrote The New Yorker’s award-winning investigative reporter Jane Mayer.

“With Trump set to use crime as a fake justification to threaten DC today, media should make one thing clear: At this point his pattern of manufacturing pretexts for militarizing domestic law enforcement has become undeniable,” wrote The New Republic’s Greg Sargent.

“Trump just ordered homeless people to leave Washington DC ‘IMMEDIATELY’ and be shipped ‘far from the Capital.’ Violent crime is down 26% but facts don’t matter when you need a scapegoat for your authoritarian power grab. Meanwhile he’s rolling troops in,”observed popular liberal podcaster David Pakman.

“Crime in D.C. is at historic lows. Trump isn’t calling in the national guard to fight crime; he’s doing it as a power play and a test of his authority. If we have to flood the streets with the military during peacetime, just imagine what he’ll do during the elections,” warned Project Liberal executive director Joshua Reed Eakle.

“The president falsely claimed [during his press conference] the 2023 number of murders in DC was probably the district’s highest ever. Not even close. It did spike to 274 in 2023, but it was 482 in 1991. And he didn’t mention that it plunged to 187 in 2024 or that it has fallen further year-to-date in 2025,” reported CNN’s Daniel Dale.

“And do Americans realize that Trump is turning the U.S. into a surveillance and police state? That immigrants were the test case and it will expand to everyone? And that now he is using ‘crime’ to start testing the tactics that will expand across the country,” wrote Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Trump: I’m officially invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. You know what that is—Placing the D.C. Metropolitan police department under direct federal control pic.twitter.com/xi7HkeLO5N

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 11, 2025

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Image via Reuters

A freshman Republican has introduced legislation in the House of Representatives to mandate a citizens-only U.S. census, following a demand from President Donald Trump. But legal scholars say the Constitution is clear: it requires counting all persons, including U.S. citizens, legal residents, and undocumented immigrants.

U.S. Rep. Randy Fine filed the “Correct the Count Act” without any co-sponsors.

After posting a screenshot of Trump’s demand, Congressman Fine wrote: “President Trump, I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I introduced the Correct the Count Act to make this LAW! Only AMERICANS can vote in elections, and illegals should not inflate blue states’ populations to give them underserved Congressmen. Florida is getting the shaft, and it is time for that to end! Stop the Steal!”

The Census and the ability to vote are unrelated.

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“I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” Trump wrote on Thursday morning, suggesting no legislation is necessary. “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

In a statement to The Hill, Fine wrote that his bill would create “a snap census of Americans only, just as the President called for. Between the Great Deportation and economic refugees fleeing blue states, the 2020 Census is no longer valid.”

Congressman Fine’s bill does not detail how the new Census would be paid for.

While there is no accurate count of undocumented immigrants, a Department of Homeland Security estimate places the total number at 10.9 million as of 2022. There is not a breakdown of all 50 states, but it does provide estimates of the “Unauthorized Immigrant Population” for the top states, including California (2.6 million), Texas (2.06 million), Florida (590,000), New Jersey (490,000), and Illinois (420,000).

Republicans believe more undocumented immigrants reside in blue states than in red states.

Absent court orders, it is extremely rare for a state, outside of the census window, to redistrict with the direct goal of providing more seats to a particular party, and the United States has never conducted a decennial census officially excluding undocumented immigrants.

The Fourteenth Amendment states that “the whole number of persons in each State” is to be counted.

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Image via Reuters