In response to skyrocketing crime, President Trump has sort of taken over Washington, D.C., which has always belonged to the federal government. The Libs are calling the move dangerous and authoritarian in between dodging the bullets that are flying all around D. But the supposed takeover is about a lot more than just protecting people from criminals. This is the natural conclusion of MAGA, the one-nation Trumpism that upended decades of what we called conservatism.
00:02:57.540In addition, I'm deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order of public safety in Washington, D.C.
00:03:05.580And they're going to be allowed to do their job properly.
00:03:07.780The madman, the lawless, authoritarian, the fascist, the usurper, tyrant, our Napoleon is invoking an authority that comes to him from the current law governing D.C., which is the D.C. Home Rule Act, which allows him to take over the police departments.
00:03:30.100When crime gets out of hand, which it obviously has, you can just look at the crime stats going all the way up to 2023.
00:03:35.460And then even though it looks like there's a little tick down after 2023, there's a D.C. commander who's under investigation for cooking the books and actually hiding the fact that the crime is still really high.
00:03:49.140The liberal response is it's so tiresome.
00:03:51.520Trump is not even saying I'm going to assert my constitutional authority and the authority derived from the practice.
00:04:00.100That is grounded in the Constitution, that the federal government runs the federal district, which is District of Columbia.
00:04:06.260No, he's actually pointing to the law that gave D.C. Home Rule in the first place.
00:04:11.300From the founding of the country until 1973, the federal government ran D.C. directly.
00:04:17.260And that authority was vested in Congress.
00:04:19.820Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 says that Congress controls D.C. in all cases whatsoever.
00:04:26.140Then for over 100 years, for 102 years before the D.C. Home Rule Act, the president would be involved to appoint governors and mayors of Washington, D.C.
00:04:36.080Then in 1973, Congress and the president, President Nixon passed the D.C. Home Rule Act that says, okay, D.C. residents will get a little bit more say in their local government.
00:05:18.440And actually, President Trump seems to think it should go further, too, because he said that this might extend even beyond the federal district.
00:05:27.100We have other cities that are very bad.
00:05:46.540We're starting very strongly with D.C.
00:05:49.340And we're going to clean it up real quick, very quickly, as they say.
00:05:52.880Okay, now this is the part that is genuinely somewhat radical.
00:05:58.940This is the part that the thing that libs are saying about Washington, D.C.
00:06:03.480is ridiculous and shows their ignorance of the Constitution or their assumption that the people who are listening to them are extremely ignorant of the Constitution.
00:06:11.780But suggesting, okay, we're also going to send National Guard.
00:06:16.880We're also going to have a federal takeover of places like Oakland and elsewhere, Baltimore.
00:06:58.760This is, in fact, what MAGA has always been about.
00:07:01.280This is the apotheosis of MAGA, because MAGA is a new, updated, improved American form of an old conservative concept, which is one-nation conservatism.
00:07:17.040One-nation conservatism is most closely associated with the 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.
00:07:24.400But you've seen it crop up in different forms in different places throughout the years.
00:07:29.680This is part and parcel of Trump's working-class appeal.
00:07:35.120What does Trump have that Mitt Romney didn't have before him, and John McCain didn't have before him, and George Bush had to some degree, but not totally, and Bob Dole didn't really have, and George H.W. Bush didn't really have, and no one had in any real degree since Ronald Reagan.
00:07:51.480Well, part of that working-class appeal is a re-understanding of conservatism, not a total innovation, not an upending or a betrayal of conservatism like the Never Trumpers and the Squishes would say, but a return to a more traditional type of conservatism.
00:08:08.120One-nation conservatism, that's really what this is about, and one-nation conservatism is different from what we've called conservatism for the past, I don't know, 25, 30 years or so.
00:08:17.980Now, in that it is more paternalistic, in that it is more focused on noblesse oblige, in that it is more focused on the real day-to-day practical concerns of ordinary Americans from the elite levels.
00:08:34.600It's not denying that there are elites, it's not President Trump throwing on a Timex and a hoodie and pretending to be one of the blue-collar workers.
00:08:43.500He's wearing his Brioni suits and his gold watches, and he's clearly an elite, but he's an elite who cares about ordinary Americans, and that coalition has existed before.
00:08:56.560That is what one-nation conservatism is, but it's not based on a denial of reality.
00:09:01.680It's saying, no, no, I am privileged, yes, I've done very well, I'm very successful, and I want to share in that.
00:09:08.400We don't want to have two nations, a nation of the haves and the have-nots, of the rich and the poor, of the elites, and the lower classes.
00:09:15.160No, no, we have one nation, we're all Americans, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots.
00:09:19.260That's a line from Trump in the first term, and he's never changed his view on it.
00:09:22.920And one of the clearest instantiations of that is on cleaning up crime in the cities.
00:09:32.380Trump was pilloried in the first term, actually when he was running the first time, because they said, why are you running for president?
00:09:37.640He said, because I want you to have good, clean, good, clean, safe neighborhoods.
00:09:41.200And the abstract, ideological, individualistic, liberal, libertarian, beltway conservative types said, this is a terrible bastardization of conservatism.
00:09:54.400The president has nothing to do with neighborhoods.
00:09:57.300He just needs to set macroeconomic policy.
00:10:02.200He just needs to focus on things like occupational licensing reform.
00:10:06.440He just needs, he shouldn't be involved and on the ground.
00:10:09.100And he says, no, what are you talking about?
00:10:12.540Yeah, you don't care about some of these neighborhoods and some of these failed cities like Baltimore and Oakland, and yes, our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.
00:10:20.940But you know why you don't care about it?
00:10:23.520Because you live in your nice suburbs, and you live in your nice big house, in your gated community.
00:10:29.480And yeah, you don't, that's part of the reason why you people hate gun rights, is you don't need guns.
00:10:34.720Because you have security, and you live in secure neighborhoods.
00:10:37.080But what about the Americans who don't have those privileges?
00:10:40.900No, we're not going to just forget about them.
00:10:44.560This is a big shift, and it's one that I've cheered on from the beginning, which is a shift away from this hyper-atomized, individualistic, liberal conception of politics toward social solidarity, toward the common good.
00:11:21.060There's one more reason that Trump speaks to as to why this federal takeover of D.C. is important, and why we should look at the other cities, too.
00:11:28.460We'll get to that momentarily first, though.
00:11:30.860Speaking of things Trump loves, I want to tell you about gold.
00:17:48.540And he's donating money to improve things at the White House, to install two new big, beautiful flagpoles on the north and south lawns, to help build a beautiful state ballroom.
00:17:58.060It is embarrassing that we can't hold big state dinners at the White House.
00:18:01.340Because the White House, you know, if you've ever visited, if you've ever taken a tour, if you've ever been there for any reason, one thing that'll strike you is it's very small.
00:18:10.440Because it was built a long time ago when people were smaller and the scope of the country was smaller.
00:18:15.160And so Trump wants to keep things up to size in a tasteful way.
00:18:20.020But he wants to keep making America great again.
00:18:23.020And he's raising money and he's donating his own money to do it.
00:19:14.600That kind of language would not have been popular 20 or 30 years ago.
00:19:19.060It would have been viewed as politically incorrect.
00:19:21.340It would have been viewed as undemocratic in some way for the president to donate his salary.
00:19:26.200No, no, the president must receive his salary because he's just like anybody else.
00:19:30.080The Bushes are just like anybody else.
00:19:33.280There's something kind of waspy to that.
00:19:35.520You know, the really, really rich guy wears a Timex or something, you know, wears, he has rips in his sweaters.
00:19:41.420And there's something very waspy about that.
00:19:42.760But there's something also quite traditional and quite conservative about recognizing that in one's social state, wherever it may be, at the top or the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum, one has certain obligations.
00:20:00.800If you're a really, really rich guy, they're different than if you're not a really rich guy.
00:20:04.600And both can contribute, but you contribute in different ways.
00:20:07.080And I think Trump's paternalism, Trump's donating the salary, building renovations to the White House at his own expense, hawking the merch from the White House Historical Association, that it's a contending with reality.
00:20:28.620And it's saying, no, look, we really have, the left actually has a point.
00:20:32.140We do have a little too much inequality here.
00:20:35.180Even if it doesn't tug on your heartstrings, you're no bleeding heart liberal, the palace isn't going to be safe and peaceful if there's turmoil in the cottage.
00:20:45.180And I've been very, I've been blessed and I've worked hard and I've done all these things and I've become the man, Donald Trump.
00:21:23.360Now, the social solidarity point also ties in with one of the biggest issues of the Trump movement, which is one of the biggest issues right now.
00:21:33.440And people haven't really made this connection, but it's immigration.
00:21:36.740As Trump is asking the Supreme Court to allow the administration, according to reports, to racially profile, racially profile, linguistically profile, the libs up in arms.
00:21:49.360How dare you ask the courts to allow you to violate the law and discriminate by what?
00:22:51.940Many people on the right, myself included, want to go further and think that we need to restrict all immigration, dramatically restrict all immigration.
00:22:59.900But the whole point of that, the left doesn't get.
00:23:02.020The left thinks it's about you don't like brown people or you don't like Mexicans or, I don't know, you don't like the Spanish language or you don't like tacos or you just, you have an irrational animus toward foreigners.
00:23:15.080What it's about is something that the left pretends to advocate and pretends to understand but doesn't, which is social solidarity.
00:23:21.680If you flood a country with foreigners, people who speak a different language, who have different customs, different habits, a different understanding of government, if you do that, you're going to lose your country.
00:23:30.980And it's going to be unfair to people on a whole host of levels.
00:23:34.840It's going to be unfair to the working class.
00:23:37.240It's going to be unfair to ordinary people trying to live in their neighborhoods when you import a bunch of crime because the gangs control the border.
00:23:45.340It's going to be, it's just not right.
00:24:09.720The Trump administration is asking the court to allow officers to arrest suspected illegal immigrants in Southern California because of how they look, what language they're speaking, and what kind of work they're doing.
00:24:24.600Factors that federal judges have found to be baseless and discriminatory.
00:25:22.140Do we have to feel the texture of their skin, of their hair?
00:25:26.560Is that on what basis, if we are not allowed to consider how they look, sound, and what they're doing, on what basis do you arrest illegal aliens?
00:25:35.380Well, no, you need to, you need to just know that they're illegal aliens.
00:25:45.080Because that's what the left is saying.
00:25:46.280Well, how do you distinguish between the legal Hispanics and the illegal ones?
00:25:51.880Because they do look a little different, and they do sound a little different, and they're doing different things.
00:25:59.600Generally, they might have the same skin color or whatever, but there's more to it than that.
00:26:04.640But what, are we just supposed to, well, you have to know, you have to have a, I don't know, I don't even know what their argument is.
00:26:12.140If you're not allowed to profile, that's just one of the, it's one of the P words, profile, prejudice.
00:26:18.780It's, they're words that are used as scare words that when you really think about what they mean, there's really nothing wrong with them at all.
00:26:25.640But prejudice can be bigoted if you, if it's irrational, but we all make prejudgments.
00:26:30.940You wouldn't get out of bed in the morning if you didn't operate based on prejudgments.
00:27:16.960No one thinks that speaking Spanish or working in construction always creates reasonable suspicion that someone's an illegal alien.
00:27:26.200But in many situations, such factors, alone or in combination, can heighten the likelihood that someone is unlawfully present in the United States.