Vice President JD Vance said he wants Trump’s crime crackdown extended to “every big American city.”
Vance, in a chummy sit-down with MAGA ally Matt Gaetz on One America News, praised the mass arrests and vowed more targets are coming.
He cast “weak leadership” as the reason “criminals” have “taken over the streets,” adding that the solution is to “just throw those people in jail and keep them in prison.”
He endorsed replicating the White House’s federal control of policing in Washington, D.C., and the new Chicago sweep dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.”
Vance, 41, named “crime-ridden cities,” like Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago, as areas that could benefit from federal intervention.
Gaetz asked Vance what his message was to people living in those cities and others like it.
“If you just do some common-sense law enforcement, you can give the American people back their streets,” he said in the interview.
“I would love if we did this in every big American city.” The exchange aired Tuesday night.
The White House has asserted federal control in the nation’s capital, deploying National Guard units in the face of mass protests.
In Chicago, the administration this week launched “Operation Midway Blitz,” with the Department of Homeland Security saying the push focuses on “criminal illegal aliens.”
Credible statistics show crime has decreased lately, and Guard troops with little to do are picking up trash and gardening in D.C..
Trump, flanked by Cabinet officials including Vance, attempted to stage a victory-lap dinner at Joe’s Seafood near the White House on Tuesday, boasting D.C. now has “virtually no crime” and that restaurants are “booming.”
However, it wasn’t the criminals Trump had to worry about, as he was instead accosted in the diner by protesters who described him as a modern-day Hitler.
During the cozy chat with Trump’s MAGA ally Gaetz, Vance also echoed Trump’s vow that the administration would have no qualms carrying out extra-judicial killings on so-called “narcoterrorists.”
This was despite it having faced criticism earlier this month for an attack on a drug trafficking boat that killed 11 people.
Vance said, “I think the rules of engagement should be similar to what they are in war, because we are, in fact, in a war against these drug cartels.
“I understand the concerns about due process. I understand some of the criticisms that have been raised, but this is not a situation where we can send the Navy Seals into these places, arrest them, and give them a proper civil trial or criminal trial.
“These people are engaged in criminal terrorist organizations. Sometimes they have the backing of organizations that are more powerful than the governments that exist in these countries.
“And our attitude is very simple. If you’re engaged in a war against the American people, you are at risk of having your entire operation literally blown to bits.”
He added, “If you’re trying to kill our citizens, if you’re engaged in these criminal cartels, we’re gonna treat you like a foreign enemy of the United States because that’s exactly what you are.”
Gaetz did not at any point press Vance on the House Oversight Committee’s publication this week of a sexually suggestive 2003 birthday note allegedly to Jeffrey Epstein that appears to bear Trump’s signature—an allegation the White House calls “fake.”
