JD Vance and Pete Hegseth BOOED at Union Station

Newest IG baddies JD Vance and Pete Hegseth get photo op with National Guard

JD Vance took time out of his busy vacation schedule today to visit National Guard troops at Union Station — who were very available given the lack of crime in the area. He brought Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller with him, and they took photos with troops while protesters booed them so loudly that they had to struggle to be heard.

This was the latest in a series of events demonstrating DC residents’ displeasure at having troops and ICE stationed around the city — earlier this week, ICE was driven out of Columbia Heights by members of the community, and hundreds of people protested Trump’s fascist takeover of the city.

Trump has said the deployment of the National Guard is due to ‘rampant crime and lawlessness,’ though homicides have dropped by 32% between 2023 and 2024 and reached their lowest level since 2019, and violent crime is down 26% this year compared to this time last year. The National Guard is currently stationed in incredibly visible parts of the city (the National Mall, Union Station, etc.) — areas that are touristy, but have very little crime. So basically, they’re just wasting space and taxpayer resources and causing problems themselves, instead of solving any (read: an armored military vehicle commonly used in war zones that weighs about 14 tons and is designed to deflect bombs crashed into a car this morning in Capitol Hill).

Still, six other Republican states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia) have all promised to send hundreds more troops to DC, despite the fact that many cities in their own states have higher crime rates than DC. This authoritarian takeover of our nation’s capital city is strongly opposed by DC residents — a new poll shows that 80% of them are against federalization of the police force.

When asked at Union Station why troops were placed in areas that have virtually no violent crime, Vance baselessly suggested that crime statistics are inaccurate and said, "You just got to look around."

For me personally, I think the biggest crime hub in the city is 1600 Pennsylvania Ave — someone should probably check that place out.

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