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US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump suggested suggested many Americans would like to see a dictator in the White House as he signed orders to tighten his federal takeover of the policing of Washington DC.
During a rambling 80-minute event in the Oval Office, Trump lambasted critics and the media as he complained that he was not getting credit for deploying the National Guard on the streets of the US capital.
“They say ‘we don’t need him. Freedom, freedom. He’s a dictator. He’s a dictator.’ A lot of people are saying: ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator,’” Trump told reporters.
“I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense and a smart person.”
Trump – who attempted to overturn the results of his 2020 election defeat by Joe Biden at the end of his first term – said before winning a second term in November that he would be a “dictator on day one.”
Trump: "A lot of people are saying maybe we'd like a dictator." pic.twitter.com/2EpLkOaPZl
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 25, 2025
Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington earlier this month to counter what he alleged was an out-of-control crime problem, also taking federal control of the city’s police department.
This is despite crime levels in the city being at a 30-year low.
Trump said he was also considering sending the military into the cities of Chicago and Baltimore as he targets a series of Democratic strongholds. He sent the National Guard to Los Angeles – against the mayor’s and governor’s wishes – in June.
The US president today described Chicago today as “a killing field”.
He took particular aim at Illinois governor and vocal opponent JB Pritzker, who has strongly rejected any move to send in troops to Chicago.
“If it sounds to you like I am alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm, one that I hope every person listening will heed, both here in Illinois and across the country,” Pritzker told reporters today.
“What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American.”
Trump complained that the Democrat-run cities on which he is foisting federal forces have not been appreciative, calling them “sick”.
“You send them, and instead of being praised, they’re saying, ‘you’re trying to take over the Republic,’” said Trump.
“These people are sick.”
With reporting from AFP
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