WASHINGTON (AP) — On Tuesday evening, President Donald Trump dined at a seafood restaurant close to the White House, advocating for his initiative to deploy the National Guard and enhance federal control over the police force to address crime issues in the nation’s capital.
His motorcade made the short distance to Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab on 15th Street in the northwestern quadrant of the city following weeks of the president boasting about mobilizing federal authorities and the military that he says have made Washington “a safe zone.”
Cheers were heard as the president stepped from his limo — though there was also a smattering of boos and chants from protesters opposing U.S. policy in support of Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza.
“We’re standing right in the middle of D.C., which as you know about, over the last year, was a very unsafe place — over the last 20 years — and now it’s got virtually no crime,” Trump told reporters.
He added that he wouldn’t have stood out “in the middle of the street” as recently as a couple of months ago. The suggestion was farcical, however, and didn’t actually reflect whether crime levels had changed in Washington, since the president is always surrounded by heavy security wherever he goes.
After entering the restaurant, a video posted on social media showed Trump shaking hands with some diners inside. But he also stared for an extended period at a small group of protesters who held up miniature Gaza flags and chanted: “Free D.C.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!”
The president moved closer to them and could be seen gesturing briefly, but didn’t appear to speak.
Some restaurants have reported drops in reservations since Trump first announced the federal crackdown on Aug. 7, while there have been frequent street protests decrying his actions. Increased military and police presence also has occasionally sparked standoffs between residents and authorities in normally quiet neighborhoods.
Trump has nonetheless said repeatedly that he’s spoken to friends who tell him local restaurants are full and that people have noticed a drop in crime. He says he’s also heard that people appreciate crews working to remove homeless encampments as part of the crackdown.
Accompanying the president for dinner were Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as well as Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff. In his comments before going into dinner, Trump said, “The restaurants are booming.”
“People are going out to dinner where they didn’t go out for years,” he said.
After Trump returned to the White House after 10 p.m., press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who was also among those who dined with Trump, said he had eaten crab, shrimp, salad, steak and dessert.
The excursion was notable since Trump rarely dines away from the White House when he’s in Washington. And such outings have gotten even less common since he sold the hotel bearing his name a few blocks away, which was a key meeting point for administration officials and supporters during his first term.
The White House reported Tuesday that there had been nearly 2,200 arrests since Trump first announced the Washington crackdown on Aug. 7.
In addition to Washington, Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles in June and has threatened to send troops to other, largely Democratic cities, including Baltimore, New Orleans and Chicago — where state and local authorities already are bracing for operations to sharply increase immigration enforcement.
He said Tuesday night, “We’re going to be announcing another city that we’re going to very shortly,” then said it could be as soon as Wednesday. He added that the mayor of that city and the governor of the state it is in “would love us to be there.”
That follows Trump posting over the weekend a parody image from “Apocalypse Now” featuring a ball of flames as helicopters zoom over the lakefront and skyline of Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city.
“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning,’” Trump wrote on his social media site. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
In the post, Trump offered no details beyond the label “Chipocalypse Now,” a play on the title of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War film, in which a character says, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Last week, Trump signed an executive order seeking to rename the Defense Department as the Department of War — even after months of campaigning to be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize. The renaming requires congressional approval.
In his own post in response, Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called Trump a “wannabe dictator.” He has joined state and city officials — and many Chicago residents — in decrying the idea of a federal crackdown as unnecessary.
