And now for a moment of clarity.

Is it possible that he is going to do this in city after city in order to then say,

you know what, the country is too dangerous.

I'm in power here and we don't have to have elections.

Congressman, I think that's exactly the case.

I'll put a little finer point on

what you just said as a native Washingtonian, and I think I speak for a lot of Washingtonians

tonight who watched this BS-spectable, this performative effort by the President of the United States.

As you note, this is not about crime. This is about the

militarization of our police. This is about the victimization of the citizens who live in the

District of Columbia. And it's also about the deployment of that military in such a way to prove

Donald Trump has the power to do whatever the hell he wants to do, and that nobody will stop him.

And I think that it's incumbent upon the members of Congress and the Senate to understand exactly to the points you made about how this expands and grows and where this goes next to understand,

okay, y'all can mess around with D.C. It's a federal city. Constitution

gives you the right to do whatever the hell you want to it. But that's not the case in state

after state. New York, California, Illinois, Florida, wherever, you don't get that same plate.

How do members assert that principle, that constitutional idea that what the president is doing is wrong?

Okay, we see what's happening in D.C., but the idea that you're now going to translate this to other cities, not so fast.

Catch Michael Steele on The Weeknight, Monday through Friday at 7 Eastern on MSNBC.