Trump’s Angry New “Dictator” Rant to Media Alarms Experts: “Wake Up!”

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With President Trump’s crackdown intensifying in Washington, D.C., he lashed out angrily at the media for describing him as a “dictator.” In this same rant, he did not reassure D.C. residents and exaggerated wildly about crime there, suggesting people should thank him for his efforts. As observers noted, Trump clearly meant people should mute criticism of his militarization of cities simply because he claims they’re needed to reassert control. We talked to legal commentator Joyce Vance, who writes well about this on her Civil Discourse Substack and is author of the new book Giving Up Is Unforgiveable. She explains how Trump’s use of manufactured pretexts is worsening on many fronts, why this itself is an alarming threat to self rule, and how the opposition should respond, noting it’s imperative for disengaged voters to “wake up.” This episode was recorded before Trump and D.C. reached an agreement limiting his control over the D.C. police, but the specifics remain unresolved, his use of the National Guard continues, and his broader threat to other cities has darkened. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.5	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
0:31.5	President Donald Trump's threats to militarize law enforcement in U.S. cities are getting uglier and more unnerving.
0:33.7	In a bizarre rant, Trump mocked the idea that anyone might see this as dictatorial behavior,
0:39.8	then turned right around and lied about crime, showing critics are absolutely right to see it this way.
0:46.4	Meanwhile, Republicans are all in with what Trump is doing.
0:50.0	Maga Dimwit James Comer came right out and said the military emphatically should be used in cities
0:56.0	going forward and again floated a series of silly lies about crime. All this comes as a new poll shows
1:03.0	that none of this is working for Trump and might even be backfiring. We think one aspect of this
1:08.5	isn't getting enough attention, the degree to which Trump is using manufactured pretexts as his excuse for his hyper-militarization efforts.
1:17.5	Legal commentator Joyce Fans has a good piece on her substack, civil discourse, arguing that we should be alarmed by the pretextual nature of this in particular.
1:27.3	So we're talking to Joyce about
1:28.5	all this today. Great to finally have you on, Joyce. You know, thank you for being patient with me.
1:33.8	My schedule has been sort of messy for the last couple of months while I took on a big project,
1:38.8	but I've been dying to get on with you, and I'm glad it's today. Awesome. Well, we're here now.
1:43.6	So as everybody has seen,
1:45.2	Trump has federalized the D.C. police and dispatched the National Guard into D.C. Trump is now
1:50.7	saying he's going to seek, quote, long-term control over the D.C. police. It's a little unclear what's
1:56.8	going on with the deployment of the National Guard. In some cases, they're just sort of standing around taking selfies. In other accounts, they're actually getting pretty active. Joyce,
2:06.0	can you give listeners a very quick overview of what's happening with Trump and D.C. and what it means?
2:11.7	Yeah, so I think it's important to have a sketch of the law in the District of Columbia. It's very
2:16.9	different from if Trump was trying
	...

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