CNN’s Abby Phillip claimed that Americans don’t want Donald Trump ordering federal troops into crime-ridden cities, despite recent polling showing that a majority of voters support the president’s tough-on-crime approach.
During a discussion her show NewsNight Tuesday, the host faced off with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro over Trump’s crime crackdown in Washington, DC and plans to focus next on Chicago.
After Shapiro argued that liberal lawmakers are making a mistake by arguing that ‘crime in Chicago just isn’t that big of a deal,’ Phillip said she wanted ‘to focus on the reality, like the actual things that are happening.’
‘Voters are not – I think we are treating voters stupider than they are,’ the host explained.
‘You ask them in polls and they say, “We think crime is a problem. We don’t like the way Trump is handling it in the way that he is sending the National Guard.”
‘They want Trump to do more about crime. They don’t necessarily want him to send troops to cities.’
Last week, an AP-NORC survey found that 55 percent of Americans considered it acceptable for the U.S. military and National Guard to assist local police in major cities.
CNN star Abby Phillip claimed that Americans don’t want Donald Trump ordering federal troops into crime-ridden cities during a debate with Ben Shapiro on her show NewsNight Tuesday, after a recent AP poll showed that most voters support the president’s approach.
The survey saw 55 percent of Americans say it was acceptable for the US military and National Guard to assist local police in major cities. Phillip still said most citizens do not desire such takeovers. Pictured, National Guard soldiers in DC on August 26
A vast majority of respondents – 81 percent – said they saw crime in large cities as a ‘major problem.’
The poll also showed Trump with his highest-ever approval rating, jumping five points over the previous month.
Prior to Phillips’ remarks, Shapiro warned that Trump was effectively goading Democrats into ‘a trap’ with his approach to policing in DC.
‘President Trump does have a habit of wrongfooting his political opponents in a unique way on this sort of stuff,’ he explained.
‘And you can make the argument, I think a plausible argument, that National Guard troops should not be on the ground enforcing crime. Both legally and just a matter of general policy.
‘But, if the position you end up taking is that there is no serious crime emergency in Chicago, on a rhetorical level – not on a legal level, on a rhetorical level – or you make the case that “Actually, crime in Chicago just isn’t that big of a deal,” which seems to be the mistake that many Democratic politicians are making right now, Trump is going to win that battle all day long.’
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters ‘we’re going in’ when asked if he had decided to send troops to Chicago. ‘I didn’t say when.’
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker earlier commented that such a move would constitute an ‘invasion’.
Over the holiday weekend, at least 54 people were shot in Chicago and seven people killed.
