Upon his return to the nation’s capital, Donald Trump met with the Washington, D.C. mayor — and groaned about the city’s graffiti.
The president-elect complained to Mayor Muriel Bowser when they met at Mar-a-Lago last month about the spray-painted walls he saw in a tunnel in D.C. in 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported. He had spotted the spray-painted scenery while he was on his way to the federal courthouse to plead not guilty to charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results - which were later dropped.
“Seeing the filth and the decay and all the broken buildings and walls and the graffiti,” he said at the time. “This is not the place that I left.”
Graffiti is a sign of the city’s deterioration, he reportedly told the mayor at their meeting. After Trump takes office on January 20, he intends to turn the nation’s capital around, hoping to make it a more “MAGA-friendly place,” the outlet reported.
Vandalizing property in the city can result in fines, jail time, or both.
The recent meeting is not the first time Trump has been laser-focused on the city’s graffiti. At a campaign rally in July, he also groaned about the spray paint. “We’re going to get all the graffiti off the marble. We’re going to fix the roads and the medians,” he said.
He also called the city “rat-infested” and “graffiti-infested” before vowing to “to take it away from the mayor.”
Some Republicans have also underscored the belief that the new administration will shake up the nation’s capital.
“Washington is going to get an onslaught like it’s never seen before,” longtime Trump backer Steve Bannon told the Journal. “It’s much more of a concerted punch than before. Everything is going to be intense at a level people are not accustomed to.”
Doug Heye, a former top Republican aide, agreed with Trump’s analysis of D.C., telling the outlet: “He’s right, this city is a mess.”
But Heye warned that the tight margins in Congress could complicate his plans: “But nobody is under any illusions that getting anything done via legislation is going to be simple.”
At the same July rally, Trump vowed to “take over” the nation’s capital and make the city beautiful again.
“We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation in Washington, D.C., and clean it up, renovate it and rebuild our capital city so there is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime,” he said in Florida at the time.
The 2024 GOP platform also mentioned plans to take control over the nation’s capital: ”Republicans will reassert greater Federal Control over Washington, D.C. to restore Law and Order in our Capital City.” The platform stated the party wants to “ensure Federal Buildings and Monuments are well-maintained.”
Part of that promised change-up could also include a swift deportation of migrants in the city.
The president-elect is also reportedly weighing raiding workplaces in the city’s metropolitan area in the first days of his second term to target immigrants allegedly living illegally in the country, NBC News reported. Trump’s team has reportedly discussed the ability to execute such raids with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Trump has vowed to carry out “the largest deportation operation in the history of the United States.”
