Donald Trump lashes out at people calling him a dictator then defends rewriting history
Donald Trump responded angrily to people calling him a dictator after he took unusual and direct control over policing in Washington, D.C. He defended his decision, saying he was trying to improve safety in the city, and claimed many of his friends including some Democrats had thanked him for it. He also defended his plan to personally review museum exhibits so history would be presented in a way that matches his own views.
Trump used emergency powers to put himself in charge of Washington’s police and even sent in the National Guard, saying there was more crime. However, official data shows violent crime in the city has actually gone down a lot over the past two years. During a press event in the Oval Office, Trump brushed off accusations of being a dictator, saying critics were wrong and insisting the extra security in D.C. wasn’t taking resources away from bigger threats like terrorism. When a reporter suggested terrorism could be more urgent, he dismissed the idea and said there were still plenty of people to handle it.
He also discussed his push to change what is shown in the Smithsonian museums. The White House sent a letter to the museum’s leadership saying it would review certain exhibits as part of an executive order called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The letter said the goal was to highlight America’s strengths, remove what the White House sees as biased or divisive content, and rebuild trust in cultural institutions. This could affect exhibits about LGBTQ history, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Trump said museums should present history “fairly” and not in what he called a “woke or racist” way. One exhibit at the Museum of American History has already been rewritten to downplay his role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The original version stated that Trump made false claims about the 2020 election and gave a speech that led to unlawful actions at the Capitol. Those statements have now been removed. The new version only notes that Trump was impeached for “incitement of insurrection” but acquitted after leaving office, without describing his actions as false or inciting.
