President Donald Trump, the former reality TV star always in campaign mode, made a little excursion to Tennessee to tout his so-called success in “making America safe again.”
The president’s trip on Monday comes after six months of Gov. Bill Lee’s deployment of the Tennessee National Guard in Memphis — a quasi-military occupation facing an ongoing lawsuit from local and state elected officials.
Trump, speaking at a press event with numerous members of his administration, bragged of his efforts to eliminate crime in the city with his Memphis Safe Task Force, a joint initiative between state authorities, such as the National Guard, and federal agencies, like the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
The task force has documented over 7,300 arrests and confiscated more than 1,200 firearms since its deployment in September. Over the next few months, Trump claimed, “You’re going to be an almost crime-free city.”
Such boasting was justified by the city’s 43% crime reduction over the past year. But as is always the case with Trump and his cultish MAGA movement, facts run counter to this convenient narrative.