Amid Trump’s DC Takeover, Oakland and Other ‘Very Bad’ Cities Push Back on Threats

Oakland is on a “very bad” list. The Bay Area city this week joined New York, Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles as one of the Democrat-led jurisdictions President Donald Trump signaled could be next for a federal takeover.

Trump’s comments on Monday came as he sent National Guard troops into Washington, D.C., and said the federal government would take control of local police to help make what he has called an “incredibly dangerous” city safe again. Washington, however, saw its lowest incidence of violent crime last year in decades, according to U.S. Department of Justice officials.

“We have other cities also that are bad, very bad,” Trump said Monday. “You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland.

“We don’t even mention that anymore; they’re so far gone,” he said. “We’re not going to let it happen. We’re not going to lose our cities over this, and this will go further.”

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, who joined other city leaders on Thursday to push back against Trump’s remarks, said the president’s list intentionally targets Black and brown-led communities. And she’s “not going to back down.”

“These are cities that happen to be led by Black mayors — what is this about? His motives are fear-mongering and diversionary,” Lee said. “When Donald Trump threatens our communities, we stand up.”

Oakland leaders said they wanted to “set the record straight” on false claims Trump made about their city, citing his comments about large amounts of crime in the Democrat-led cities.

Crime in the city has dropped by 29% between Jan. 1 and June 30 compared to that same period last year, according to data from the Oakland Police Department released last week. The data also showed a 21% decrease in homicides and a 24% decrease in rapes.

Trump’s warning came as the federal government moved to take more control over D.C., whose local government is Democrat-led but has only a limited form of self-governance granted by Congress. The president controls D.C.’s National Guard and has the power to federalize its police in an emergency — setting it apart from the other cities he called out this week.

Still, Trump’s remarks also come months after he deployed more than 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles following protests in response to the administration’s increased immigration enforcement.

Civil rights attorney Adanté Pointer echoed Lee’s comments on Trump calling out Oakland and the other Democrat-led cities.

“This is a signal that he has been sending out throughout his campaign — and now his administration as the president — which is that Black communities are open season,” Pointer told KQED. “But in the process of doing that, what he’s saying to his base is, ‘Hey, these are problem places, and you know what, I’m going to come in there and clean up shop.’”

Even with Oakland’s decline in crime, Pointer said that Trump “feels comfortable misrepresenting the data” because it’s accepted that “you can humiliate Black people and their community.”

Pointer said that while the decline in crime in Oakland is noticeable, that doesn’t mean all crime was stamped out. And the cities that Trump is targeting where crime has decreased have something else in common, he said.

“What you see are there are mayors and administrations there — and governors even — who are using a more comprehensive approach to deal with crime,” Pointer said. “So it’s not just lock people up and being completely punitive that’s been driving the crime numbers down. Instead, it’s been trying to raise everyone’s boats.”

The Oakland Police Department this month credited partnerships with the community — including those with community-based organizations and city departments — for helping to reduce crime.

“Let’s be clear: This is not about public safety, this is about power,” City Councilmember Rowena Brown said Thursday. “We’ll continue moving forward with determination, despite those who seek to underestimate the strength and resiliency of our city that we love so much.”