The remarks were the latest example of his praise for executive power and force in imposing order, this time over crimes the F.B.I. said last week were falling.
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“One rough hour — and I mean real rough,” Mr. Trump said on Sunday in Erie, Pa. “The word will get out and it will end immediately.”
Former President Donald J. Trump mused on Sunday about “one really violent day” as an answer to what he has described as a plague of unchecked property crime in American cities.
“One rough hour — and I mean real rough,” Mr. Trump said. “The word will get out and it will end immediately.”
The remarks, at a campaign rally in Erie, Pa., were the latest variation on a longtime theme for Mr. Trump: An explicit embrace of executive power and police force in the interest of imposing order, or suspending the rule of law to address various societal ills.
He has in the past urged law enforcement to be rougher when making arrests, called for the summary execution of shoplifters, and said he would not be a dictator “except for Day 1.”
“President Trump has always been the law and order president and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws,” Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement. “Otherwise it’s all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America.” He added that she had “emboldened criminals” as the attorney general of California.
The remarks in Erie came in the context of another well-worn issue for Mr. Trump: property crimes, which he claims are increasing. The F.B.I. last week reported a decline in property crime in 2023.
Mr. Trump claimed such crimes were going unpunished because police were “not allowed to do their job” because of the “liberal left.” He said: “If you had one day, like one real rough, nasty day with the drugstores, as an example, when they start walking out ——” before pivoting to another claim that has become a fixture of his rallies.
Mr. Trump claimed that shoplifters in California are allowed to steal up to $950 from stores without consequence. It’s a reference to a criminal justice measure that state lawmakers passed overwhelmingly in 2014, while Ms. Harris was the attorney general. She was not responsible for the law, which changed how prosecutors treated certain lower-level offenses — shoplifting remains illegal, but is treated as a misdemeanor below the $950 threshold.
California’s $950 felony threshold for shoplifting is the 10th strictest in the nation. States such as Republican-led Texas, Alabama and Mississippi allow even higher levels of theft before a felony is triggered.
Mr. Trump suggested “kids with calculators” were tallying up thefts in California stores, drawing laughs from the crowd, and name-checked Representative Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican in the audience while he mused about “one really violent day.”
The former president then painted a dark chain of events: Stores, ransacked by shoplifters, go out of business; rents go unpaid; cities run out of money. He concluded by saying that “one rough hour” would put an end to it.
A social media account for Ms. Harris’s campaign posted the clip on X Sunday evening, without elaboration.
Rebecca Davis O’Brien is a political reporter covering the 2024 presidential election. More about Rebecca Davis O’Brien
See more on: 2024 Elections: News, Polls and Analysis, Donald Trump
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Source: nytimes.com
