THE OVAL OFFICE – President Donald Trump told the Daily Caller that he is open to bringing back insane asylums to institutionalize mentally ill individuals on America’s streets.
Daily Caller White House Correspondent Reagan Reese sat down with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday for an hour-long interview. The president spoke at length about his work cleaning up the streets of D.C., and also added that he was open to having the government reopen insane asylums, telling the Caller about how they used to run in New York. (RELATED: Numbers Don’t Lie: Trump’s DC Crackdown Is Working)
The following is an unedited excerpt from the interview. A full transcript will be made available Monday evening.
REESE: It’s horrible. I want to get to Russia. I want to ask you another question about D.C. crackdown. Would you be open to the government reopening insane asylums for people with serious mental illness?
TRUMP: Yeah I would.
REESE: You would?
TRUMP: Well, they used to have them, and you never saw people like we had, you know, they used to have them. And what happened is states like New York and California that had them, New York had a lot of them. They released them all into society because they couldn’t afford it. You know, it’s massively expensive. But we had, they were all over New York. I remember when I was growing up, Creedmoor. They had a place, Creedmoor, they had a lot of them, Bellevue, and they were closed by a certain governor. And I remember when they did, it was a long time ago, and I said they didn’t release these people? And they did. They released them into society, and that’s what you have. It’s a rough, it’s a rough situation.
REESE: How soon –
TRUMP: Why is that a big thing? People are thinking about that?
REESE: Well –
TRUMP: Because, you can’t have these people walking around.
REESE: I mean, what do you do with them? You know?
TRUMP: So dangerous, so dangerous. And they can live to be 85 years old.
REESE: I moved from Washington, D.C., to Virginia because I felt unsafe. We had an attempted break-in, me and my roommates from my place on Capitol Hill, and I just moved to Virginia, thinking it’s so much safer. And I had to call 911, the other day because I watched a homeless guy beat up a pedestrian. And the 911 –
TRUMP: When was that?
REESE: A week ago.
TRUMP: During my time?
REESE: This was in Virginia, though. This was not in Washington, D.C.
TRUMP: Oh in Virginia. We don’t take [inaudible.]
REESE: No I know. Now I’m saying, now I’m like, why did I move from Washington, D.C. to Virginia right after you cleaned it up?
TRUMP: So safe.
TRUMP: Yeah, I call it a crime free zone because we don’t play games. You know, I said they spit, we hit. You know, when these people – women – they’re standing up to these guys, good looking guys, and they want to do something, but they’re not allowed to. If they do, they’ll be arrested. They’ll arrest the soldiers. They had an arrest warrant out on every single soldier, if they hit back, there was an automatic arrest. So you have these people, they scream, they’re this far away, screaming. Some women, screaming, like crazy, they’re crazy. And then they start spitting in the face of the guy. And these guys are just, they wouldn’t, but they can’t do it. Now they can do it. So I said, we spit– they spit, we hit. Right?
Trump sent federal law enforcement and the National Guard into D.C. on Aug. 7, with his creation of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force. The president then moved to federalize the D.C. police and deploy the National Guard a few days later.
As of Aug. 29, there have been 1,369 total arrests since the beginning of the operation, a White House official shared with the Caller. Many illegal aliens have been arrested, including 12 known gang members who are a part of MS-13 and TDA, the official told the Caller. The operation has also found five missing children and cleared 50 homeless encampments.
The president previously told reporters he wants to clean up other cities such as Chicago and New York.
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