Protesters lashed out at three of President Donald Trump’s top officials who visited with National Guard troops on Wednesday at Union Station in Washington, D.C., ABC News reported.
The demonstrators loudly booed and jeered Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller as they came to thank the troops, drowning out at times the voices of the officials.
As the officials arrived in their motorcade, the protesters shouted “Free D.C.” to protest Trump’s deployment of the National Guard earlier this month and continued shouting, “We want the military out of our streets.”
However, as the boos and chants grew louder, others in the crowd responded by clapping in support of the politicians and the National Guard and began chanting, “USA,” CNN reported.
Vance and Miller called the demonstrators “crazy” and “communists,” with the vice president stating that “they appear to hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities.”
When Vance was asked by a reporter why the troops were stationed at Union Station instead of parts of the city with higher crime rates, he said that the station had been overrun with homeless people, vagrants, drug addicts, and the mentally ill and that visitors did not feel safe.
He added that he believed official crime statistics that had been provided by the D.C. police before the federal takeover did not report the full scope of crime on the streets or in other areas of the city.
“We have changed so much in nine days, and I thought it important to highlight how great of a space this could be, how easy it could be to actually enjoy something like Union Station if you just had politicians who stopped prioritizing violent criminals over the public citizens who deserve public safety in their own communities,” Vance said.
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