Washington — President Donald Trump had dinner Tuesday night time at a seafood restaurant close to the White Home, selling his deployment of the Nationwide Guard and federalizing the police drive in an effort to crack down on crime within the nation’s capital.
His motorcade drove the quick distance to Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab on fifteenth Road, NW, in D.C., following weeks of the president boasting about mobilizing federal authorities and the navy that he says have made Washington “a secure zone.”
Cheers had been heard because the president stepped from his limo – although there was additionally a smattering of boos and chants from protesters opposing U.S. coverage in help of Israel in its warfare with Hamas in Gaza.
“We’re standing proper in the course of D.C., which as you already know about, over the past 12 months, was a really unsafe place — over the past 20 years — and now it is received nearly no crime,” Mr. Trump advised reporters.
He added that he would not have stood out “in the course of the road” as lately as a few months in the past. The suggestion was farcical, nevertheless, and did not really replicate whether or not crime ranges had modified in Washington, because the president is all the time surrounded by heavy safety wherever he goes.
After getting into the restaurant, video on social media confirmed him shaking palms with some diners inside. However he additionally stared for an prolonged interval at a small group of protesters who held up miniature Gaza flags and chanted: “Free D.C.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!”
The president moved nearer to them and could possibly be seen gesturing briefly however did not seem to talk.
Seconds later, Mr. Trump gestured for the world to be cleared out, then gestured once more.
Secret Service brokers eliminated the protesters, saying repeatedly, “Time to go. Time to go.” Some protesters waved banners of the Palestinian flag as they had been leaving.
Others within the restaurant could possibly be heard booing or chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
President Trump departs after having dinner at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab, a restaurant close to the White Home, on Sept. 9, 2025.
Alex Brandon / AP
The feminist group Codepink mentioned it had the protesters within the restaurant.
Some eating places have reported drops in reservations since Mr. Trump first introduced the federal crackdown on Aug. 7, whereas there have been frequent avenue protests decrying his actions. Elevated navy and police presence additionally has often sparked standoffs between residents and authorities in usually quiet neighborhoods.
Mr. Trump has nonetheless mentioned repeatedly that he is spoken to buddies who inform him native eating places are full and that folks have observed a drop in crime. He says he is additionally heard that folks recognize crews working to take away homeless encampments as a part of the crackdown.
Accompanying the president for dinner had been Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, in addition to Susie Wiles, the White Home chief of employees. In his feedback earlier than going into dinner, Mr. Trump mentioned, “The eating places are booming.”
“Individuals are going out to dinner the place they did not exit for years,” he mentioned.
After Mr. Trump returned to the White Home after 10 p.m., press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who was additionally amongst those that dined with him, mentioned he’d eaten crab, shrimp, salad, steak and dessert.
The tour was notable because the president not often dines away from the White Home when he is in Washington. And such outings have gotten even much less frequent since he offered the resort bearing his title a number of blocks away, which was a key assembly level for administration officers and supporters throughout his first time period.
The White Home reported Tuesday that there had been practically 2,200 arrests since Mr. Trump first introduced the Washington crackdown on Aug. 7.
Mr. Trump has additionally deployed the Nationwide Guard to Los Angeles in June and has threatened to ship troops to different, largely Democratic cities, together with Baltimore, New Orleans and Chicago — the place state and native authorities already are bracing for operations to sharply enhance immigration enforcement.
He mentioned Tuesday night time, “We will be saying one other metropolis that we will very shortly,” including it could possibly be as quickly as Wednesday. He added that the mayor of that metropolis and the governor of the state it’s in “would love us to be there.”
That follows Trump posting over the weekend a parody picture from “Apocalypse Now” that includes a ball of flames as helicopters zoom over the lakefront and skyline of Chicago, the nation’s third-largest metropolis.
“‘I like the scent of deportations within the morning,'” Trump wrote on his social media web site. “Chicago about to search out out why it is referred to as the Division of WAR.”
Within the put up, Trump provided no particulars past the label “Chipocalypse Now,” a play on the title of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam Battle movie, through which a personality says, “I like the scent of napalm within the morning.”
Final week, Trump signed an govt order in search of to rename the Protection Division because the Division of Battle – even after months of campaigning to be thought of for the Nobel Peace Prize. The renaming requires congressional approval.
In his personal put up in response, Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker referred to as Trump a “wannabe dictator.” He has joined state and metropolis officers – and lots of Chicago residents — in decrying the thought of a federal crackdown as pointless.