President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a five-page memo threatening to defund Democrat-run cities that have allowed violent riots to run virtually unchecked through their cities, threatening businesses and even resulting in loss of life.
“My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones,” Trump said in the memo.
“To ensure that Federal funds are neither unduly wasted nor spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities.”
The memo specifically calls out cities like Washington, D.C., New York City, Portland and Seattle, where violent Antifa and Black Lives Matter anarchists in recent months have burned down businesses, assaulted innocent people in the street, attacked police, smashed cars and beaten their drivers, threatened local officials, and at times taken over entire city blocks for “occupied” protests.
In the memo, Trump directed Attorney General Bill Barr to come up with a list of “anarchist jurisdictions” that “permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures,” and directs federal agencies to detail how much those cities get in federal funding each year.
The legality of whether Trump can pull federal funding from certain cities is questionable and would certainly land in the courts – a predictable hang up, given that Democrat leaders mentioned specifically in the memo, including NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have already begun pushing back on the threat. In an emergency press briefing Wednesday addressing Trump’s move, Cuomo appeared to threaten the president’s safety, saying he “better have an army” if he ever shows his face in New York again.