{"id":84538,"date":"2025-08-20T20:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T20:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/84538\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T20:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T20:51:10","slug":"vance-derides-protesters-while-visiting-national-guard-at-union-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/84538\/","title":{"rendered":"Vance derides protesters while visiting National Guard at Union Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n As Vice President JD Vance staged a lunch to thank the National Guard members that President Donald Trump has deployed to Washington, DC, he was frequently drowned out by protesters.\n <\/p>\n

\n Vance entered Union Station\u2019s Shake Shack to a mix of claps and boos, shaking hands and posing for photos with several people waiting to order lunch. As the boos grew louder, others in the crowd began chanting \u201cUSA, USA, USA\u201d in response.\n <\/p>\n

\n Blocked from the second floor of a Shake Shack in Union Station \u2014 where Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller were chatting with more than a dozen guards Wednesday afternoon \u2014 protesters loudly chanted \u201cshame,\u201d \u201cthis is our city,\u201d and \u201cwe want the military out of our streets.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Vance spoke to a small group of reporters, dismissing the growing chorus of protesters \u2014 whose chants briefly drowned out his press gaggle \u2014 by calling them \u201ccrazy\u201d and \u201ccommunists.\u201d Miller dismissed them as \u201celderly white hippies,\u201d saying without evidence that they\u2019re \u201cnot part of the city.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut I\u2019ll tell you, a couple of years ago, when I brought my kids here, they were being screamed at by violent vagrants, and it was scaring the hell out of my kids,\u201d Vance added.\n <\/p>\n

\n The visit illustrated the stark divide between the Trump administration and DC residents, who overwhelmingly voted against the president. Roughly eight in 10 DC residents oppose Trump ordering the federal government to take control of the city\u2019s police department as well as his deployment of the National Guard and FBI to patrol the city, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll. <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n Vance dismissed those figures Wednesday, saying he was \u201chighly skeptical that a majority of DC residents don\u2019t want their city to have better public safety and more reasonable safety standards.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n When asked about the vice president\u2019s presence, Jay Swanson, a customer eating a burger, said: \u201cIt\u2019s disgusting, I lost my appetite.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Vance repeatedly claimed Union Station had been taken over by \u201cdrug addicts,\u201d \u201cvagrants\u201d and the \u201cchronically homeless\u201d in recent years.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe 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,\u201d Vance said.\n <\/p>\n

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\n Swanson offered a counterpoint: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a crackdown on crime, I think it\u2019s setting the stage for Trump to try and stay in past his term,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cThe resolute courage of the American people will win it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Many of the National Guard members at Shake Shack on Wednesday said they had come from South Carolina \u2014 one of six red states that have announced they have or will send guard members to DC. Others include West Virginia, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee.\n <\/p>\n

\n When asked about the National Guard presence in the city, a college student doing homework at Union Station who asked not to be named said it was \u201coverwhelming.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI thought I had read that the crime rate in DC is actually going down?\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Democrats and DC officials have frequently questioned why the Trump administration is taking over DC now, when local crime numbers have decreased over previous years. Vance argued Wednesday that he thinks crime statistics nationwide are \u201cmassively underreported.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked if there were Department of Justice statistics to back that up, he replied: \u201cYou just got to look around. Obviously, DC has a terrible crime problem. The Department of Justice statistics back it up. The FBI statistics back it up. Just talk to a resident of this city.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Two sources have told CNN that the Justice Department is investigating whether Washington, DC\u2019s Metropolitan Police Department manipulated crime data.\n <\/p>\n

\n As Vance wrapped up his lunch upstairs and descended back to the main floor, one man loudly booed. \u201cI heard you buddy,\u201d Vance said, attempting to brush off the moment.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is the guy who thinks people don\u2019t deserve law and order in their own community,\u201d he said to Hegseth, gesturing toward the man. Hegseth chuckled.\n <\/p>\n

\n Outside the station, a second, smaller group of protesters gathered near parked National Guard tanks. As Vance departed, they continued to shout and wave signs.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cCriminals out of DC? Start with the Epstein files,\u201d read one sign.\n <\/p>\n

\n This story has been updated with additional reporting.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link As Vice President JD Vance staged a lunch to thank the National Guard members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-84538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}