“It’ll Be a Problem”: GOP Senator Pushes Back on Trump Crackdown Idea

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina is dead set against the prospect of federal agents being deployed in Charlotte.

Due to the fatal stabbing of a Ukrainian refugee in the city last month, Charlotte has garnered increased attention in recent days, particularly among conservatives who blame the incident on supposedly soft-on-crime Democratic officials.

In remarks published online Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump decried the incident, tying it to a purported scourge of blue-city crime, which he’s cited in his federal takeover of Washington, D.C., and his musings over sending National Guard troops elsewhere.

“It’s time to stop this madness,” the president said. “The people of our country need to insist on protection, safety, law, and order. We have proven that it can be done, because we did it right here in D.C.”

Asked by NOTUS on Tuesday about the possibility of the Trump administration sending troops to Charlotte, Tillis said that other cities are in greater need of attention. “I hope that people don’t amplify this into something.”

Tillis said he hasn’t heard that Trump will target Charlotte, and noted, “If they do, it’ll be a problem for me.”

The senator has previously been critical of Trump’s D.C. crackdown, telling CBS last month that the Trump administration “is micromanaging local governments, and I don’t know how any limited-government conservative can reconcile supporting that with a limited-government ideology.”

On Tuesday, another North Carolina Republican came out against a federal takeover of Charlotte, as Charlotte City Council member Edwin Peacock III observed on Fox News that crime is actually “statistically down” there—though he claimed there is a “growing” crime problem. To Newsweek, Peacock expressed confidence in local police leadership “and the partnerships we already have with federal agencies.”

But not all elected Republicans in the Tar Heel State are against stationing troops in its largest city.

MAGA Senator Ted Budd told NOTUS that he’s in favor of “whatever it takes” to address crime there, apparently including federal intervention.