In a rebuttal Monday, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott dismissed President Trump's description of the city as "so far gone" on crime, saying Baltimore is experiencing its safest period in more than 50 years.

Mr. Trump made the comment about Baltimore during a Monday morning press conference after announcing that he was deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and that the federal government had taken control of the Washington, D.C. police department, in what he called a "historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse."

He went on to cite Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore and Oakland as cities facing serious crime problems — adding that Baltimore and Oakland are "so far gone" that "we don't even mention [them] anymore.

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