'Very dangerous': Retired Air Force colonel rips Trump over 'crisis manufactured by White House'

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Retired U.S. Air Force official Col. Cedric Leighton said Sunday the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. is "a very dangerous step."

Roughly 2,000 troops are now stationed in the capital, including both D.C.-based personnel and those sent from other Republican-led states. According to reports, these troops are positioned primarily in high-traffic, tourist-heavy areas like the National Mall and Union Station, rather than known high-crime neighborhoods. The troops are now allowed to carry firearms.

During an appearance on CNN Monday, Leighton said, "First of all, as the statistics say, even though the White House is trying to debunk those statistics, but every reputable source has said that the crime rate is substantially lower in D.C. over the past year or two. Actually, since the pandemic, basically."

He continued: "And as a result of that, the crisis that has been manufactured here by the White House is one that does not require the kind of deployment that we see here. The Metropolitan Police Department here in Washington has been able to handle the crime rate based on most accounts here, and certainly from a personal standpoint, I feel certainly a lot safer in D.C. than I have before."

He added that "feelings of aggression" among D.C. residents is "not going to bode well."

"The type of weapons that they're using are the types of weapons that are standard issue, basically M4 carbines and M17 pistols are what's being used by the National Guard," Leighton said.

He added that those are not good crowd control weapons and shouldn't be used against a civilian population.

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