OAKLAND MAYOR BARBARA LEE and a handful of other local leaders denounced President Donald Trump’s recent criticism of the city and his insinuation that he could send in the U.S. National Guard to crack down on crime.
At a City Hall press conference on Thursday, Lee and others called out the president for federalizing the Washington, D.C. police force this week and sending National Guard troops to the nation’s capital.
On Monday, Trump implied that he’d like to do something similar to Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, New York and Oakland — all cities that voted against him in the past and all led by Black, Democratic mayors.
“Trump is proposing and threatening to militarize cities, which is, you know, unconstitutional,” Lee said. “It’s no coincidence, though, that these are cities that all have large populations of Black and brown people.”
“These are the cities that happen to be led by Black mayors,” Lee said. “What is this about? His motives are fear mongering and diversionary.”
A White House spokesperson said Thursday that instead of criticizing the president, Democratic leaders should stop trying to brush public safety issues “under the rug.”
“If Democrats had any common sense, they would follow President Trump’s lead to crack down on violent crime that has plagued our nation’s capital — and Democrat-run cities across the country,” said spokesperson Taylor Rogers.
“Trump is proposing and threatening to militarize cities, which is, you know, unconstitutional. It’s no coincidence, though, that these are cities that all have large populations of Black and brown people.”
Mayor Barbara Lee
“Instead of criticizing President Trump’s popular, tough-on crime policies, they should focus on cleaning up their own cities which are some of the most dangerous places in America,” Rogers said in an emailed statement.
Several speakers at Lee’s press conference, however, said Trump’s claims about crime in Oakland and other cities aren’t factual.
Lee said crime is down in Oakland and that the city is focused on keeping that trend going.
“Oakland has achieved a 28 percent overall crime reduction in the first six months of 2025, with significant decreases in violent crimes and 46 percent decrease in auto thefts,” she said. “And of course, we have more work to do, but we’re doing the work.”
‘It’s about power’
Oakland City Councilmember Rowena Brown said Trump’s rhetoric is based on racist tropes used to denigrate non-white communities in the service of political agendas.
“This narrative draws from a long, harmful pattern where leaders distort the truth about majority Black communities to justify federal overreach, aggressive policing and the erosion of our civil liberties,” Brown said. “And so let’s be clear, this is not about public safety, it’s about power.”
Councilmember Carroll Fife questioned Trump’s legitimacy when talking about crime given his well-publicized troubles with the criminal justice system.
“We’re talking about having a president who had Oakland’s name in his mouth about crime, who was a convicted felon,” Fife said. “A convicted felon trying to talk about Oakland. I’m offended.”
Fife said Oakland will unite with all of the cities Trump mentioned as well as any that are “standing on the right side of justice and we will continue that fight and Oakland is ready because we stay ready.”
Joining her colleagues’ denunciation of the president, Councilmember Janani Ramachandran said Oakland won’t be his “scapegoat” as he tries to distract the country from his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, the now-dead but still-infamous sex trafficking millionaire.
Alameda County Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas and local NAACP leaders Brenda Harbin-Forte and Patrice Waugh also spoke out against Trump Thursday.
Harbin-Forte said her organization has already filed numerous lawsuits against the president’s administration and will continue to do so in the name of “justice and freedom.”
“We hope all of you will join us in this fight for the very soul of our country and for the very soul of our city,” she said. “We will not back down.”
