In angry remarks inside D.C.'s Union Station, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller criticized what he called “stupid white hippies” who are protesting President Donald Trump's deployment of National Guard troops and federalization of the city's police force as part of a federal crackdown on crime in the city.
According to the White House, officers across D.C. have arrested more than 550 people since federal reinforcements were deployed on August 7. Local residents, however, have voiced broad disapproval of the crackdown.
Miller’s comments followed the circulation of videos showing large crowds in the Columbia Heights neighborhood jeering federal officers. In the clips, residents can be heard cheering as the officers retreated to their vehicles and left the area.
He spoke alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, who visited Union Station on Wednesday to meet with National Guard troops stationed there in recent days as part of heightened security measures, saying:
"They have no families in this city, they have no one they're sending to schools in this city, they have no jobs in this city, they have no connections to this community at all. They're the ones who have been advocating for the 1%: the criminals, the killers, the rapists, the drug dealers."
"And I'm glad they're here tonight because me, Pete, and the vice president are going to leave here and, inspired by them, we're going to add thousands more resources to this city to get the criminals and the gang members out of here. We're going to dismantle those networks and we're going to prove that a city can serve the law-abiding citizens who live there."
“We are not going to let the communists destroy a great American city, let alone the nation’s capital. And let’s just also address another thing. All these demonstrators you’ve seen out here in recent days, all these elderly white hippies, they’re not part of the city and never have been.
"And by the way, most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C., are Black. This is not a city that has had any safety for its Black citizens and President Trump is fixing that with the support of the Metropolitan Police Department, the support of the National Guard, and our federal law enforcement officers."
“So we’re going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old. And we’re going to get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington, D.C.”
You can hear what he said in the video below.
Many have called out the casual cruelty of Miller's remarks.
Miller, Hegseth and Vance stopped at the Shake Shack in Union Station on Wednesday to buy burgers for National Guard troops patrolling the train hall and to pose for photos with them. As the three crossed the concourse, however, they were met with boos and heckling from commuters.
Asked whether the White House intended to extend the federalization of Washington’s police department beyond the initial 30-day period, Vance declined to give a clear answer, only saying that if Trump "thinks that he has to extend this order to ensure that people have access to public safety, that’s exactly what he’ll do."
Vance also dismissed hecklers, saying "we’ve traded, now, some violent crazy people who are screaming at kids, with a few crazy liberals who are screaming at the vice president."
