Minnesota Representative and Democratic Senate candidate Angie Craig condemned President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C., although she once swore to put a man who assaulted her in her D.C. apartment behind bars.
Referring to Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to the nation’s capital, Craig posted on X Tuesday that “President Trump’s actions are totally unjustified and a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
But Craig was not opposed to cleaning up the city streets when she was assaulted in an elevator of her own apartment complex by a homeless man who was reportedly acting like he was on drugs.
In February 2023, Craig reported seeing a man, who was later identified as 26-year-old Kendrick Hamlin, in the lobby area of her apartment building “acting erratic,” as if he was under the influence of an unknown substance, The Daily Wire reported.
The congresswoman told police that after she told Hamlin “good morning,” he followed her into the elevator and “began to randomly do push ups.” Craig told police that he then punched her on the chin area of her face, and later grabbed her neck.
After defending herself, Craig escaped with no major injuries and called for the man to be brought to justice.
Hamlin was soon arrested, although he assaulted the two officers who apprehended him. It then came out that Craig was Hamlin’s “assault number 13” on the repeat offender’s record, which made Craig promise “to do everything in my power to make sure there is not a 14, a 15, a 20.”
Hamlin is serving a 27-month sentence on assault charges.
According to Craig, what bothered her was that Hamlin had previously attacked 12 people and had never served more than 30 days in jail.
While announcing her Senate bid for the 2026 election year, Craig said in an interview that her harrowing experience just two years prior was “a pivotal moment in my life” and that “it took about six months to build up the mental health strength … to be able to evaluate whether I was going to move forward or not.”
Craig continued by saying that “Understanding that the man who assaulted me was homeless and was an addict and that we failed him as a country — all of those things can be true at the same time– in addition to [the fact that] I was his thirteenth count of assault.”
“It’s hypocritical and shameful for Congresswoman Craig, a DC crime victim who experienced a traumatic assault, to oppose efforts to ensure what happened to her doesn’t happen to anyone else,” National Republican Senate Committee Press Secretary Nick Puglia said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “All Americans deserve to be safe, regardless of their job title, but Craig claims efforts to make the nation’s capital safe are ‘unjustified.'”
Although many Democrats have criticized Trump’s move to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital, the president is swiftly moving forward with plans to extend his takeover of the city by calling on Congress to pass a resolution enabling him to do so.
“We think the Democrats will not do anything to stop crime, but we think the Republicans will do it almost unanimously,” Trump said.