On Monday in the moments after President Trump’s press conference announcing he was taking over the Washington D.C. police department and deploying the D.C. National Guard to bring down crime, CNN’s mostly white, uber-wealthy liberal journalists suffered a collective breakdown blasting this as “deception,” a “major exaggeration,” and not “comport[ing] with a lot of people’s experience” as well as “the actual numbers.”

The meltdowns were particularly notable given the fact that, of the seven reporters called on during the Q&A, only three asked about D.C. crime (One America News, Fox News Channel, and Real America’s Voice). The other four used their time to fire off multiple questions about Chinese tariffs and Friday’s scheduled meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

The Situation Room had a few minutes left following the press conference, so they made sure to voice their disgust. After correspondent Brian Todd fretted only one city council member had weighed in by that point, he lamented Mayor Muriel Bowser wasn’t out with an immediate response to this “extraordinary move.”

Co-host Pamela Brown expressed concern about the future of homeless people: “[W]e should also note that he talked about moving the homeless population in D.C. — thousands of people — far away without offering those specifics.”

Senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak put a wrap on the show by voicing the left’s general attitude of dismissiveness to there being any serious crime at all in D.C.:

Inside Politics turned up the hysteria, starting with this nonsense from weekday host Dana Bash:

Political director David Chalian came off as confused Trump made crime a focus on this day (click “expand”):

Well, I — when I see this and I understand the moment that we’re covering here and that Donald Trump is escalating this. My first question as a reporter is, why is this issue? And again, you’re going to get into the fact check of what is wrong about his figures or not. But why is this the top of the President of the United States agenda today? And — and I think that’s an important question for us to think about as we think about everything that’s on his plate. Why is taking over law enforcement in the district of Columbia? Now, he made the argument as to why and that it’s a capital city, and that the way he sees it is that it is crime ridden and needs to be changed. But still, why is the President of the United States putting that front and center. That’s a question I sort of try to think about as we put this into perspective. But then, Dana, as you were noting, yes, this is a dramatic moment, but it also feels to me like dipping into a, well that President Trump has gone to time and time again in the first term and this term. The — the tactics here may be more amped up and dramatic, but the — the going after this city or other cities as sort of crime ridden, this is — this was the heart of many of the campaigns and political agenda — that — that Trump puts before voters. And so to me, I see him dipping back into a well of something he feels is a strong suit and where he thinks he has stronger footing the way he does with immigration or border security. Which to me also then begs the question, well, what is he a little nervous about over here if he needs to dip into this well right now on this topic?

After White House correspondent Kristen Holmes went next in the kvetching line and little of substance, it was finally time for CNN’s alleged fact-checker, Daniel Dale:

Bash then tried to change her tune and insist she’s not dismissing those who’ve been impacted by crime:

White House reporter Alayna Treene replied the squalor in D.C. was something that’s “bothered him for some time...because he’s been whenever he takes his motorcade and he sees a homeless tent or something like that, it infuriates him further.”

Politics reporter Eva McKend played the race card with a truly insidious take:

Politico’s Eli Stokols made it seven-for-seven on Inside Politics thus far in being opposed to Trump (or anyone, to be honest) wanting to address crime in Washington D.C. and whining no one in the White House tried to talk him out of the steps he took (click “expand”):

I mean, there’s a opportunistic aspect to this that, you know, as we said, he sees it every day. But he also — the law allows him to do this. Now. It’s not the first place he did this. He sent the federal troops into Los Angeles to crack down on protesters who were upset over the immigration raids...So, this is not the first time we’re seeing this. And to Alayna’s point, in the second term, he is not just thinking about it and there’s no one there to talk him down, no one there to say, well, we really should think long and hard about doing this. There are a lot of people who are saying, that sounds like a great idea, and they’ll stand up there at the press conference with him and they’ll pat him on the back and say, thanks to you, this is a great idea, and we’re going to get it under control. I mean, you saw the people who are up there, Judge Jeanine, you know, so everybody’s on the same page about this. There’s nobody trying to restrain any of these impulses in the second term and he’s really going for it in a number of different ways. I think, in terms of why now we don’t have concrete information, but I think two things that are obvious. One, he mentioned it himself, the attack on the — the DOJ’s staffer recent days and the — the fact that this there was a carjacking and this — this person who has some notoriety, at least in D.C. or within the administration, was attacked. He cited that as sort of a pretext for doing this broader, more dramatic thing and there was also a question at the end about the Epstein case and the press conference, which went on for a long time. It ended pretty quickly after that subject was brought up. So is this another attempt to change the subject? We don’t know, but that hypothesis certainly has to be thought about as we consider why now.

A few minutes of circling the drain later, Bash wrapped the first of two segments grossly casting aside the rampant crime (such as carjackings, which still haven’t recovered from before the pandemic) by invoking the liberal media’s favorite holiday:

In the second block, former Jim Comey aide-turned-CNN correspondent Josh Campbell leveled this wild take that Trump restoring law-and-order to the nation’s capital would violate the Constitution and terrorism investigations would fall by the wayside:

Reminder: Campbell is the same person who mocked crime concerns in Portland, Oregon back in 2020 by remarking how he had a pleasant morning eating a breakfast burrito without being assaulted.

Campbell — who has since regurgitated the same talking points in the hours since on CNN — wrapped his liberal punditry in alleged objectivity by claiming to have deep law enforcement sources (and thus representative of the profession):

To see the relevant CNN transcripts from August 11, click here (for The Situation Room) and here (for Inside Politics).