Trump moves closer to D.C. takeover in response to likely mayor

Donald Trump’s ongoing fixation with renovation projects in and around Washington is ongoing, as evidenced by the president taking a tour on Sunday morning of his assorted construction projects around the nation’s capital. When he returned to the White House, the Republican was apparently inspired to send an unsubtle message to the city’s likely next mayor.

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In a midday message published to his social media platform, Trump tried to smear Janeese Lewis George, the democratic socialist who recently won Washington’s Democratic mayoral primary, as a “Communist” who, among other things, “wants to empty the prisons.” That wasn’t even close to being an accurate reflection of George’s beliefs, but the president didn’t stop there.

The mayoral candidate’s agenda, Trump wrote, “will never work out, nor will I let it even have a chance.”

The president made all of this rather personal, insisting that he’s “worked too hard” to improve the city, so he won’t “let it be destroyed by a Communist adherent.”

Nearly all of the harangue was absurd — Lewis George, for example, is not a communist, no matter how many times Trump uses the word — but of particular interest was Trump’s use of the word “let,” as in, what the president is and is not willing to allow to happen in a major American city.

Earlier this month, before Washington voters backed Lewis George in a Democratic primary, a reporter asked Trump how he would feel if she were poised to become the city’s next mayor.