What Trump said about Seattle during presidential debate

The City of Seattle briefly came to the forefront of the presidential debate on Sept. 10 after the former president used the emerald town as an example of failed crime policy under the Biden administration.

“David, when are those people going to be prosecuted? When are the people that burned down Minneapolis going to be prosecuted or in Seattle? They went into Seattle, they took over a big percentage of the city of Seattle. When are those people going to be prosecuted?” Trump asked David Muir, journalist and anchor for ABC World News Tonight and one of the moderators of the debate.

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Trump was referencing the protests in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, specifically how a self-organized space without official leadership, dubbed CHOP or CHAZ, sprouted up within Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. For approximately three weeks, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) vacated its East Precinct building in an effort to de-escalate the situation. During this period, five shootings occurred, leading to the deaths of two individuals, both under the age of 20.

Counts of vandalism, assault, arson and sexual assault were also reported at CHOP. CHOP took up around six city blocks and approximately eight of the 53,000 acres within Seattle.

Seattle was initially brought up as a counter-example to the prosecution against those who participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Is there anything you regret about what you did on that day (Jan. 6)?” Muir asked Trump, before the former president claimed he stated for his supporters to be at the Capitol building “peacefully and patriotically.”

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The conversation quickly pivoted to immigration at the border, in which Trump claimed, “Those people are killing many people, unlike Jan. 6.”

In 2020, when Trump was in the last year of his presidential term, he made it clear to FOX News that he was against the idea of CHOP in Seattle.

“We’re not going to let this happen in Seattle. If we have to go in, we’re going to go in,” Trump told Fox News in 2020. “Let the governor do it. He’s got great National Guard troops … But one way or the other, it’s going to get done. These people are not going to occupy a major portion of a great city.”

Then Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan responded to this statement by claiming it would be unconstitutional — and illegal — for Trump to send military forces into the city to clear protesters occupying a neighborhood.

Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here and you can email him here.