Trump unveils sweeping anti-crime agenda, including stop-and-frisk and protecting cops from lawsuits

Former President Donald Trump says if re-elected to the White House he will enact a sweeping new law-and-order agenda that will create federal authority for stop-and-frisk policies and new indemnification from lawsuits to help local police fighting intensifying crime in blue urban areas.

In a wide-ranging interview with Just the News, the 45th president said Americans coast to coast are fed up seeing their stores looted, their neighbors violently mugged and their cars repeatedly stolen. 

“You know, we're a laughingstock all over the world,” he told an hourlong Just the News presidential candidate townhall sponsored by the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) and televised nationally on the Real America’s Voice network. “No other country has this, where our police are great, but they're not allowed to do anything because they're standing there watching these kids walk out with very expensive items, destroying businesses. And then the business closes, and they have empty stores all over the place.”

Trump proposed several new initiatives for crime fighting, including creating federal justification for the stop-and-frisk policies that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani instituted three decades ago to significantly lower crime in the Big Apple.

“You have to also do a stop-and-frisk program,” he said. “You know, we had stop and frisk in New York, Rudy Giuliani did it incredibly. … They did strong but fair stop and frisk. And it worked.

“You're gonna have to do it. And if you don't do it, your cities, you can't walk down the street,“ he added. “These people, they go for a loaf of bread, they end up being shot and killed.”

Trump urged law-enforcement officials to conduct more forceful, aggressive crackdowns during the waves of violent crimes hitting cities so that offenders feel consequences and face a deterrence factor from committing new crimes.

“If you spent one really tough, vicious day and you tell them don't ever do it again because if you do it again, people are going to get seriously hurt if you walk out of a store carrying two television sets under your arms. It would stop immediately. Stop immediately. All over the country,” he said.

The former president, leading the 2024 GOP field by 40 to 50 points in polls, said he would also work with Congress to create new protections from lawsuits — indemnification, provisions — so that police officers feel more confident cracking down on crime and arresting offenders. Right now, some cities and states are eliminating the qualified immunity that officers enjoy for official acts.

“You're not allowed to do anything because they (officers) don't want to lose their family, their pension, their house, their wife. … And they say, ‘All right, look, we can't do anything.‘ They're told not to do anything.

“And one thing I'm going to do is on a federal basis, I'm going to indemnify any and all police officers from having a problem,” he added. “Now people will say, well, that's bad, because some will be bad actors. But it's very few. But we're going to indemnify the police. We’re going to indemnify the city. And we're going to indemnify the state. … So that they can fight without having to worry about the fact that they'll spend the next 10 years in court.”

Trump also addressed how he would shrink  the massive federal budget expected to top $7 trillion in 2024, up from $3.7 trillion just a decade ago.

He said he would like to eliminate federal agencies, like the U.S. Education Department, and take the tax savings and send them back to states and cities in the form of block grants.

“I want to move the Department of Education into the states,” he said. “… I need like one desk and one good person in Washington.”

Trump also addressed several foreign policy issues, saying he would like to move Russia, farther away from its new alliance with China as part of the effort to end the Ukraine war peacefully.

He also said he would like to end subsidies to U.S. chip manufacturers, and instead impose tariffs on foreign makers of computer chips that dominate the global market from Asia.

“So they're giving billions and billions and billions of dollars to these chip manufacturers that by the way, make billions of dollars. So we take them out of Taiwan, but all we have to do is put a tariff on the chips coming in. And we'll make our chips here because these companies have a lot of money to set up,” he said.

Trump also discussed how he copes with the four separate criminal indictments he faces, as well as an ongoing civil lawsuit in New York aiming to take away his iconic business empire.  

“I'm a big believer in the racehorse theory. You know, fast racehorses had very good parents, smart parents, good parents, and they lived to an old age. And I think I believe that. I believe in that,” he said.

“But I also think that I have a great enthusiasm for and love of this country. I have a great enthusiasm for a very simple term — MAGA— Make America Great Again, or America first,” he added.