Cops Are Already Unleashed. Trump Is Telling Them to Run Wild.
Radley Balko
May 2 2025, 12:11 p.m.
Donald Trump says he wants to “unleash” the police. This week, Trump signed an executive order “STRENGTHENING AND UNLEASHING AMERICA’S LAW ENFORCEMENT TO PURSUE CRIMINALS AND PROTECT INNOCENT CITIZENS” (all caps in the original), laying down a host of authoritarian diktats intended to make police officers more brutal, more loyal to him, and less accountable to anyone other than him. The proclamation is more virtue signaling than policy — more an expression of Trump’s mood than a serious proposal. And, when it comes to conventional crime, Trump’s mood is right where it’s always been: fearful, demagogic, and perpetually stuck in 1988.
The thing that ties it all together is a word Trump uses often — “unleash” — and it’s worth delving into. The literal definition is to remove from a restraint. In the context of law enforcement, it conjures images of cops siccing police dogs on suspects or protesters. Metaphorically, we tend to associate the word with starker imagery. We unleash fury, wrath, and retribution. Trump wants to project both. As for the executive order itself, it is heavy on bluster and short on details, like most of Trump’s orders. Some of the measures are nonsensical, like “indemnifying” police from damages. (They’re already indemnified by taxpayers in more than 99.9 percent of such cases.) For others, it isn’t clear if he’s referring to federal or state and local police. Trump provides no funding for his demands.
Some would violate the law, such as charging progressive prosecutors for failing to prosecute some crimes to Trump’s satisfaction. Others, like directing law firms to do pro bono work defending cops accused of wrongdoing, are unconstitutional on their own — not to mention that they build on other directives from Trump that courts are also likely to find unconstitutional. Still others would require approval from Congress. How much of this agenda is actually feasible depends on whether Trump is willing to push through these barriers, and whether the federal courts are willing to stop him. That, however, is true with or without an executive order.
During his run in presidential politics, Trump has praised and encouraged police brutality. He has applauded violent crackdowns on protests, especially by authoritarian regimes. He believes in projecting strength, and believes strong leaders demonstrate strength with violence. This is why he has often suggested that police officers will attack his enemies if called upon, and why the Capitol Police who defended Congress from his supporters received so much of his wrath. Yet you can’t unleash something that has never been restrained in the first place. And in the U.S., the police have never been restrained.
https://theintercept.com/2025/05/02/trump-police-executive-order/