Sharpton said, "I preached in Washington, D.C. yesterday at Howard University. People feel they’re under siege. They are being picked on. When you look at the cities the president has named, all of those cities have declining crime rates and all of them have black mayors. There’s a racial element that he’s race dog whistling here."
He added, "He would not dare do that to his red state senators. Why wouldn’t he have sat with Mayor Bowser and say, how do we work this out, if he really thought there was a problem? He didn’t think there was a problem. He was trying to create a situation and create some kind of picture that these people cannot run their cities. That is why this is bad for everyone. I rode around Washington after preaching right the areas that there are crimes that have been worked on by Mayor Bowser and others, you don’t even see National Guard. They are down in Georgetown. People are not coming out going to restaurants because they feel intimidated. There’s no winners in this, and the president is going forward rather than saying, let’s retreat and see what we’re doing here, since it’s a 30 day window, and in Washington, unless Congress extends it. He says, I’m going to Chicago, I’m going to Oakland, I’m going anywhere there is a Democrat and a black mayor now is at risk, and that’s no way to run the country."