Kiriakou’s objection to the August 2025 federalisation of the District’s policing is not that it was heavy-handed in the high-crime parts of the city. It is that it was not deployed there at all.
“The thing is though there is no street crime,” he says — “not in the parts of Washington that Donald Trump is talking about.” He concedes immediately that bad neighbourhoods exist in Washington as in any city of any size, and calls the operation a publicity stunt. [1]
What the roadblocks were for
The combined force, as Kiriakou lists it, was the city police plus the National Guard plus the FBI, ATF and DEA. They set up roadblocks on major thoroughfares — he names 14th Street, “one of the most important streets in all of Washington.” [2]
Asked what they were doing at the roadblocks, Kiriakou’s answer is that they were writing tickets for people not wearing their seat belts. Asked whether that was all, he says: “Dozens. That is it.” He allows one addition — a couple of tickets for brake lights being out. [2]
Kiriakou notes that he was smiling as he described it, and says so, while insisting on how angry the whole thing made him. [2]
What he says would have been legitimate
Kiriakou is explicit that he would not have objected to a real operation. If the deployment had gone into deep southeast or deep northeast Washington — “the two highest crime areas in the city” — and tried to straighten the place out, raid crack houses, disrupt shootings, then, he says, “Okay, great. Good on them.” [2]
That is not what happened, and both men agree it is not. Kiriakou endorses the reading that the point was to normalise the sight of heavily armed soldiers on American city streets — the way, as Rall puts it, residents of Israel or of any number of developing countries are used to seeing them. Kiriakou’s answer: “I think that’s exactly right.” [2]
The personal consequence
The roadblocks were also an immediate practical problem for Kiriakou himself. He was recording the programme against the clock because he had a train to catch, and told viewers he was going to have to find a way around the roadblocks to reach the station — his train left at 6:05, and he did not have time “to fool around with these people.” [3] He cut the broadcast short and left partway through, apologising to viewers as he went. [3]