American TV host Rachel Maddow ripped into United States President Donald Trump hours after he deployed National Guard into Washington DC reportedly to curb the rate of crime, saying it is not about that but “authoritarian takeover” of the country. Rachel Maddow said Donald Trump “enjoys” using the US military against American citizens.

Speaking on The Rachel Maddow Show on Tuesday, August 12, night, the TV host said, “Let’s be generous here. Maybe it’s not really just a generic tough-on-crime thing. Maybe it’s specifically because it’s DC, which is the seat of the U.S. federal government. Maybe [Trump’s] just really sensitive about protecting the federal government.”

Rachel Maddow said the deployment of the National Guard may not be him being “tough on crime”, “maybe he enjoys it.”

“Maybe it’s what you can see with your own two eyes. Maybe it’s that he really enjoys using US military force against American civilians on American soil and wants any excuse to do it anywhere he can. Watch what they do, not what they say,” she said.

Terming the deployment of the National Guard in Washington DC as “authoritarian takeover”, Rachel Maddow said, “We clearly are now in the part of the attempted authoritarian takeover where our authoritarian leader just starts trying to turn our own military to face us, the people of this country.”

The National Guard deployment in Washington DC was enforced even as the national capital officials stressed that crime was already going down.

Trump, flanked by his attorney general, his defense secretary and the FBI director, said he was declaring a public safety emergency and his administration would be removing homeless encampments.