The action comes amid the administration’s initiative to clean up the capital.
Law enforcement officials on Sept. 7 removed a blue tent outside the White House under the order of President Donald Trump, who alleged that the tent was linked to the “communist cause.”
The blue tent marks a 44-year-long protest against nuclear weaponry, started by activist William Thomas in 1981 on Lafayette Square.
At a nearby red umbrella tent, which was still there on Monday, a handful of individuals played the Chinese anthem.
“We got it down very quickly. It’s down,” Trump said in a speech at the Museum of the Bible, adding that the removal “wasn’t easy” and that “people chained themselves to a tree.”
“All the tents, somehow these people were very well connected with the communist cause.”
The dismantling of the tent comes amid the administration’s initiative to purge the capital of homeless encampments and fight crime. Federal forces have made over 2,000 arrests since taking over the D.C. policing last month in the effort to clean up the district, FBI Director Kash Patel said on Sept. 8.
“We had over 58 tent cities that we took down right in the middle of our parks, right next to our great building Supreme Court, you’d have a tent city right there,” Trump said.
The blue tent question came up during Trump’s exchange on Friday with Brian Glenn, a correspondent for Real America’s Voice.
“Just out front of the White House is a blue tent that originally was put there to be an anti-nuclear tent for nuclear arms,” Glenn said. “It’s kind of morphed into more of an anti-American, sometimes anti-Trump at many times.”
He called the tent an “eyesore” for people who walk by.
Trump replied that he didn’t know about the tent.
“Take it down. Take it down today, right now,” he told staffers.
Trump in March issued an executive order to beautify Washington. On Aug. 22, the president said he plans to request $2 billion from Congress for the project, including renovating the White House executive building.
By Eva Fu
