Vice President JD Vance, Secretary Pete Hegseth, and a top White House aide, Stephen Miller, are pushing the president’s takeover of the District of Columbia’s law enforcement back to the front page with a surprise visit to Union Station. The storied transportation center has been plagued by violence and homeless encampaments in recent years. 

Messrs. Vance, Hegseth, and Miller traveled the two miles to Union Station from the White House on Wednesday to meet with National Guard soldiers who have been patrolling the area. As they walked in to the burger restaurant Shake Shack inside the station, Mr. Vance was met with jeers in the cavernous, echoing main hall, with some onlookers calling him a “couchf—er” and a “p—y boy.”

“If you look at what’s happened in Washington, D.C., in just the last nine days, we see a 35 percent reduction in violent crime, we’ve seen an over 50 percent reduction in robberies, we are seeing really substantial effects because these guys are busting their ass,” Mr. Vance said inside Shake Shack, where he was treating National Guard soldiers to a meal. 

As he was speaking, dozens of protesters outside of the restaurant were heard chanting, “Free D.C.! Free D.C.!”

Mr. Miller spoke after the vice president and the defense secretary, saying that the takeover of Washington was about defending the residents of the city, specifically the black residents, from public drug users, mentally ill homeless people, and violent criminals. 

“The voices that you hear out there — those crazy communists — they have no roots, they have no connection to the city, they have no family they are raising in this city, they have no one that they are sending to school in this city, they have no jobs in this city, they have no connections to this community at all,” Mr. Miller said, referring to those chanting inside Union Station. 

“All these demonstrators you’ve seen out here in recent days — all of these elderly white hippies — they’re not part of the city and never have been,” Mr. Miller said. “Most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C., are black. This is not a city that has had any safety for its black citizens for generations.”

“We’re going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old, and we’re gonna get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington, D.C.,” he added.

While taking questions from reporters after their remarks, Mr. Vance was asked about new polling that shows the overwhelming majority of Washington, D.C., residents oppose the decision to federalize the Metropolitan Police and deploy federal agents. Mr. Vance brushed it off, saying that he hadn’t seen the poll and that it was likely inaccurate. 

The survey, conducted by the Washington Post, shows 79 percent of residents oppose the move, while 17 percent support it. The ethnic group most likely to support the deploying of federal assets is Hispanics, with 31 percent backing the president and 67 percent opposing his decision. Just 15 percent of white Washington residents and 13 percent of black Washington residents support the takeover, according to the survey. 

The deployment of troops is likely to grow even more visible in the coming days, as red states like West Virginia, South Carolina, and Louisiana are set to send hundreds of their own National Guard soldiers to the nation’s capital. Mr. Vance says that they are not likely to stop the effort any time soon. 

“If the President of the United States thinks that he has to extend this order to ensure that people have access to public safety, then that’s exactly what he’ll do,” Mr. Vance said. In order for the emergency powers to be extended, Congress will have to vote on a resolution in September.