George Conway, a conservative and prominent critic of President Donald Trump, has compared the Republican leader to Tony Soprano, the fictional mob boss from the TV series The Sopranos. The comment came in response to Trump’s federal takeover of Washington DC.Conway and former Homeland Security official Miles Taylor appeared on MSNBC Wednesday to discuss Trump placing the DC police under federal control and deploying the National Guard. Trump said the move was in response to “out of control” crime, although data shows violent crime in DC has been declining since its peak in 2023, as reported by the Independent. Conway, who was once married to Trump’s adviser Kellyanne Conway, said, “We don’t have Ronald Reagan anymore. We have Tony Soprano. He’s holding people up, threatening them, bullying them, doing things beyond his legal authority. And that scares people.”He added that Trump intimidates those he sees as opponents. “We see the intimidation of people who have had the courage, like Miles [Taylor], to speak out and criticize the president,” Conway said. “There is no limit to how low he will go, and what he will do to intimidate and to threaten and to assert power over things.”Taylor, who served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security under Trump’s first term, wrote an anonymous 2018 op-ed titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” In it, he said many Trump appointees aimed to protect democratic institutions while preventing Trump’s “more misguided impulses.”In April, Trump had signed an executive order targeting Taylor, revoking his security clearance and instructing the Justice Department to investigate him. His attorneys also sent letters to the justice department and Homeland Security inspectors general, requesting an investigation.Taylor described the experience as deeply disruptive.“This has not been made easy, because once you are on the president’s blacklist, all sorts of things in your life start to implode, businesses, relationships, friendships, financial, you have an army of lawyers,” he told MSNBC.Conway also expressed concern about federal involvement in local law enforcement across the country. Trump indicated Wednesday that the DC move could serve as a model for cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.“I also think it’s important that people understand why it is that this kind of federal overreach is bad, and it’s bad because it consolidates power in a federal government. And as Americans, we have never, never wanted that to happen,” Conway said. “We’ve always had a federal system where local authorities handle local things like crime and safety on the streets, public safety.”He added that such federal involvement could lead to abuse since there would be limited checks.Trump has also suggested extending the federal takeover of DC police beyond the 30-day limit, which would require Congressional approval. He expects Republican support for the extension to be nearly unanimous.
