The U.S. Capitol Police said they stopped a man who tried to set fire to his car near the U.S. Capitol building late Wednesday night when President-elect Donald Trump was there meeting with senators.
“Twice today our officers stopped a man who could have been a danger to the Capitol Hill community. This vigilance is critical during this time of heightened security,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said.
“The agency said that during Trump’s visit with Republican senators and his time paying respect to President Carter, a 35-year-old man from Virginia attempted to set his car on fire. Police said that just before 5:30 p.m., USCP officers were alerted to a man who had parked on First Street, NW, near the Grant Memorial, and had lit a bag on fire atop his vehicle,” Fox News reported.
“When officers ran over to the man, the bag extinguished on its own. Out of an abundance of caution, the USCP said that the vehicle was declared suspicious, and the agency’s Hazardous Incident Response Division cleared the vehicle. Officials determined that the car was not a danger at approximately 7 p.m.,” the outlet added.
Spray paint had been used on the car. It was found by investigators that accelerants were in the bag. The driver was arrested for breaking the law.
A man who tried to bring a machete into the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) was stopped by the USCP hours before this arrest.
Capitol Police said on social media that the man was stopped just after 2 p.m. because officers doing a security check at the north doors of the CVC saw a machete in his bag.
The X-ray machine was stopped as the bag went through. Mel J. Horne, 44, of Washington, D.C., was then arrested, and the machete was locked up.
Horne was arrested on multiple counts of carrying a dangerous weapon, and police say they will question him to find out why he did what he did.
Virginia man arrested after trying to set car on fire outside the Capitol as Trump paid respects to Jimmy Carter and met with GOP senators https://t.co/F3cdwak37A pic.twitter.com/liw4l0dFR3
— New York Post (@nypost) January 9, 2025
Trump left a 100-minute meeting with Senate Republicans, touting what he called a “very strong” discussion of how to implement his agenda.
After paying his respects to the late Jimmy Carter feet away at the U.S. Capitol, Trump spoke with reporters briefly about the meeting. Trump briefly took questions about the wildfires in California, securing down the U.S.-Mexico border, and even former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney.
A reporter asked: “On California, Mr. President. During the pandemic, you often said that you didn’t believe that you should bail out blue states, that you [inaudible]. Given your criticism of Governor Gavin Newsom, are you willing to work with him?”
Trump replied: “Oh sure.”
“And do you believe that federal aid should be provided to California for as long as it takes?” the reporter added.
“Well, it’s very sad because I’ve been trying to get Gavin Newsom to allow water to come. You have tremendous water up there. They send it out to the Pacific because they’re trying to protect a tiny little fish, which is in other areas, by the way, called the smelt. And for the sake of the smelt, they have no water. They had no water in the fire hydrants today in Los Angeles. It was a terrible thing. And we’re going to get that done. It’s going to finally be done,” Trump said.
“I got it done from the federal side. And he didn’t want to sign it. But it’s not going to happen again like that. There’s no reason. Can you imagine? You have farmers that don’t have any water in California. They have plenty of water. They don’t have a drought. They send it out to the Pacific and it’s crazy. So, what’s happening in California is a true tragedy. I know those areas very well, I have many friends living in those houses, that is a true tragedy. Nobody ever thought. I mean, virtually, Beverly Hills and areas around Beverly Hills are being decimated,” Trump said.
“The biggest homes, some of the most valuable homes in the world are just destroyed. I don’t even know, you know, you talk about a tax base. If those people leave, you’re going to lose half your tax base of California. This is a true tragedy and it’s a mistake of the governor and you could say the administration. They don’t have any water. They didn’t have water in the fire hydrants. They don’t have water and yet they have — the water comes from, you know where? Up north and it comes down at levels, they give millions and millions of barrels, of gallons of water that they have and they send it out into the Pacific. For the Pacific, it’s like a drop, it’s nothing, but for California, it would take care of the whole state,” Trump added.
Trump continued, “So what’s happened is a tragedy and the governor has not done a good job. With that being said, I got along well with him when he was governor. We worked together very well. We would work together. I guess it looks like we’re going to be the one having to rebuild it, but what happened there, I don’t think there’s anything that I’ve ever seen quite like it. And the insurance companies are going to have a big problem because you’re talking about big, big dollars.”
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Another reporter asked about Trump’s plans to secure the border.
“On deportations, what is day one going to look like for the Trump Administration?” a reporter asked.
“Number one, we’re closing the border. It’s going to be closed very strongly and it’s going to be closed. And we’re going to have to take people out that are criminals. We have people from jails from all over the world and from mental institutions, and as you know, they’re going to have to be removed. And it’s one of the reasons I won the election in a landslide,” Trump responded.
“The people of this country don’t want murderers walking down their farms or their streets or their cities. As you know, we had thousands of people that murdered other people that were in jail, that were released into our country. Many of those people murdered more than one person, many of them, about 42 percent supposedly. We want them out of our country and we’re going to get our country back again and we’re going to be really governed by common sense. These are the principles of common sense. We’re not going to be governed by stupid people. We’re going to common sense. We’re going to be respected all over the world again very soon,” Trump added.
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