Donald Trump lets slip bizarre 'secret plan' in radio interview - 'you're the only one who knows'

Donald Trump let slip a bonkers 'secret' plan for a bizarre photo op with the military on the streets of Washington DC.

The US President is one of the most heavily protected people in the world, and rarely goes anywhere without dozens of secret service agents and protection officers.

Yet he claims he plans to go out "on patrol" on the streets of Washington DC tonight.

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Trump, 79, has been absent from public view for days - with little on his public schedule, and only appearing in a handful of photos.

The "patrol" comes as Trump continues to deploy National Guard troops and massively increased law enforcement presence on the streets of DC, claiming it's in response to rising crime, despite crime falling dramatically in recent years.

JD Vance last night was met with furious protests as he met with National Guardsmen at the city's Union Station, where people shouted "free DC" and "troops off our streets".

But he told right-wing talk radio host Todd Starnes of his "secret" plan to join officers on the streets of the city tonight.

"I'm going to be going out tonight, I've got to keep it a secret, you're the only one that knows...you have lots of listeners," he said in a rambling interview today.

"But I'm going to be going out tonight I think with the police and with the military of course. So we're going to do a job, the national guard is great, they're doing a fantastic job."

He went on to claim "hundreds" of "hardline criminals" had been arrested since the military were deployed earlier this week - claiming they were people who could never be rehabilitated and were "born to be criminals, that's all that they are."

But about a third of the 600 or so arrests made in recent days have been by immigration enforcement officers.

And an investigation by NBC News Washington found the proportion of arrests for violent crimes had gone down since the operation started.

About a third of arrests were for simple assault, driving without a license and trespassing.

Saying the operation in DC was a "test" that could be rolled out in other cities, Trump claimed: "It's working unbelievably. Much faster than we thought. We've arrested hundreds of criminals.

Hardline criminals. People who will never be any good, I don't care what they say. They say "rehab", you're not going to rehab these people.

"These are hardline, they're born criminals, they were born to be criminals, that's all that they are. And we got them out of the system."