President Donald Trump thinks his administration needs to intervene in liberal cities where the problem of homelessness has become “disgraceful.”

The rising homeless population coupled with the mental illnesses plaguing many of the victims was noted by the president who told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that he is “looking at it very seriously.”

(Video: Fox News)

Speaking on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” from Osaka, Japan where the president was visiting for the G20 summit, Trump addressed the situation he saw as “very sad,” indicating that his administration “may intercede” in cities such as Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

“You’ve come to where we are now Osaka or Tokyo and the cities are clean. There’s no graffiti. No one going to bathroom on the street. You don’t see junkies,” Carlson said, introducing the topic.

“It’s very nice, isn’t it?” Trump responded.

Carlson asked the president why it is that some U.S. cities have a “major problem with filth.”

“It’s a phenomena that started two years ago. It’s disgraceful,” Trump replied.

“I’m going to maybe and I’m looking at it very seriously,” he said. “We’re doing some other things that you probably noticed like some of the very important things that we’re doing now. But we’re looking at it very seriously because you can’t do that.

“You can’t have what’s happening — where police officers are getting sick just by walking the beat. I mean, they’re getting actually very sick, where people are getting sick, where the people living there living in hell, too,” he added, referring to reports of unsanitary conditions such as the one at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central Division station.

Fed-up cops begin to revolt against disgusting conditions at LAPD station, at least 1 officer contracts typhus https://t.co/sVbin79SUR — Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) June 5, 2019

Noting that some of the homeless population also suffers from a mental illness that many of them are not even aware of having.

“Some of them have mental problems where they don’t even know they’re living that way,” he said. “In fact, perhaps they like living that way. They can’t do that. We cannot ruin our cities. And you have people that work in those cities. They work in office buildings and to get into the building, they have to walk through a scene that nobody would have believed possible three years ago.”

Celebrity doctor Drew Pinsky has been sounding the alarm on a deadly epidemic that could strike Los Angeles this summer, and said local politicians will have to bear the blame.

Trump made the connection that the cities with the biggest homelessness problems are liberal-run cities, including Washington, D.C., where he said he intervened to make some changes.

“And this is the liberal establishment. This is what I’m fighting,” he told Carlson.

“They — I don’t know if they’re afraid of votes. I don’t know if they really believe that this should be taking place. But it’s a terrible thing that’s taking place.,” he said.

“You know, I had a situation when I first became president, we had certain areas of Washington, D.C. where that was starting to happen, and I ended it very quickly,” Trump added. “When we have leaders of the world coming in to see the President of the United States and they’re riding down a highway, they can’t be looking at that. I really believe that it hurts our country.

“They can’t be looking at scenes like you see in Los Angeles and San Francisco. San Francisco… so we’re looking at it very seriously. We may intercede. We may do something to get that whole thing cleaned up. It’s inappropriate,” he said.

According to Fox News:

The president’s comments came after figures released last month stated the number of homeless people in Los Angeles County jumped 12 percent over the past year, officials announced Tuesday, despite $619 million in government spending to help alleviate the problem. The annual point-in-time count recorded nearly 59,000 homeless people countywide, with the largest number — 36,000 — coming from the city of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a county agency which conducted the count, delivered its report to the Board of Supervisors at its Tuesday meeting.

Supervisor Janice Hahn found the new figures “disheartening,” with a 24 percent increase in homelessness for those under 25, and a 7 percent increase in people 62 or older. Officials indicated that an estimated 29 percent of those who are homeless are mentally ill or have substance abuse issues.

Trump believes it should not be the responsibility of the federal government to deal with the problem, but told Carlson that he would be pressing ahead to address it.

“We’re really not very equipped as a government to be doing that kind of work,” he said. “That’s not really the kind of work that the government probably should be doing. We’ve never had this in our lives before in our country. And it’s not only those few cities, it’s a couple of other ones.”