The White House is under fire again after President Donald Trump brushed off domestic violence incidents while boasting about his takeover of Washington D.C. with National Guard troops. Speaking at the Museum of the Bible on Monday, Trump bragged that he had turned the city into a “safe zone” but then went on a tangent about what he called “lesser” crimes.
“Things that take place in the home, they call crime,” Trump said. “They’ll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘This was a crime scene.’”
His words drew immediate criticism, but on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt doubled down instead of walking them back. She claimed the president was not dismissing domestic violence but accusing the media of inflating those cases to downplay progress on street crime.
“He wasn’t referring to crime. That’s exactly the point he was making,” Leavitt said. “The president is saying, in fact, is that these crimes will be made up and reported as a crime to undermine the great work that the federal task force is doing to reduce crime in Washington, D.C.”
The explanation did little to clarify Trump’s intent. On Monday, he had clearly contrasted domestic disputes with violent crime, implying they should not be counted in statistics. He also repeated his claim that D.C. is now almost crime-free, dismissing police reports as padded with “lesser things.”
“If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘this is a crime,’” he added. “So now I can’t claim [to have reduced crime in D.C. by] 100%.”
The president insisted that people can now walk to a restaurant in D.C. without fear. But restaurant traffic has actually plunged since troops were stationed on city streets. Even the Museum of the Bible told CNN its attendance has dropped during the military occupation, which is now stretching into its second month.
For business owners, the sight of troops downtown has been devastating. Shawn Townsend, CEO of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, compared the situation to a new pandemic, telling Axios that it was “pandemic 2.0.” He noted that many businesses never recovered from the Covid shutdowns, and those that survived are now seeing leases canceled and plans abandoned.
Townsend’s group recently extended the city’s popular Restaurant Week for the first time in years in an attempt to bring in customers. But he warned that national headlines portraying D.C. as occupied and unsafe are scaring people away. “I’ve heard from folks that won’t renew leases or even consider D.C.,” he said.
Despite those concerns, the Trump administration appears to be ignoring business leaders. No major local organizations have endorsed the takeover, and the White House has floated expanding it to cities like Baltimore, New York, Chicago, and New Orleans.
Instead, Leavitt pivoted to a different story on Tuesday, citing the murder of a Ukrainian immigrant on public transit in Charlotte as proof that Trump’s law-and-order push should go national. She also touted fresh arrest numbers, saying more than 2,177 people have been detained in D.C. since troops arrived.
However, according to The New York Times, that figure represents only a slight increase compared to the city’s normal arrest rate before the occupation.