President Donald Trump visited a Park Police operations facility to thank federal law enforcement officers he’s deployed to patrol the streets of Washington, DC, saying he expected their deployment to last “for a while.”
“We’re going to then go on to other places, but we’re going to stay here for a while,” Trump said. “We want to make this absolutely perfect, it’s our capital.”
The visit to the building in Washington’s Anacostia neighborhood appeared less dramatic than his suggestion on a radio show earlier Thursday that he would be “going out” with a patrol in a “secret” trip with the police and military, but nevertheless returned focus to his controversial move last week to surge US officers and troops into the nation’s capital and put the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control.
“We’re not playing games. We’re going to make it safe,” Trump said.
The president brought hamburgers and pizza to the officers he visited to thank them for their service.
Trump last week argued the city’s carjackings and robberies there amounted to a national emergency. While a post-pandemic crime surge in DC stirred public safety fears, Justice Department data released in January showed violent crime in the city plunging to a 30-year-low.
The effort marked Trump’s highest-profile moves yet to drive home his law-and-order message. But they are deeply unpopular with DC residents and any appearance by the president on the streets of the nation’s capital risked stoking tensions further.
Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller were heckled on Wednesday when they met with National Guard members at Union Station. Almost eight in 10 Washingtonians oppose Trump’s takeover and 65% said they don’t think it will make the city any safer, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll.
Over the last week, the administration has faced criticism that the federal deployment has focused on low-crime, tourist-friendly areas of Washington and has not produced a significant uptick of arrests.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday that the effort has resulted in 550 arrests and 76 illegal firearms being seized. But data from DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office showed that MPD arrests in the week before the federal takeover were higher than the week after.
The White House has been adamant that the numbers don’t accurately depict the level of crime and blight in Washington. Trump has sought to discredit the city’s crime statistics, ordering the Justice Department to investigate whether local officials falsified the figures.
Democrats have dismissed the the move as a thinly veiled attempt for Trump to take power in the nation’s capital and amplify his message that liberal policies are soft on crime.
With assistance from Myles Miller.
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