Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2025
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by David Catron
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One of the most notable differences between President Donald Trump and his Republican predecessors is his ability to trick the Democrats into defending the indefensible. He exploits their automatic opposition to every action he takes and traps them on the wrong side of 80-20 issues.
On Monday, Trump added another notch in his belt on this front by issuing an executive order declaring a crime emergency in the nation’s capital and taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department pursuant to Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.
The order explicitly stipulates that the Mayor of the District of Columbia “shall provide the services of the Metropolitan Police force for Federal purposes for the maximum period permitted under section 740.” Trump also issued a memorandum directing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “to mobilize the District of Columbia National Guard and order members to active service, in such numbers as he deems necessary, to address the epidemic of crime in our Nation’s capital.” The initial deployment will involve 800 troops.
Inevitably, every Democrat within reach of a microphone, camera, or keyboard denounced the President for this action. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), best known for leading the second unsuccessful impeachment trial of Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” issued a semi-coherent statement which attempts to relitigate that tawdry circus and includes an extended diatribe about the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. At length, he finally gets to the point, claiming that crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low and that Trump is an autocrat:
“In a textbook authoritarian maneuver, the President now invokes emergency powers to militarize the seat of government and override the authority and decisions of D.C.’s elected officials… I will be introducing a Resolution in the House, pursuant to the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973, to reverse this plainly ridiculous state of local emergency and restore full home rule powers to the Mayor, Council and people of the District of Columbia.”
The “30-year low” claim is clearly a talking point cooked up by the DNC. Hillary Clinton took to X and posted the same whopper: “As you listen to an unhinged Trump try to justify deploying the National Guard in DC, here’s reality: Violent crime in DC is at a 30-year low.” Here’s Mayor Muriel Bowser repeating the same tale.
David Angelo responds to Clinton by providing the following chart that shows the D.C. murder stats for the past 20 years. Fourteen years had lower murder rates than the most recent full year, 2024.
The knee-jerk response to this chart from any Democrat or corporate media talking head would go something like, “Homicides are a subset of violent crime, which includes various other forms of violence.” The problem with this argument is that there has been considerable controversy surrounding the way “violent crime” has been counted by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. As far back as May, the head of the D.C. Police Union accused police leadership of manipulating crime statistics to create the appearance of improvement:
“To evade public scrutiny, MPD leadership is deliberately falsifying crime data, creating a false narrative of reduced crime… This is a betrayal of our officers and the public we serve. Our members are working in conditions that would shock any reasonable person—overworked, underpaid, and disrespected by leaders who care more about appearances than reality. The city’s refusal to act is a disgrace, and we will not stand idly by while public safety collapses.”
This was not an empty accusation. As NBC4 reports, “A D.C. police commander is under investigation for allegedly making changes to crime statistics.” Specifically, Commander Michael Pulliam was allegedly pressuring officers to downgrade felonies and report serious crimes as misdemeanors.
Yet the tainted data is being repeated as gospel by Democrats and the corporate media. According to a Media Research Center report, “CNN and MSNBC cited the tainted crime data 73 times” during the first 24 hours following President Trump’s intervention.
D.C. residents, however, aren’t buying it. A May 2025 Washington Post-Schar School survey indicated that Washingtonians are profoundly unimpressed by Mayor Muriel Bowser’s record on crime. That poll found that fully 58 percent of Washington, D.C. residents rated her performance as “not good/poor.”
Moreover, as CNN’s Alex Thompson pointed out, “That same poll found that half of everyone in D.C. thought that crime was either a very serious or extremely serious problem in the District of Columbia.” Yet the Mayor posted this balderdash on X:
“Violent crime in DC is at its lowest level in 30 years,” Bowser claimed in the post accompanying that image. “We had an unacceptable spike in 2023, so we changed our laws and strategies. Now, crime levels are not only down from 2023, but from before the pandemic. Our tactics are working, and we aren’t taking our foot off the gas.”
But does Bowser also have her thumb on the statistical scale? Until she answers that question convincingly, she’s an ineffective mayor of a city where 100 murders have already occurred this year.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are stuck defending high crime rates and making absurd accusations against President Trump for having the courage to do something about the problem.
David Catron is a Senior Editor at the American Spectator. His writing has also appeared in PJ Media, the American Thinker, the Providence Journal, the Catholic Exchange and a variety of other publications.
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