Donald Trump’s D.C. power grab was sparked not by crime statistics, but by a Fox News segment and the brutal beating of a former ally nicknamed “Big Balls,” according to White House insiders.
The president announced on Monday that he will deploy the National Guard, take control of the police force, and assign FBI agents to fight street crime in Washington, D.C.
Trump has long pushed for more federal authority over the capital, a campaign that intensified during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. But aides say the tipping point came last week when Trump—who reportedly watches up to eight hours of TV a day—saw footage of Edward Coristine, a former DOGE staffer, bloodied after an attempted carjacking.
“When he saw a report on Fox about how bad it was in D.C., that was the final straw,” one Trump adviser told Axios. “He said he wanted it done. So we scrambled and got it done.”
In the eight days after the attack, Trump moved to put Attorney General Pam Bondi in charge of D.C.’s police and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on troop deployment. Jeanine Pirro, recently approved as the city’s U.S. attorney, was prepared to ramp up prosecutions.
The Washington Post reported that Trump entered office with an informal “playbook” for asserting presidential control over D.C., including flooding the streets with federal officers or taking over the municipal government.
Because D.C. is a federal district, the president can deploy the National Guard without local consent and take over the police for 48 hours—extendable to 30 days with congressional notification.
Mayor Muriel Bowser blasted the move as “unprecedented” and “unsettling,” while acknowledging the increased law enforcement presence “may be positive.”
Despite Trump’s rhetoric about “complete and total lawlessness,” city police data shows violent crime is down 26 percent from last year, which itself marked a 30-year low. The overall crime rate was also down 35 percent from the city’s 2023 crime wave.
New data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association shows that violent crime has dropped in all categories in the district in the first half of 2025.
Trump’s aides concede they’re aware of the numbers but argue perception matters more.
A White House official told the Daily Beast that driving around the capital helped inspire his decision. “The President has seen the filth and squalor firsthand driving around D.C., and he wants to make it better,” they said.
“Anyone who’s spent time in D.C. recently knows it’s a shell of a once-great city,” an official statement from White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson added.
She said that violent crime is “out of control” and homeless encampments are a “permanent fixture in parks and neighborhoods.”
“In just a few nights, President Trump’s bold actions to Make D.C. Safe Again have already removed dangerous weapons and illegal drugs from DC streets—and that’s not even taking into account the countless potential crimes that were deterred thanks to a large, visible law enforcement presence,” Jackson added.
Some Democratic strategists agree with this take and argue that the party needs to meet voters “where they are,” and stop using statistics to tell them how they should feel.
“You people are victims of it, too,” Trump told reporters Monday. “You don’t want to get mugged and raped and shot and killed.”
Bowser said she plans to blunt Trump’s impact: “I’m going to work every day to make sure it’s not a complete disaster,” she said.
She also called the saga a “so-called emergency.”
The post Trump Aide Reveals the Bonkers ‘Final Straw’ That Led to Trump’s Power Grab appeared first on The Daily Beast.
