Less than a fortnight into President Trump’s federal takeover of D.C. by the National Guard and an alphabet soup of federal law enforcement agents, Washingtonians have rendered an unsurprising verdict on the president’s latest display of authoritarian corruption: They hate it, in large numbers. And they’re organizing against it: A “Free D.C.” movement has taken root—and taken to the streets—to resist the president’s latest power grab.
The response from political and media elites to this militarized takeover of our capital, however, has been rather limp. As The New Republic’s Monica Potts reports, Democrats apparently have been caught flat-footed by Trump’s maneuver; to the extent that they’ve said anything about it, they’ve largely dismissed it as a manufactured “distraction” rather than loudly calling it what it is: a fascist occupation—and a prelude to worse.
But Trump is getting plumped by some in the media as well: The Atlantic’s Michael Powell idly handwaves the fact that D.C. brought the violent crime rate to a 30-year low in 2024 to admonish Democrats for “downplaying crime.” (In this case, “downplaying crime” means “marshaling statistics demonstrating that the crime rate is trending in the right direction.”) Charles Fain Lehman, also in The Atlantic, goes to similar lengths to dismiss the actual facts to assert that “the reality is more complicated” and that some “deliberate intervention”—atop the one that brought the crime rate to a 30-year-low, presumably—is warranted.
These authors and others are making a profound error from the jump in assuming that Trump sincerely desires to lower the crime rate in D.C. Trump is actually a “blank, sucking nullity” who wants to see himself on television and has decided that his second term in office will be about self-enrichment and revenge. He is inventing a crisis of crime as a pretext for further consolidating his power; this is authoritarianism 101.
Personally, I think downplaying crime in the nation’s capital is not nearly as irresponsible as downplaying Trump’s authoritarianism. But if we must pretend that Trump’s efforts are sincere, then I’d challenge the proponents of his militarized deployments to approach their work with more rigor, and less vibes. Trump has proposed a thesis: Crime in D.C. will go down if masked paramilitaries flood the city and amble about the streets. The task, then, is to see if his theory stands up to the test—to take this seriously.
Trump’s critics do take this seriously, and they have a thesis of their own backed up by data. The District of Columbia had a miserable year in 2023; as crime rates were dropping across the country, D.C.’s were spiking. The New Republic’s Grace Segers took an in-depth look into the phenomenon and reported that the city’s woes stemmed from an interlocking array of local failures, structural problems, and lack of investment. But city officials got busy in 2024 and reversed the trend, achieving a 35 percent reduction in violent crime and the aforementioned 30-year low in the violent crime rate. (Trump is now contending that the city lied about these results. As always, the safe harbor for journalists is to treat every Trump claim as a probable lie—unless, for example, you relish being the type of dummy who reported that Trump had “disavowed Project 2025.”)
As the city pulled off this feat without unleashing goon platoons into the streets, Trump’s challenge is to somehow demonstrate that his way of doing things is more effective. While it’s early days, I’m not sure that we’re getting much bang for what I’m guessing will be a lot of bucks taken from taxpayers. What statistics the administration has put forth are scant: The White House told Axios that “212 people have been arrested for various [non–immigration related] crimes” between August 8 and August 18, 101 of which were from Wards 7 and 8.
That sounds fine, but there’s a lot I don’t know about these numbers and no one at Axios bothered to do much in the way of scrutinizing Trump’s claim. Which agency is reporting these numbers? Is this a coordinated data dump from multiple agencies? Are these adult arrests, juvenile arrests, or both? Do these figures include the Metropolitan Police Department’s own arrest tallies during that period? Does “212” reflect the number of defendants or the number of arrest charges? Because that’s how the MPD tabulates its own arrest statistics. Speaking of, in the same time period in 2024, the MPD made 596 adult arrests.
Crime statistics can be treacherous waters in which to wade; in my experience the lack of consistency and the eminent cherry-pick-ability of them is fodder for crime fearmongers to beat their drum. Moreover, as my colleague Matt Ford pointed out to me, arrest statistics can be unreliable because they are more reflective of law enforcement priorities than they are of actual criminal activity. But that suggests there is a ripe avenue for curious reporters: Find out from the administration what their priorities are. Make them stake a specific claim about what they want to achieve and then hold them accountable.
By all outward appearances, Trump’s crime crackdown priorities seem odd. As The New York Times reported this week, most of the troops that have been sent to D.C. are aimlessly wandering around “the National Mall, large monuments and other tourist-heavy areas,” as well as “metro stations, most of which are also near tourist and entertainment sites.” These patrols aren’t exactly taking place in the mean streets, folks.
The big accomplishment of this deployment seems to be a big uptick in the number of selfies tourists are taking with troops. The other achievement is public displays of ridiculousness: My former New Republic colleague Prem Thakker spent Wednesday morning at the Columbia Heights metro station witnessing a farce as various troops and cops rode the escalators up and down and back again, only to eventually nab a single alleged fare evader. Those who think Trump is in the right should probably explain how these activities will achieve a lower crime rate than city officials were managing themselves.
But it’s not all so benign. Gangs of vaguely identified pseudo-cops are brazenly beating up people in the street, in a manner that The New Republics Melissa Gira Grant likens to the violent exploits of the Proud Boys. The occupying forces are carrying out a sadistic campaign against the city’s homeless population. And beneath it all, the city is being subjected to the mother of all ICE raids, with unidentifiable agents snatching food deliverers off the street (one GrubHub driver was rammed by a police car while making a delivery on his moped) and swarming local churches, grocery stores, and daycare centers. That’s certainly a lot of activity, but those who’ve criticized the city’s own approach to law and order should explain what’s being achieved.
Proponents of Trump’s intervention should also explain whether or not what D.C. needed was a swift kick to the local hospitality economy. While the Trump administration has recently tried to claim that restaurant reservations are “up 30 percent” since the takeover, this is a lie. As The Washington Post reported this week, “Restaurant reservations have dropped in the city by as much as 31 percent year over year for a single day,” since Trump kicked off his military takeover, and “business owners are concerned that the continued surge in law enforcement could impact their revenue during a vital period of the summer.” For everyone who pooh-poohed the Democrats who wielded actual facts about crime in D.C., please enlighten me: Is this good? Are these the results we wanted?
You can absolutely mark me down as extremely skeptical that Trump’s interventions are going to reduce crime in D.C. As always, I’m prepared to be wrong. Can the same be said of the pundits who’ve criticized anyone who dares use facts to question Trump’s fearmongering on crime?
This article first appeared in Power Mad, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Jason Linkins. Sign up here.
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