President Trump called this week for an end to cashless bail and the restoration of the death penalty for any murder case in the nation’s capital. He said he wanted to see a surge in arrests, and for minors to be charged as adults. And he was clear that his motivation was about more than just public safety.
“I think crime will be the big subject of the midterms and will be the big subject of the next election,” Trump said on Tuesday. “I think it’s going to be a big, big subject for the midterms and I think the Republicans are going to do really well.”
The comment, made during a three-hour cabinet meeting that appeared tailored for reality television, was an example of the president saying the quiet part out loud. The party that controls the White House usually suffers from a backlash in midterm contests, and a tough-on-crime message has proved potent for Republicans in recent elections.
In a way, Trump’s crime crackdown is a return to form for a politician who even as a real estate developer in 1980s New York City called for severe penalties — including the death penalty — for those only accused of crimes. But his latest comments were also a sign of his willingness to bend his position to what he deems to be a winning issue and seize on concerns over crime to galvanize his base.
Just five years ago, as protests spread throughout the nation calling for criminal justice reform, the Trump campaign was focused on showcasing a major accomplishment from Trump’s first term: legislation that promoted leniency and rehabilitation in the criminal justice system rather than simply tougher prison sentences.
The First Step Act was a key piece of his campaign’s messaging to Black voters in particular. The law, which aimed at rolling back tough sentencing that caused the country’s prison system to balloon, was celebrated by prison reform advocates as a sign that both political parties believed in policies that would emphasize second chances for those entangled in the system.
Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign spent millions on a Super Bowl commercial that spotlighted people who had been freed under the law.
“Politicians talk about criminal justice reform,” according to the advertisement. “President Trump got it done.”
But as crime emerged as a top concern for voters in the wake of the pandemic, Trump, running again in 2024, appeared to distance himself from his own achievement, barely mentioning it on the campaign trail. In 2023, Florida’s governor and a rival presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis, attacked the First Step Act as a “jailbreak bill” and pledged to repeal it.
And while Trump did appoint a pardon czar soon after returning to the White House, he doesn’t appear eager to remind voters of his criminal justice reform measures as his party looks to the midterms.
Instead, Trump is pushing for tougher sentencing, including against minors. His U.S. attorney, Jeanine Pirro, has called on the Washington City Council to reverse laws that allow people to seek shorter or reduced sentences for crimes committed while under the age of 25.
“They’re children, but they’re criminals,” Trump said on Tuesday as he turned to his attorney general, Pam Bondi. “We are getting that changed, Pam, I hope, because you have 14-year-old kids that are evil, they’re sick and they have to be put away.”
Such comments have dealt a blow to activists who supported Trump’s work on sentencing reform during his first term.
“This is the wrong way to go,” said Inimai Chettiar, a former deputy director of the Justice Action Network who has long pushed for criminal justice reforms. “We know these kind of tactics are not going to reduce crime but this unfortunately seems to be the go-to for politicians.”
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said Trump had always been consistent in his focus in cracking down on violent crime.
“Addressing violent crime is a key campaign promise,” Jackson said. “His actions to do so shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.”
One Number
Republicans are lagging behind in polling on the 2026 midterm elections, suggesting a tough road ahead. Ruth Igielnik, The Times’s polling editor, has more.
Democrats hold an edge over Republicans insofar as which party voters hope will win in the 2026 midterm elections, 49 percent to 44 percent, according to recent polling from CNBC.
With the election more than a year away, it is too early to confidently speak about either party’s chances of victory. But a look underneath these numbers shows some revealing findings about the dynamics at play.
Among Democrats, 93 percent say they prefer to see a Democratic victory in 2026, while just 3 percent favor Republican control. Among Republicans, 88 percent want to see Republicans in charge, and 8 percent prefer a Democratic-controlled House.
Similarly, in the latest Economist/YouGov poll, 87 percent of Republicans said they would support the Republican congressional candidate in their district next November, compared with 95 percent of Democrats who said the same about their own party.
The findings suggest that while some Republicans are frustrated with President Trump’s actions, they may be taking out some of their anger on congressional Republicans, which could have consequences next fall.
Republicans have been steadily losing support over the last year in the “generic congressional ballot,” which measures voters’ intentions to support a party’s candidate in next year’s midterms. In January, most polls showed congressional Republicans with majority support; that has flipped over the last several months.
Even as Democrats’ image has declined over the past year, according to Gallup, polls show that they are still potentially able to retain more of their supporters than Republicans in the midterms.
Trump’s victory in 2024 was built off the back of retaining more of his 2020 supporters than Joe Biden, according to Pew Research Center. Democrats’ success next year may be contingent on building a similar model for themselves.
ONE LAST THING
How Trump’s cuts to public broadcasting imperil public safety
Most of the attention in Washington on President Trump’s cuts to funding for public broadcasting has been focused on what will happen to National Public Radio, which has a high profile and large base of listeners throughout the country.
But in rural communities like Unalaska, Alaska, residents are worried that a lifeline could soon go off the air. My colleagues Megan Mineiro and Haiyun Jiang traveled to the state recently to report on how Trump’s effort to cancel funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting imperils the ability of stations to provide crucial public safety updates in remote areas.
“That robust coverage that you need in the event of an emergency — that won’t be there,” said Kristin Hall, the station manager at KYUK in Bethel, Alaska, which broadcasts in both English and Yup’ik, an Indigenous language commonly spoken in the region.
Read the story here.
Ruth Igielnik and Jacob Reber contributed to this newsletter.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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