On August 11, 2025, President Donald Trump made headlines by announcing the deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., a move that immediately set off a political firestorm and reignited the national debate over crime, policing, and federal intervention in America’s cities. The decision, as reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation, came after a string of violent incidents in the nation’s capital, including the tragic shooting of Republican intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym and a brutal attack on a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer. Trump’s rationale was clear: restore law and order in a city where, he claimed, violence had become routine.
On Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller didn’t mince words when defending the administration’s actions. Miller, a frequent and fervent Trump defender, accused the Democratic Party of failing to protect American citizens, going so far as to label it a "domestic extremist organization." He declared, “The Democrat Party does not fight for, care about or represent American citizens. It is an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gangbangers and illegal alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.”
According to Miller, the situation in Washington, D.C. before the National Guard’s deployment was dire. “Before President Trump launched the federal law enforcement liberation in D.C., there was a murder on the streets of this town every other day. Body after body after body after body. That was Washington, D.C.,” he told host Sean Hannity. Residents, Miller said, were afraid to leave their homes, let alone visit restaurants or parks. “They were afraid to go into entire neighborhoods. They were getting carjacked, right and left, robbed and beaten. That was Washington, D.C.”
Yet, Miller and the Trump administration now tout a remarkable turnaround. As of August 26, 2025, Washington, D.C. had gone two weeks without a homicide—a streak Miller characterized as the “safest this city has ever been in its entire history.” He credited the federal crackdown for this improvement, saying, “President Trump has literally set the people of Washington, D.C. free. They’re so happy now that they can just go out and live their lives. Go to their favorite restaurant, go to their favorite bar, go to their favorite pool hall, go to their favorite park. You see moms taking kids out to parks they haven’t been to in years because they know the police are there. They know that President Trump is there with his law enforcement to protect them. It’s a thing of beauty, Sean.”
Backing up these claims, U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, reported that the federal intervention had led to 1,007 arrests and the confiscation of 111 illegal firearms as of August 26, 2025. Support for Trump’s approach appears to be significant among the public as well—a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released on August 25 found that 54% of registered voters believe Trump’s crime-fighting efforts in the capital are “justified and necessary.”
But not everyone is convinced. Democratic leaders, both in Washington and other major cities, have pushed back hard against what they view as federal overreach. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, publicly rejected Trump’s suggestion that the National Guard might be deployed in Chicago as well. During an August 25 press conference, Johnson pointed to new data indicating that homicides in Chicago have trended down 25% over the last year, with 474 homicides recorded in the 12 months through August 16, 2025. While the frequency of killings remains higher than pre-pandemic levels, Johnson insisted that the city is making progress and that federal intervention is unnecessary.
Still, Chicago’s crime statistics remain sobering. According to a White House press release and reporting by ABC7 Chicago, the city has had the highest murder rate among U.S. cities with more than one million people for seven consecutive years and the most murders of any U.S. city for 13 straight years. The average yearly homicide rate between 2021 and 2023 was a staggering 722. These grim numbers have fueled the Trump administration’s argument that stronger, more direct action is needed.
On Fox News, host Sean Hannity echoed Miller’s criticisms of Democratic leadership in cities like Chicago, describing a situation where “you can predict with pinpoint accuracy how many people on any given weekend are going to be shot and shot and killed in Chicago.” Hannity added that Democratic leaders “haven’t lifted a finger to solve the problem,” instead embracing what he called “defund, dismantle, re-imagine, no bail insanity.”
Miller doubled down, blaming the city’s struggles on what he called the “handcuffing” of law enforcement and the shutting down of police departments. “They have turned the streets of Chicago into a bloody killing field,” he said. He also accused Democrats of failing to appreciate the improvements in D.C. “Instead of jumping up and down and saying, ‘Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for saving our lives. Thank you for saving our cities. Thank you for scrubbing away all the graffiti, the trash, the homeless encampments, the druggies,’” Miller argued, “they’re saying, ‘President Trump, how dare you save our lives? How dare you save our children? How dare you save our city?’”
The debate over federal intervention in local policing is not new, but it has rarely been so sharply drawn. Supporters of Trump’s approach argue that federal involvement is justified when local governments fail to protect their residents, citing the Supremacy Clause and the president’s authority over federal law enforcement. Miller put it bluntly: “If your streets are more violent, as these Democrat cities are, more violent than Baghdad, more violent than communities in Ethiopia and places that many Americans would never even dream of visiting, some of the most dangerous places on Planet Earth, it’s more dangerous than Mexico City. Democrat cities are more dangerous than Mexico City, which is run by criminal cartels.”
Opponents, however, warn that heavy-handed federal tactics risk undermining local control and trust in law enforcement, while failing to address the root causes of crime. Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson, among others, argue that progress is being made and that local solutions, not military-style deployments, are the answer.
Meanwhile, questions have arisen about the accuracy of crime statistics themselves. While some Democrats and media outlets have cited a 35% drop in crime in D.C. in 2024, Miller and others allege that these numbers leave out serious offenses like felony and aggravated assault. Further complicating matters, the Metropolitan Police Department announced in July that it was investigating Commander Michael Pulliam for allegedly altering crime statistics in his district, according to NBC Washington.
As the political battle over crime and policing rages on, one thing is clear: the stakes are high, and the debate is far from over. With the 2024 presidential race on the horizon and urban crime a top concern for many voters, both sides are digging in, determined to convince the public that their approach is the right one. For now, residents of Washington, D.C. and Chicago can only hope that the focus on their cities will bring about real, lasting change—and not just more political posturing.
