On September 8, 2025, President Donald Trump ignited a fierce national debate after making remarks at the Religious Liberty Commission meeting at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. In a speech that was meant to highlight his administration’s efforts to reduce crime in the nation’s capital, Trump instead drew widespread criticism for appearing to downplay the severity of domestic violence crimes. His comments, which many advocacy groups and political figures described as minimizing and regressive, have since become a flashpoint in the broader conversation about how America views and addresses intimate partner violence.
Standing before an audience in Washington, D.C., Trump touted the results of a recent surge of federal law enforcement and National Guard troops into the city. According to Trump, these actions had transformed Washington into a “safe-zone city,” with crime down by more than 87 percent. “It’s called the safe-zone city. There’s no crime, they said crime is down 87%. I said no, no, no, it’s more than 87%. [It’s] virtually nothing,” Trump declared, as reported by ABC News. The president’s boastful tone was met with some laughter from the crowd, but the mood quickly shifted as he elaborated on what he saw as a flaw in the city’s crime statistics.
Trump suggested that so-called “lesser” crimes, specifically domestic violence, were being unfairly counted in official crime tallies. “And much lesser things, things that take place in the home, they call crime. You know, they’ll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say ‘this was a crime, see,’ so now I can’t claim 100%,” he said, according to NBC News coverage. Despite these remarks, Trump reiterated, “But we are -- we are a safe city.”
These comments quickly sparked outrage among advocates, lawmakers, and survivors of domestic violence, who argued that the president’s words trivialized a grave public health and safety crisis. According to a national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, four in ten women and one in four men in the United States have experienced physical or sexual violence or stalking by an intimate partner. The federal government has long recognized domestic violence as a national public health emergency, especially since the passage and 2000 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which increased federal funding for prevention and response efforts.
October 2025 will mark the 25th annual Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a milestone that underscores decades of advocacy to shift domestic violence from a “private matter” to a recognized crime with serious consequences. Yet, Trump’s remarks seemed to revive outdated notions about the issue. “The DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence believes that intimate partner violence is a crime and more than a ‘little fight with the wife’ as President Trump stated earlier today. Per federal and local statute, domestic violence is a crime and one that is not only a precursor to domestic violence homicides, but also a common factor in community violence, including mass shootings, where perpetrators often have a history of committing domestic violence,” said Dawn Dalton, executive director of the coalition, in a statement to The 19th.
Other advocacy leaders echoed this sentiment. “The idea that domestic abuse is serious and criminal is not up for debate. Words cannot take us backwards and the days of treating domestic and sexual violence as ‘private matters’ are long gone. Any attempt to minimize these crimes does not change the impact of domestic violence and cannot change the reality of crime statistics in Washington, D.C.,” said Casey Carter Swegman, director of public policy at the Tahirih Justice Center.
Susanna Saul, Director of Legal Programs at Her Justice, a nonprofit providing legal services to women in poverty, warned that Trump’s words could have dangerous consequences. “By reducing domestic violence to a ‘little fight,’ President Trump revives a regressive view from an era when survivors were expected to endure abuse alone, without legal protections or public support. This does more than trivialize domestic abuse. It emboldens abusers to increase their violence and risks undoing decades of legal and cultural progress that have made safety a community responsibility, rather than a private burden.”
Political leaders who have championed anti-domestic violence legislation also weighed in. Representative Gwen Moore, a Democrat from Wisconsin and a survivor of domestic violence herself, called Trump’s comments “deeply offensive and disturbing.” She added, “Trump has a long history of violence against women that makes his dismissiveness unsurprising.” Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan, another survivor, said the president’s remarks threatened to undo years of progress. “We’ve been fighting for decades to remove the stigma around domestic violence, and this position from the president directly opposes those efforts. Let me tell you, as someone who hid in a closet many times as a child, being tough on crime means keeping women and children safe in their own homes.”
The White House, for its part, pushed back on the criticism. In a statement to The 19th, spokesperson Abigail Jackson insisted that the president was not downplaying domestic violence. “President Trump’s Executive Order to address crime in DC even specifically took action against domestic violence,” she said, highlighting a provision that urged the Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate housing providers who fail to restrict tenants who engage in criminal activity, including domestic violence. The administration also pointed to its policy of barring transgender women from women’s domestic abuse shelters—an action that has been condemned by advocates as making trans women less safe.
Critics have noted that, despite rhetoric about making America safer, the Trump administration has taken steps that could undermine the nation’s domestic violence response infrastructure. Since taking office, the administration has sought to restrict nonprofits’ access to federal domestic violence grants, and it has laid off key officials and teams working on the issue. Advocates warn that these moves threaten to destabilize vital services and prevention efforts nationwide.
The controversy over Trump’s remarks comes at a time when the country is reflecting on both the progress and persistent challenges in addressing domestic violence. While crime statistics in Washington, D.C., may reflect certain declines, experts caution against minimizing or reclassifying intimate partner violence as a “lesser” issue. As the nation approaches Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the debate sparked by the president’s comments serves as a stark reminder that the fight to recognize and combat domestic violence as a serious crime is far from over.
For many, the president’s words have underscored the importance of not letting old attitudes resurface and threaten hard-won gains. The conversation surrounding domestic violence, its impact, and the responsibility of leaders to address it with seriousness and empathy is likely to continue well beyond the current news cycle.
