President Donald Trump’s recent remarks about crime in Washington, D.C. have ignited a fierce debate over how domestic violence is counted in official statistics and how political leaders frame public safety. Speaking on Monday, September 8, 2025, at the Museum of the Bible in the nation’s capital, Trump suggested that “a little fight with the wife” should not count as a crime, drawing widespread criticism and raising questions about the administration’s approach to both crime data and domestic violence.
During his speech at the Religious Liberty Commission’s meeting, Trump boasted about the impact of a federal law enforcement surge he ordered in early August. “Can you imagine our capital being the most violent city? But it was — it was really bad, into a totally safe zone. It’s called a safe zone city. There’s no crime. They said, ‘Crime’s down 87 percent,’ I said, ‘No, no, no, it’s more than 87 percent, virtually nothing,’” Trump told the audience, according to Nexstar Media. He continued, “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 percent.”
The president’s comments were not only seen as dismissive of domestic violence—a crime that disproportionately affects women—but also as an attempt to shape crime statistics for political gain. According to The Independent, Trump’s remarks sparked an immediate backlash on social media, with critics accusing him of minimizing the seriousness of spousal abuse. Republican strategist Sarah Longwell commented, “Just a casual dismissal of domestic violence as a crime.” Others pointed to the grim reality that “one woman dies every 11 hours from domestic violence.”
Trump’s assertion that crime has been “completely eradicated” in D.C. was quickly challenged by local data and reporting. While the president claimed during his speech that crime was down more than 87 percent and that the city had become a “crime free zone,” police statistics told a different story. As reported by The New York Times and cited by multiple outlets, on Sunday, September 7, 2025 alone, Washington recorded a homicide, six motor vehicle thefts, two assaults with a deadly weapon, four robberies, and more than 30 incidents of theft. Clearly, crime had not vanished overnight.
Official numbers released by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for the period following Trump’s federal law enforcement surge, which began on August 7, 2025, do show significant improvements. Overall crime in D.C. decreased by 14 percent compared to the same 25-day period in 2024. Violent crime went down by 39 percent, with homicides dropping 58 percent, robberies 57 percent, and sex abuse crimes 40 percent. Carjackings, a subset of robberies, declined by a dramatic 82 percent. MPD arrests increased by 25 percent, firearm recoveries by 20 percent, and calls for service by 14 percent. Property crimes also dropped: burglaries fell 49 percent, motor vehicle thefts 35 percent, and thefts from autos 8 percent, though general thefts ticked up by 1 percent.
Despite these improvements, the president’s insistence on dismissing certain crimes as “lesser things” raised eyebrows. According to New York Magazine, Trump’s frustration that domestic violence incidents are included in the city’s crime totals was clear: “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 percent.”
Research suggests that intimate partner violence is anything but a minor issue. Citing data from the National Network to End Domestic Violence, New York Magazine reported that about one in two women and four in ten men in the United States have experienced sexual violence, physical abuse, or stalking at the hands of an intimate partner. Homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant people, and 58 percent of women killed in the U.S. were murdered by their intimate partner. These statistics underscore the gravity of domestic violence and the dangers of minimizing its impact.
Trump’s approach to crime statistics echoes his handling of other politically sensitive numbers. As MSNBC pointed out, in early 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump expressed concern about repatriating infected Americans because it would “look bad” statistically. He said, “I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship.” This focus on maintaining “attractive numbers” over addressing real issues appears again in his crime reduction claims.
Mayor Muriel Bowser of D.C. has played a complicated role in this story. Trump praised her for cooperating with the federal surge, saying on Truth Social, “Wow! Mayor Muriel Bowser of D.C. has become very popular because she worked with me and my great people in bringing CRIME down to virtually NOTHING in D.C.” However, Bowser herself has stressed the need for more police officers and indicated that the presence of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and out-of-town National Guard troops was “not working.” Many Democrats and local residents have protested the federal crackdown, fearing it undermines local control and civil liberties.
The controversy over crime statistics is not confined to D.C. Trump has teased similar interventions in other Democratic-run cities, including Los Angeles, where the National Guard was deployed in June to quell anti-ICE protests, and Boston, where ICE agents launched “Operation Patriot 2.0” on September 6, 2025. Chicago is widely expected to be next, despite opposition from local officials and residents. Trump expressed confusion about why Chicago had not yet requested federal assistance, even as the Department of Homeland Security launched an immigration crackdown targeting the city.
Trump’s comments and policies have also drawn attention to his administration’s broader record on gender and violence issues. His reinstatement of a Title IX rule making it harder for students to report sexual assault, as well as actions that restored gun rights for convicted criminals, have been criticized for putting survivors of domestic violence at greater risk. The president’s history—including being credibly accused of sexual violence by more than two dozen women—continues to cast a shadow over his rhetoric and policy decisions. The White House, however, has denied that Trump was downplaying domestic violence, stating, “Of course the President wasn’t talking about or downplaying domestic violence—and any Fake News hacks trying to use this as a political cudgel against the President are doing a great service to actual domestic abusers and criminals around the country.”
As the debate over crime statistics and domestic violence rages on, the choices made by political leaders—and the words they use—remain under intense scrutiny. For many, the stakes are not just political, but deeply personal and painfully real.
