In Washington, D.C., where President Donald Trump is waging a "war on crime," he has redefined crime standards to emphasize reductions in crime. He has been criticized for overlooking recent violent crimes in Washington, D.C.
On the 8th (local time), President Trump said at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., that "this place is called a 'safe-zone city'" and claimed "there is almost no crime." He said, "They say crime here has dropped 87%, but in reality it's over 87%. It's virtually non-existent."
Major foreign media pointed out that the president's remarks were false. The New York Times reported, "President Trump, without evidence, now claimed there is no crime in Washington, and the mayor of Washington also credited the deployment of federal law enforcement with contributing to the decline," adding, "but robberies, assaults and thefts still occur daily."
According to police statistics, on Sunday the 7th alone there was one homicide, six vehicle thefts, two assaults involving weapons, four robberies and more than 30 thefts. This directly contradicts President Trump's remark that "there is almost no crime."
In particular, the president's criticism of city authorities that they were inflating crime figures by including "even trivial incidents like things that happen inside the home" drew sharp criticism from many quarters. As an example, he mentioned "if a husband and wife have a light quarrel, they say that place became a crime scene."
The Washington Post reported, "President Trump claimed without basis that conflicts between couples or partners in Washington, D.C., are being overreported to the police," adding, "but this directly contradicts decades of public health research showing that domestic disputes tend to be underreported."
According to DC Safe, an organization that supports victims of domestic violence, the group receives about 12,000 counseling calls a year, of which about 2,000 involve a risk of violence that is "more than just a simple household argument." Natalia Otero, co-founder of DC Safe, said the severity of violence victims face has increased significantly in recent years and that homicides related to domestic violence have surged.
Sarah Longwell, who has long worked as a Republican political strategist, criticized the president's remarks on social media as "a callous act that does not regard domestic violence as a crime." Don Dalton, former executive director of the Washington D.C. Domestic Violence Prevention Alliance, said, "The frequency and harm of domestic violence have not been adequately noticed, and the president's remarks make that reality more apparent."
As criticism intensified, the White House moved to manage the fallout. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement, "(The president's remarks) did not refer to or diminish the seriousness of domestic violence," and said, "His Washington, D.C., crime response executive order specifically includes measures addressing domestic violence."