Fact check: Trump's barrage of false claims about crime in Washington, DC
By Daniel Dale, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump delivered a barrage of false claims about crime in Washington, DC, during a series of Monday comments defending his takeover of the police force and deployment of the National Guard in the nation’s capital.
Touting an ongoing 11-day period with no reported murders in Washington, Trump falsely claimed it had been “many years” since the city had previously had a murder-free stretch of even a week; in fact, Washington had three such periods since late February of this year, one of them 16 days long. Trump falsely claimed Washington now has not only no murders but “no crime” at all; while reported crime is down during his takeover, there have still been hundreds of offenses.
Trump falsely claimed Washington had been at an “all-time” high in crime at the end of the Biden administration; in fact, it had been nowhere close to the violent peaks of the early 1990s. And Trump wildly overstated Washington residents’ support for the takeover, baselessly putting it at “95%” even after a poll showed overwhelming local opposition.
Here is a fact check.
Washington has had other murder-free stretches this year
Trump has repeatedly spoken of the fact that there has been a period of consecutive days during his takeover – 11 as of Monday afternoon – without a reported murder in Washington. Fair enough; that’s good news. But Trump has also repeatedly added false claims about the rarity of such stretches.
He told reporters Friday that this is “the first time in anybody’s memory that you haven’t had a murder in a week.” As CNN’s Casey Tolan reported Friday, Washington had multiple other such seven-day stretches in 2025 alone – in May, in April, and a 16-day stretch from February 25 through March 12.
Trump made similar claims again and again on Monday.
He wrote on social media that “there have been no murders in 9 days, something which hasn’t happened in years,” then told reporters that the current 11-day stretch is “the first time that’s taken place in years, actually years”; he added at another Monday event that “if you go back and check, it’s been many years since we went a week without having a murder.” Again, Washington had a 16-day stretch without a reported murder earlier this year.
There is still crime in Washington during Trump’s takeover, though it’s down
Not true. Crime levels have declined during the federal takeover – but hundreds of crimes have occurred, official public figures show.
A search of Washington’s online police crime database on Monday afternoon showed that there were 725 total reported crimes (62 violent crimes and 663 property crimes) occurring from the first full day of the federal takeover, August 12, through Sunday. This past week, through Sunday, there were 366 reported crimes (33 violent crimes and 333 property crimes).
The 366 reported crimes last week represented a drop of about 28% from the final week before the takeover, August 5 through August 11. The 33 violent crimes represented a drop of about 21%.
Good news again. But the president didn’t simply note these improvements; he claimed there is “no crime” in Washington at all, and that’s not true.
Washington was nowhere close to an all-time crime high even before the takeover
Questioning Washington’s public crime statistics, Trump has repeatedly claimed that the district recently had its worst-ever crime situation before he began to turn things around. He said Monday: “Take a look at DC. Crime was rampant. It was at the all-time worst.” He said at another Monday event: “The day I took office, it was the worst.”
It wasn’t.
It’s certainly possible there are problems with Washington’s reported crime numbers; the Justice Department is investigating whether the district’s police department manipulated figures, as the union representing officers has alleged. But experts say that even if some of its figures are inaccurate, it’s still very clear that Washington’s crime levels at the end of the Biden administration were nowhere close to the highs of the early 1990s. The district, like the US as a whole, has gotten much safer since then.
Take homicide, the most difficult crime on which to fudge numbers. Washington recorded 187 homicides in 2024, President Joe Biden’s last full calendar year in office. Washington had far more homicides during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it had a smaller population. It exceeded 470 homicides in both 1990 and 1991.
Washington experienced a notable crime spike in 2023, when it counted 274 homicides – its highest figure since 1997. Even that 2023 number, though, was much lower than the 1990 and 1991 numbers. And deadly violence then receded in 2024 and – even pre-takeover – in 2025, mirroring a national trend spanning the end of the Biden administration and beginning of the second Trump administration.
There is overwhelming local opposition to the federal takeover
Trump, defending the takeover, told reporters Monday: “The people want us there. The people here: 95% of the people here want us. The real people, not the people you find on – I don’t know where you find these people,” apparently referring to people interviewed by journalists.
Trump’s 95% figure is false. A Washington Post-Schar School poll of Washington residents that was conducted August 14-17 found that 79% of respondents said they were opposed to Trump taking over the local police and deploying the National Guard and FBI on local streets; 69% of respondents were strongly opposed. Just 17% were supportive.
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points; even if it did not precisely capture local sentiment, there’s no basis for Trump’s own “95%” number. Washington is an overwhelmingly Democratic city – about 90% of its 2024 voters chose Harris, while about 6% chose Trump – that tends to be opposed to Trump’s initiatives.
CNN’s Casey Tolan contributed to this article
The-CNN-Wire
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