President Donald Trump appears to have downplayed domestic violence while complaining that offenses by men against their wives were affecting his crime statistics.
Speaking to faith leaders in Washington on Monday, Trump talked up his crackdown in the nation’s capital, claiming crime was down to “virtually nothing” since he sent in the National Guard and took over the D.C. police one month ago.
But the president seemed visibly annoyed that statistics did not show crime had reduced by 100 per cent, because law enforcement officials were also recording “lesser things” such as domestic matters.
“They say crime’s down 87 percent. I said: ‘No, no, no, it’s more than 87 per cent—it’s virtually nothing.’ And much lesser things, you know, things that take place in the home, they call crime,” Trump said.
“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 per cent.”
The president’s comments were met with a furious backlash on social media, with many accusing Trump of giving little regard to an issue that affects about 12 million Americans a year.
“Oh sure, just a ‘little fight’. Tell that to the millions of survivors living with broken homes, trauma, and fear,” one X user wrote.
“What a champion of law and order.”
According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, an average of 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States.
But Trump, flanked by his Attorney General Pam Bondi and other members of his cabinet, seemed unconcerned by his controversial remarks as he boasted about his law and order credentials during a meeting of his Religious Liberty Commission on Monday.
The meeting, at the Museum of the Bible, was held to unveil new initiatives to “Make America Pray Again,” but Trump used it as an opportunity to talk up how safe the nation’s capital had become.
“We are a safe city. You can walk to a restaurant, you can walk to the Capitol, and even the Democrats are saying ‘I can’t believe it’ but they don’t want to admit it,” he said.
The president also offered his condolences to the family of murdered Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed to death on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a deranged repeat offender.
“A lunatic just got up and started, it’s right on the tape, not really watchable, because it’s so horrible, but (she was) just viciously stabbed. She’s just sitting there,” he said.
“They’re evil people. We have to be able to handle that. If we don’t handle that, we don’t have a country.”
Trump embarked on his D.C. crime crackdown on August 7, sparking almost daily protests on the streets of Washington, with critics accusing the president of manufacturing a crime crisis for political gain.
It has also led to farcical scenes, such as scores of armed National Guards being made to pick up trash and work on dozens of ‘beautification and restoration’ projects across the district in the absence of widespread crime.
But Trump has insisted the crackdown was needed as he ramps up his push to send in troops to Chicago.
On Saturday, the president ramped up his threats, posting a parody image from “Apocalypse Now” featuring a ball of flames as helicopters zoom over the nation’s third-largest city.
“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning,’” Trump wrote on his social media site. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
