D.C. Crime and the Trump-Is-Bad-But-He's-Right Effect
By Byron York
Thursday, August 21 2025
Now, after a week of heightened law enforcement and rising arrests, more and more voices are conceding that Trump is right, that crime really is a serious and ongoing problem in the district.
There's something interesting going on in the continuing controversy over President Donald Trump's anti-crime initiative in Washington, D.C. When Trump first announced the move, saying crime in the city is "out of control," many Democrats and their media allies denounced it with the argument that crime is in fact falling in the district, perhaps even to its lowest point in 30 years.
Now, after a week of heightened law enforcement and rising arrests, more and more voices are conceding that Trump is right, that crime really is a serious and ongoing problem in the district. Some of those voices are still opposed to Trump, but at least they are now admitting there is a big problem.
A recent Wall Street Journal report featured Ebony Payne, a neighborhood commissioner in northeast Washington who spends her evenings reviewing messages from neighbors "reporting assaults, smashed car windows, break-ins, shootings, and teenagers threatening children or even dogs." Payne told the Wall Street Journal that she and her neighbors "are frustrated by the city's inability to respond to 'out of control' crime" and that when they heard of Trump's initiative, "some residents' first reaction was relief."
Payne was so relieved that she has been disappointed that she has not seen a greater police presence in her neighborhood. "We all wanted something to be done," she said. "It's just really unfortunate that we are in this situation where there's a sledgehammer on our city, because we couldn't get a handle on our crime problem."
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