President Donald Trump has touted his perceived wins while praising “healthy, attractive people” during a photo op ahead of his expected patrol with D.C. police and federal forces.
Trump met with local and federal law enforcement at the U.S. Park Police facility in Anacostia Thursday evening to thank them for their efforts in what his administration is referring to as a crime crackdown.
There were pizzas provided from a local restaurant and burgers cooked at the White House supplied for authorities.
The president complimented the roughly 300 men and women in the crowd as “healthy” and “attractive.”
There were members of the Metropolitan Police Department, National Guard, FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies in attendance.
The president also praised his own administration, telling the crowd, “ We've done a lot of good work, including the biggest tax cuts that you've ever had.”
Trump also talked about his plans to build a new ballroom in the White House, saying, “ They've been after a ballroom for 150 years, but they never had a real estate guy as a president.”
Tours of the White House are postponed “indefinitely” as construction is set to begin in September on President Donald Trump’s $200 million ballroom.
“ We had a country that was a dead country in many ways. I went to Saudi Arabia, I went to Qatar, I went to UAE. We came back with $5.1 trillion of investment in this country. And we're over $17 trillion,” the president claimed during his photo opportunity.
While the Trump administration has received multiple pledges from companies, such as Apple and AI chipmaker NVIDIA, and foreign countries, including Japan and South Korea, it remains to be seen if any will follow through on the investments.
Reuters found the list of investments the White House has touted on its website includes money that originated under former President Joe Biden or was routine spending that had been repackaged.
During his speech, Trump said crime is “way down,” adding, “I feel very safe now and I’m hearing people are very safe.”
The Trump administration announced Tuesday there have been 465 arrests in D.C. since the start of the crackdown two weeks ago on August 7. Fox News Digital reported Wednesday that number had climbed to more than 550, citing White House data.
“ I've never received so many phone calls thanking me for what we've done in Washington, D.C., from people that haven't gone to a restaurant in literally in four years... they said it was just unsafe,” Trump said. “One of 'em said he's gone out four nights in a row. And he hadn't gone out for four years.”
Restaurant reservations in D.C. were down nearly 25 percent, on average, in the week following Trump’s announcement the federal government would largely take control of the nation’s capital to reduce crime.
Trump also boasted in his photo op about an appeals court throwing out the penalty against him in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil fraud lawsuit.
“ I had a victory today. They stole $550 million from me with a fake case, and it was overturned,” Trump said. “ I've had more witch hunts than any human being, I think, in history. Here we are, we're the president of the United States, so it didn't work out too well for them.”
The ruling only applies to the financial penalties. The court upheld the judge’s findings that the president and his business partners committed brazen fraud — falling short of the vindication that the president sought through the courts.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro were also at Thursday’s photo op.
Trump said earlier he was going to hit the D.C. streets with law enforcement but he instead went back to the White House after his meet-and-greet.
CNN reported, citing an unnamed source, some Secret Service members had been caught off guard by the president’s earlier announcement that he planned to go out on patrol.
When the president announced last week he had placed the Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deployed about 800 National Guard troops to D.C., he claimed it was done for the sake of the locals’ safety.
“I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse,” he said.
But the violent crime rate went down by 35 percent in 2024, a 30-year low, after peaking in 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. said in January.
Vice President JD Vance told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in an interview that aired Wednesday night violent crime has dropped 35 percent in the capital over the past nine days. He did not offer any evidence to support this statistic.
