A majority of Americans back President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in the District of Columbia and believe large American cities are unsafe, according to recent polling.
A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released Monday found that 54% of registered voters said the president’s crime-fighting efforts in the nation’s capital are “justified and necessary.” The favorable results come as the administration is touting a marked decline in crime since the president’s federal takeover of D.C., including a 12-day streak of zero reported homicides.
“This town averaged one murder every other day for the last 20-30 years, which means in two short weeks the president and his team have saved six or seven lives, people who would have been killed on the streets of DC,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.
“[Those individuals] are now living, breathing, spending time with their families because the president had the willpower to say no more, we’re not going to give the streets of DC over to vagrants and robbers and murderers,” Vance added.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro also attributed the falling crime statistics to the president’s crackdown efforts.
“The deterrent effect of all that’s going on as a result of the president’s move to make D.C. safe and beautiful is literally changing the safety landscape of Washington,” Pirro said in a video posted to the social media platform X on Monday.
Fifty-four percent of respondents also support the president declaring a crime emergency in the nation’s capital and 56% believe the average big city in the United States is “unsafe,” according to the survey. A slight majority of registered voters — 51% — said Trump’s deployment of National Guard units to Washington would make the city more safe.
The pollster also found the Trump administration’s efforts received strong support among independents with 47% of that cohort backing Trump’s actions to reduce crime.
Robberies have declined by 42% and carjackings have seen an 85% drop over the past 14 days in Washington, D.C., according to statistics released by the DC Police Union on Monday. The union has notably backed the president’s takeover of the capital city’s law enforcement.
A member of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang was arrested in Washington on Sunday evening, a White House official told the Daily Caller’s Reagan Reese. The TdA member had several prior arrests and four immigration encounters, according to the official.
A Democratic National Committee presentation sponsored by the left-wing criminal justice group, Vera Action, argued Monday that the president’s crime reduction efforts are a “political liability” for Republicans.
Trump has floated Chicago as the next city where he could deploy federal resources and seek emergency powers to combat crime.
The online survey of 2,025 registered voters was conducted between Aug. 20 and Aug. 21.
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