President Donald Trump announced plans last month to place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and deploy National Guard troops across the District of Columbia. He vowed to combat crime and “restore the beauty” of Washington.
Trump told reporters that the district’s homicide rate topped that of some of the world’s most dangerous cities, while car thefts had doubled and carjackings had more than tripled over the past five years.
The outrage from the Left was swift and fierce. For days, Democrats flooded the airwaves, parroting a recent report claiming that violent crime in Washington dropped to a 30-year low. New York Times correspondent Peter Baker insisted that Trump was “citing a nonexistent crime crisis.”
In a fiery multipost rant on X, popular podcast host Dan Carlin declared, “Those of you who don’t know what authoritarianism looks like…this is it. All the gaslighting about previous presidents ‘what about…!!! Is bulls***. I’ve been talking about the slide towards NOW for 30+ years. Those earlier concerns were nothing. Now we are HERE.”
Three weeks later, the results speak for themselves: Trump’s plan is working. Even Mayor Muriel Bowser has expressed surprise at the turnaround. At a recent press conference, she highlighted that carjackings had dropped by 87%. This week, she went a step further, signing an executive order to establish the Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center, a new body that will partner with the federal government to “promote public safety” beyond the initial 30-day emergency.
After his undeniable success in Washington, Trump is preparing to take his law-and-order formula to other crime-plagued cities. Next on the list: Chicago.
After a particularly brutal Labor Day weekend in Chicago, marked by at least 54 shootings and eight deaths, Trump said, “We’re going in. I didn’t say when, [but] we’re going in.”
Despite Chicago’s persistently high levels of homicides and violent crime, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) remain vehemently opposed to the deployment of National Guard troops and have gone to great lengths to voice their resistance to Trump’s proposal.
Asked why the pair are refusing the offer of federal assistance to combat crime during a Tuesday interview with The National News Desk, former Chicago Police Chief Jody Weis said the quiet part out loud: They’re afraid it might work.
“I think they are afraid that people will see what can be done if politicians commit to taking action and really want to make a difference,” Weis explained. “That’s really the only reason I can think of because otherwise, it makes no sense.”
According to Weis, 81% of shooters and 78% of shooting victims are black.
“So you’ve got black-on-black crime,” Weis said, “and yet the governor and the mayor said they don’t want any help. So, to me, when you refuse help, you are saying you are happy with the numbers — and that is absolutely unacceptable in Chicago right now.
“I see JB Pritzker walking the lake at 6 o’clock in the morning, saying, ‘There’s no crime here. It’s beautiful.’ Well, it’s 6 o’clock in the morning along the lake. I live pretty close to that area. There is no crime. Let him walk in the Austin neighborhood or the Inglewood neighborhoods at 11 o’clock because that’s where many of his constituents live — and they’re not going to feel safe.”
Weis was referring to Pritzker’s Tuesday morning stroll along Chicago’s scenic Lakefront Trail with a reporter. Citing the bloody weekend, she asked the governor, “Would you ask your friends to ride the L [train] after midnight or after 9 o’clock at night?”
Pritzker replied, “Look, big cities have crime. There’s no doubt about it. But let’s just pay attention to what President Trump is doing targeting Chicago. He’s overlooking red states that have much higher crime rates.”
While it’s true that some red states, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee, have high crime rates, this is largely driven by the Democrat-led cities within them: New Orleans, Jackson, St. Louis, and Memphis, respectively, which rank among the most dangerous cities in the country.
And yes, all big cities struggle with crime. But the primary responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens and uphold law and order.
So the question becomes: What level of crime does Pritzker consider tolerable? How many murders are acceptable before he concedes that Chicago’s violence demands more than a dismissive shrug?
Why are the governor and the mayor siding with criminals over Trump? Would they rather see more murders and violent crimes, as Weis suggested, than allow Trump another win? Well, it certainly looks that way.
As they dig in against Trump, they’re resorting to statements so outrageous they border on the absurd.
“Unlike Donald Trump, we keep our promises,” Pritzker warned in a recent post on X. “We will not stand idly by if he decides to send the National Guard to intimidate Chicagoans. Action will be met with a response.”
In a second post, he wrote, “Donald Trump is exactly the kind of person that our founders warned us about. He cozies up to dictators like Putin because he idolizes them. His actions are dangerous and un-American.”
Johnson blamed the high crime rate on red states in a video posted on X this week.
“Chicago will continue to have a ‘violence problem’ as long as Red states continue to have a gun problem,” Johnson posted. “The endless flow of illegal guns into Chicago can be traced to Red states like Mississippi, Indiana, and Louisiana. It is up to the federal government to step up and stop interstate gun trafficking networks.”
The reality is that Democratic policies have led us here. Cashless bail measures adopted in many Democrat-run jurisdictions have left police demoralized — arresting criminals only to watch them walk free just hours later.
Additionally, the Left’s “defund the police” movement, bolstered by an aggressive propaganda campaign to turn public opinion against law enforcement, has fueled a nationwide recruitment and retention crisis. As a result, police departments across the country are grappling with severe staffing shortages. Who in their right mind would want to wear the badge today?
BOWSER COMMITS DC POLICE TO COORDINATE WITH FEDERAL OFFICERS INDEFINITELY, CITING CRIME DECREASE
Chicagoans don’t feel safe. Man-on-the-street interviews have shown that many residents would welcome federal help to lower the city’s crime rate.
Johnson and Pritzker are losing the debate on crime. Any sane leader would put the safety of their constituents ahead of their Trump Derangement Syndrome — but they can’t, and they won’t.
Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner and the Western Journal. She is also a Heritage Foundation Academy fellow. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.
