President Trump is working with Republican congressional leaders on a “comprehensive crime bill,” once-in-a-generation legislation that would put his popular crime-fighting agenda in front of voters ahead of the midterm elections next year.
Mr. Trump said on social media that he is working with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, on the legislation, which is still taking shape. He said it is “what our country needs.”
The president has made fighting violent crime in the U.S., particularly in the nation’s capital, a top priority this year. He has deployed the National Guard to support police in the District of Columbia. He also has deployed troops to Los Angeles to aid federal agents conducting roundups of illegal immigrants.
Details of the legislation were not immediately available. A White House official told The Washington Times that the bill will “address some of the underlying causes of the D.C. crime problem, will be a topic of sustained focus for the administration, as well as other issues, such as maintenance, transportation and beautification.”
“That includes working with all levels of government, the executive branch, legislative branch, and Washington, D.C., to ensure that the capital city of the greatest nation on earth is the envy of the world.”
Beyond reducing crime, the president said he believes the legislation will help Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections and in the 2028 presidential election by isolating Democratic candidates from their big-city constituents, many of whom are fed up with street violence.
“We’re going to pass a bill to stop crime. We may not get one Democrat vote, OK?” Mr. Trump said at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. “The Republicans are the party that wants to stop crime. We’re against crime. The Democrats like crime. I don’t know why. I think it’s going to be a big, big subject for the midterms, and I think the Republicans are going to do really well.”
Congress last passed a crime bill in 1994, when Bill Clinton was president. It was considered the largest crime bill in U.S. history. The bill funded 100,000 new law enforcement officers and spent $9.7 billion on prisons.
Mr. Trump’s anti-crime push has proved popular with Americans and emerged as a strength for the president, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The vast majority of Americans, 81%, see crime as a “major problem” in large cities, despite data showing violent crime is down from the spike during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
Mr. Trump’s aggressive moves on crime, such as deploying the National Guard to the District, have helped boost his job approval rating from 40% in July to 45% now, according to the poll.
Democratic leaders have fiercely opposed Mr. Trump’s crime agenda, particularly his use of the National Guard. The Democratic Mayors Association called Mr. Trump’s anti-crime rhetoric a “political charade” to distract Americans.
“Let’s be clear: Crime is down in most major cities — including Washington, D.C. — in spite of Donald Trump, not because of him,” the group said in a statement. “While there is still more work to be done, mayors need a federal partner who works with them, not against them.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender, also has said the crime issue is a pretext for Mr. Trump.
“He will gaslight his way into militarizing any city he wants in America. This is what dictators do,” Mr. Newsom said on social media.
Another Democratic presidential prospect, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, said Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans are playing politics.
“If Donald Trump was actually serious about fighting crime in cities like Chicago, he, along with his congressional Republicans, would not be cutting over $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants nationally, including cutting $158 million in funding to Illinois for violence prevention programs that deploy trained outreach workers to deescalate conflict on our streets,” Mr. Pritzker said at a news conference.
Mr. Trump chided Democrats for not supporting his efforts to fight crime and for making themselves the pro-crime party.
“The Republican Party has picked up 4 million new people. The Democrats have lost 2½ million. Other than that, they’re extremely happy. No, they’re very depressed,” he said.
He said crime was “the new box that they’ve fallen into” and noted that a Democratic analyst on TV recently warned his party that “it’s another trap.”
Mr. Trump said he views the issue as another historic strategic blunder for Democrats and likened it to their support of biological males participating in women’s sports.
“I think I got elected on talking about common sense,” Mr. Trump told his Cabinet. “The border, we have to have a wall. We don’t want transgender for everybody. We don’t want to have men playing in women’s sports. It’s not fair. It’s demeaning to women. It’s so bad, but [Democrats] have another one. And I think this is the beauty of them all, crime. They’re against crime prevention. You can’t do that.”
Democrats have struggled to find their footing since their crushing defeat in November when Mr. Trump won a return trip to the White House and Republicans won majorities in the House and Senate.
The Democratic Party has been shedding registered voters and losing support among key constituencies such as Hispanic, Black and blue-collar voters.
The president outlined scenarios this week in which he thinks several top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028 — Mr. Newsom, Mr. Pritzker and possibly Maryland Gov. Wes Moore — will end up on the wrong side of the crime issue. He said the governors should, but won’t, ask him to send in the National Guard to fight crime in Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore.
“I see Black women wearing a red MAGA hat … on television, ‘Please let the president come in. My son was attacked,’” Mr. Trump said. “You have a force of Black women … they want Trump to come in. They’re all over the place in Chicago because they’re afraid to go out and they don’t want their son or their daughter killed.”
Mr. Trump said, “It’s not politics. We want to see a safe country. You have people that want to see a safe country, and they’re great people. You have great people in Chicago.”
On Wednesday, the president went after major Democratic donors, billionaire George Soros and his son Alex, saying they should face federal charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act for supporting “violent protests.”
Media reports say the Open Society Foundations, chaired by Alex Soros, has helped fund activists protesting Mr. Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to the District.
A spokesperson for the Open Society Foundations called Mr. Trump’s allegations “outrageous and false.”
“The Open Society Foundations do not support or fund violent protests. Our mission is to advance human rights, justice and democratic principles at home and around the world,” the statement said. “We stand for fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, including the right to free speech and peaceful protest that are the hallmark of any vibrant democracy.”
The crime bill in Congress is the latest expansion of Mr. Trump’s crusade against crime.
On Monday, he signed an executive order threatening to pull federal support from the District and other jurisdictions that refuse to end their cashless bail policies. He said federal funds, services or approvals can be withheld if local leaders don’t comply.
Another executive order said federal grants and contracts for cities and states with cashless bail policies could be canceled.
Mr. Trump ordered the National Guard to prepare for rapid deployment to fight crime across the country and enlisted more federal agencies, including the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, to join his crime-fighting effort.
Those measures were designed to tackle the “crime emergency” that Mr. Trump declared Aug. 11 in the nation’s capital.
He has since said the effort could be needed in other cities.
Critics have countered that violent crime is down in the District and other cities from spikes during the pandemic emergency, but Mr. Trump accused cities of manipulating data to lower crime rates, and the Justice Department and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are investigating the District’s crime statistics.
• Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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