There's a few polls that just came out by YouGov, so we'll go over those.
And this was the question.
How big of a problem, if any, do you think crime is in major U.S. cities?
67% said it was a major problem.
And 23% said minor, 3% not at all.
If you break that down by politics, you'll see here that the major problem for Democrats goes down by 53%, still a majority, but less.
Republicans, 90% said it was a major problem, independents at 63%.
Then a minor problem or not a problem was 35%.
For Democrats, 5% for not a problem.
Republicans, only 7% said it was a minor problem, and only 1% of Republicans said it was not a problem.
Independents, those numbers are 26 and 4%.
They also took a poll asking about D.C. specifically.
And the question is, do you approve or disapprove of putting Washington, D.C. police under federal control and deploying National Guard troops to the city?
This was just taken after the announcement on Monday.
21% strongly approve.
38% strongly disapprove.
And again, we'll look at that broken out by politics.
Only 2% of Democrats strongly approve of that move.
68% of Democrats strongly disapprove.
On the Republican side, 52% strongly approve.
And 5% strongly disapprove.
Well, yesterday, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was talking about actions that newly deployed law enforcement officers took on Monday night in D.C. Here she is.
On another matter, yesterday, President Trump took bold action to finally restore law and order right here in our nation's capital.
The president declared a crime emergency in the District of Columbia, federalized the D.C. Police Department, and mobilized the D.C. National Guard to end violent crime in our nation's capital.
As part of the president's massive law enforcement surge, last night, approximately 850 officers and agents were surged across the city.
They made a total of 23 arrests, including multiple other contacts.
Last night, these arrests consisted of homicide, firearms offenses, possession with intent to distribute narcotics, fare evasion, lewd acts, stalking, possession of a high-capacity magazine, fleeing to elude in a vehicle, no permits, driving under the influence, reckless driving, and a bench warrant.
A total of six illegal handguns were seized off of District of Columbia streets as part of last night's effort.
This is only the beginning.
Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the district who breaks the law, undermines public safety, and endangers law-abiding Americans.
President Trump will not be deterred by soft-on-crime Democrats and media activists who refuse to acknowledge this rampant violence on our streets.
He is going to make our nation's capital the most beautiful and safe city on earth, just as he promised on the campaign trail.
Eugene, what is the mayor of Boston saying about how she's been able to do that?
What are the lessons learned from Boston?
unidentified
Okay, but why don't you have her on C-SPAN to tell the American people that?
I'll tell you what she did.
She didn't put troops in the street.
She didn't put National Guards in the street.
What she did is that she showed people how much she cares.
When she first took over as mayor, crime was out of control.
But what she did is that every time it was a crime involving a young person, she was there.
She showed up.
She gave young people more safe space, safe spaces.
In the city of Boston, if you're in school, you can go to the science museum, to the art museum.
You can go to places like that anytime for free.
Also, what she did is that through the inner city, through areas that were a little problematic, she made all the buses free so that people working those dead-end, low-weight, minimum-wage jobs that are struggling to get to work in the morning, they don't have to worry about paying a fare.
You know, and what she's done is really just been miraculous.
And they've got Bob, not Bob Kraft, but his son, Josh Kraft, running against her to, I think, get the murder rate back up.
Conservative pundit and social media personality Benny Johnson used an appearance in the White House press briefing room's new media seat to rail against crime in Washington, D.C. and suggest a Department of Government Efficiency Doge staffer who was recently assaulted in the district be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Take a look at the exchange with Benny Johnson and Caroline Levitt in the press room.
As a D.C. resident of 15 years, I lived on Capitol Hill.
I witnessed so many muggings and so much theft.
I lost track.
I was carjacked.
I have murders on my ring camera and mass shootings.
I witnessed a woman on my block get held up at gunpoint for $20.
And my house was set ablaze in an arson with my infant child inside.
And so to any reporter that says and lies that D.C. is a safe place to live and work, let me just say this.
Thank you.
Thank you for making the city safe because a parent should have to go through what my family went through having the fire department rip open their door to save their infant child.
And so thank you for your work on securing this city.
My question to you is this.
Nancy Pelosi has attacked the president for deploying the National Guard to the city, saying that it is to cover for his incompetence.
Hillary Clinton has also attacked the president for securing the city of Washington, D.C. I'd like to get your response to Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
Well, first of all, Benny, I'm so sorry that happened to you and your family.
There have been, unfortunately, far too many victims of crime in this city, and I know the majority of residents in the District of Columbia agree with you.
In fact, a new poll from the Washington Post I was reading this morning, this was released in May of 2024.
So it's quite funny how many of you in the media agreed with what the president was saying yesterday.
But now once the president says it, many of you are disagreeing with him.
But this poll released by the Washington Post found that 65% of district residents think crime is an extremely serious or a very serious problem.
And this was up from 56% last year.
So the concern that you share with so many other residents in the District of Columbia is real.
And that's why this president is taking action to address it.
To get to the heart of your question, I think it's despicable that Democrats cannot agree that we need more law and order in a city that has been ravaged by violence, crime, murders, property theft.
This should be a winning issue for all Americans.
I don't understand.
It's just anything President Trump does the Democrats want to disagree with.
I think the president would love to work with Democrats on this issue to bring law and order to America's cities, but unfortunately they have failed.
And that's why he's taken this historic action to federalize the National Guard.
And as you're seeing from last night's numbers, we already have seen success.
We are removing violent offenders.
We are arresting criminals.
And we are removing drugs and firearms off of the streets of the city to make it safer for all of its residents.
If they're so concerned about crime in D.C., why don't they march over to the White House and arrest the number one criminal that has more felons than anybody they're picking up out the streets today?
Yeah, I don't know why people don't want to talk about the elephant in the room.
All of these cities that are run by black mayors and black chiefs of police, whether they're women or men, whether it's Memphis or LA or Chicago, it's all black people committing these heinous crimes against innocent white people.
What I'm focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the additional officer support that we have.
We have the best in the business and MPD and Chief Pamela Smith to lead that effort and to make sure that the men and women who are coming from federal law enforcement are being well used and that if there's National Guard here, that they're being well used and all in an effort to drive down crime.
So how we got here or what we think about the circumstances right now, we have more police and we want to make sure we're using them.
unidentified
Are you concerned at all that some of the police that are out there are FBI agents who are assigned to offices who are now patrolling the streets at night?
I've been living in the DMV area, which is D.C., Maryland, all my life.
And even though crime has gone down in D.C., it's still really, really bad.
And I don't understand why people are so upset that we're getting more police presents for 30 days.
I mean, literally a couple years ago, like two years ago, an Uber driver was dragged to his death by two teenage girls trying to carjack him.
Last summer, a gentleman sitting outside of a new Apple store was shot to death waiting for his wife in a carjacking.
So crime is really bad in certain areas of D.C.
And those families that live in low-income areas, you know, they have bullets flying through their windows at night right above their heads where their children are sleeping.
So, Stacey, what here in D.C. Regarding those social programs that you talked about?
Who's going to pay for that?
Do you think that the federal government should be allowing more funding to go into D.C.?
unidentified
Oh, absolutely.
And I mean, and taxpayers need to do it.
I mean, you got to do what we got to do to protect our family.
And that's the American citizens.
So if I have to pay higher taxes to keep these kids off the streets so they're not like little victims of the gangs and being plucked off by the drugs and all that, then so be it.
So I grew up in the Washington area myself, then moved away to Chicago and returned to D.C. about five years ago.
And for a short time, I rented an apartment on U Street, which is a very heavily trafficked area with restaurants and bars and retail.
And it is a complete mess.
It looks like a dystopian, post-apocalyptic scene.
You have noise, loud, loud music playing until 2 in the morning.
You have a lot of open-air drug transactions going on.
You have police that park their cars along U Street, and they have their, they're flashing their sirens.
They don't have their sirens on, but they have the lights on.
They don't do anything.
They just stand there and sort of observe, which actually makes it feel even more menacing.
And I had to move into a different part of the city to get away from that.
Also, the area around the convention center feels very menacing and dangerous.
I don't think crime is under control in D.C.
It may be true that homicides are down and violent crimes are down, but there are a lot of different other, there are other crimes going on, drug crimes, other types of vandalism going on, cars being, you know, their windows being smashed and their tires being slashed when they're just sitting there parked on the streets.
So I do think there's a lot of work to be done.
I think the mayor has ignored the problem.
I think the police chief has ignored the problem.
And as an independent voter, I don't appreciate Democrats telling me that I don't see what's going on, that the statistics show that violent crime is down.
But as a resident, I still feel very menaced walking around D.C. Thank you very much.
And Adam, before you go, what have you seen so far?
Have you seen any federal agents?
Have you seen the National Guard?
What have you seen on the streets so far?
unidentified
So in the neighborhood that I'm living in, which is around Logan Circle, I haven't seen a large presence.
You do when you walk around.
You'll see the trucks.
You'll see the Army trucks.
You'll see some people patrolling.
I'm not sure what parts of the city they're focusing on, but they don't seem to be focusing on the part of Northwest Washington where I live, at least not right now.
Well, they may be able to move this quickly through the House, but in the Senate, we have guardrails with respect to getting over the filibuster and cloture.
Look, I think that this is an example that everybody should be following closely around the country.
You know, Republican members of Congress, they're all rah-rah when the president wants to do this to the people of the District of Columbia.
But the precedent that he is setting is one that really is a dress rehearsal potentially for other places.
In fact, he himself, you know, mentioned a couple other cities around the country.
So this is part of the very dangerous slide towards authoritarianism.
Listen, you asked about a permanent solution to these issues, right?
I would not disagree with what the other callers will say.
I just want to compliment their conclusions.
If you leave this at the nucleus of the family and you give those families the resources, whether they be programs, extracurricular activities for the kids, or just general education for parents that might not have the resources or the tools to be effective parents, you can end up, because I do agree with one of the callers who said that the juvenile issue was a situation.
You can make society a little more improved if you give parents the ability to be better parents.
That's just one issue.
But as far as using federal law enforcement to intimidate people into better behavior, I think it's a slippery slope because this is happening in a predominantly black city.
So imagine when an independent socialist becomes president and then they decide, you know, I think the real crime in America comes from white racist men with poor ideology.
Let's get into these predominantly white municipalities and bring federal law enforcement into the mix.
A combination, you know, of the appropriate things will ultimately help the situation in a more effective way.
And here's Dion in Chesterfield, Virginia, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yes, good morning, Mimi.
Okay, so first of all, I do agree with that last guy.
I am a little bothered by the guy that called earlier that was saying it's just black people beating up white people.
Obviously, that's not like an all-the-time case.
I do feel like it is, and like that one lady said, a lot of like low-income areas.
But I guess what bothers me the most is you really have a lot of people calling up here who don't even live in those type of areas or never really frequent those type of areas that call up here and give their opinion, especially that it's like all these black cities.
And it just bothers me, especially because you just get like a lot of white people, in my opinion, giving them an excuse to like be racist and say like racist things, like that man said about it's just black people beating up white people when that's not the case all of the time.
So I just wanted to say that.
And as far as like the resources with the kids, I do agree with that.
I just feel like, because I think somebody was saying that yesterday about like the lack of resources and things like that.
I feel like with these kids, like there's nothing for them to do, especially like these teenagers.
And then like they're probably working all the time because life is expensive.
So they're gone all the time at work trying to make ends meet.
And so just like leaves these children like with a lot of idle time.
And a lot of times, in my opinion, that's also how they wind up getting in with the wrong crowd, hanging out, like hanging around the wrong type of people, and then doing the wrong thing.
So I just wanted to give my opinion on that just because, you know, this topic is just really, really bothers me.