Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Trump Suggests DC Dem Mayor’s Job Could Be On Chopping Block If She Doesn’t ‘Get Her Act Straight’

[Screenshot/Fox News]

President Donald Trump floated the idea on Friday of replacing Democratic Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser if she does not “get her act straight” on crime in her city.

Trump said that his federal takeover of Washington has led to the “lowest crime numbers” in years, including no murders. He threatened to impose a “full federal takeover” of the nation’s capital and relieve Bowser of her duties if she does not begin effectively combating crime.

“And Mayor Bowser better get her act straight or she won’t be mayor [for] very long because we’ll take it over with the federal government and run it like it’s supposed to be run,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “The numbers were horrible, [Washington] was a crime infested rat hole, and they do have a lot of rats, we’re getting rid of them too. And we’ve made a lot of progress and it was extremely unsafe and now it’s extremely safe.”

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The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the National Guard have arrested 719 people and seized 91 illegal firearms since the federal takeover began on Aug. 11, U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro said on Friday. Law enforcement has also arrested several illegal immigrants with criminal convictions, including an MS-13 gang member.

Nearly half of the crime-related arrests in Washington have taken place in Wards 7 and 8, which accounted for almost 60% of the district’s homicides in 2024. The nation’s capital had the fourth-highest murder rate in the U.S. in 2024, higher than New York City and Chicago, according to the Rochester Institute of Technology.

The Washington Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum on Tuesday that officers with the MPD were told to not report certain crimes in order to manipulate the city’s crime statistics. The department quietly settled a lawsuit with former Sergeant Charlotte Djossou, who alleged in a 2020 lawsuit that the MPD intentionally downgraded felonies such as theft and assault with a deadly weapon, to misdemeanors in order to exclude them from the crime data.

The MPD claims that violent crime decreased by 26% since 2024, though it excludes aggravated and felony assault from its statistics. The FBI, which includes those crimes in its data, shows that violent crime dropped by 10% since 2024.

Bowser has lamented Trump’s federal takeover and has called for statehood in the district during an Aug. 11 press conference.