U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 26, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
President Donald Trump held his first Cabinet meeting since starting the war in Iran. He began with several of his top officials speaking. After Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth talked about how the people of the United States should be praying for him, Trump began talking about crime in Chicago and the recent shooting death of the daughter of one of his staffers' friends.
"It's a young lady who — whose life would be saved if we had — if we did what we did. As an example, in Washington D.C, which is now a safe city, all the time people come up to me in the building, people who work here, they say, 'Thank you so much.' I know immediately what they're talking about," said Trump, talking about the crime rate in the nation's capital.
According to the Council on Criminal Justice data, Washington, D.C. saw an increase in drug crimes in 2025 over 2024, despite the efforts of the federal agents. Cases of sexual assaults remained even. Homicides were down by 21 percent, and 9 percent fewer aggravated assaults, 2 percent fewer domestic violence incidents, while robberies fell by 23 percent, and carjackings (which are included in robbery) fell by 43 percent. While carjackings had been on the rise in 2020, the trend reversed in 2024 and began going down. There were 27 percent fewer motor vehicle thefts in 2025 than in 2024.
Trump's deployment of the National Guard to D.C. happened in the last five months of 2025 and is estimated to cost about $1 million per day after an initial cost of about $1.8 million per day. Trump heralded the Guard soldiers, who he said were "opening doors" for people and "picking up trash." So far, the cost has totaled about $330 million as of the start of February, WTOP said, citing data from the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Trump cheered the Guard because citizens are "able to walk to work, they walk to work. You all walk to work."
Then Trump dropped the bombshell that his Cabinet officials had been robbed.
"Some of you were mugged. I know you told me stories. Some of you were mugged. One person in particular was viciously mugged in the group right here," he pointed to the people across the table from him. "It's not happening anymore. You have a safe city."
Those sitting across the table from him in the meeting included Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner. Internet searches found no reports of any of those individuals being mugged in Washington, D.C. Vance's home in Ohio was vandalized and broken into, however, in May 2025.