On Monday (Sept. 8), President Trump downplayed the seriousness of domestic disturbances, claiming that his deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., would be a bigger success if it wasn’t for inflating crime numbers, including incidents that “take place in the home” such as a man’s “little fight with the wife.”
According to the Washington Post, Trump made the insensitive comments during a speech at the Museum of the Bible, where he called domestic disturbances “much lesser” crimes that drive up city statistics and, in turn, leave him unable to claim that his D.C. takeover has driven crime down.
“They’ll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime, see? So now I can’t claim 100%. But we are … a safe city,” Trump said.
Trump claimed that altercations between partners were being overreported to the police. He also provided no evidence to support this claim.
The Post notes that if Trump’s unsupported claim were true, it would “…contradict decades of public health research showing domestic disturbances tend to be underreported.”
A White House spokeswoman told the Post that the president “wasn’t talking about or downplaying domestic violence” and was at the event to encourage Americans to pray more.
“President Trump’s Executive Order to address crime in D.C. even specifically took action against domestic violence,” said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.
“While President Trump is making America safer, the Fake News is whipping up their latest hoax in real time to distract from the Administration’s tremendous results.”
Dawn Dalton, executive director of the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence, told the Post that she doesn’t buy the White House’s explanation and added that his comments undermine the seriousness of domestic disputes.
“The frequency and harm of domestic violence is not paid enough attention to, and remarks such as the president’s underscore that reality,” Dalton said.
