The D.C. "Liberation" That Isn't
Trump’s D.C. “liberation” pitch runs on fear, not facts, and the math doesn’t add up.
What Trump said
D.C. has “one of the highest rates of crime in the world,” worse than Mexico City, Bogotá, Islamabad, Addis Ababa, and “almost ten times higher than Fallujah.” Local stats are “manipulated,” the “real numbers” are five to ten times worse, “no one is arrested for shoplifting,” and the city must be “liberated” by federal control and the National Guard.
What the data says
Crime fell sharply in 2024 and into 2025.
Metropolitan Police Department year‑end data show violent crime down 35% and homicides down 32% from 2023 to 2024. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. called 2024 the lowest level of violent crime in over 30 years. Those are the official, audited figures.
D.C.’s 2024 homicide rate is about 27 per 100,000.
That is high for a U.S. city, and higher than New York or Los Angeles, but it does not make D.C. “one of the highest in the world.” It also came after a one‑year spike in 2023 and then a sharp decline in 2024. Independent fact checks note Trump is cherry‑picking the worst moment and ignoring the reversal.
The world comparisons are sloppy and selective.
Mexico City’s 2024 murder rate is roughly 10 per 100,000, Bogotá about 15 per 100,000. That makes D.C. higher than those capitals, but the “world’s worst” framing is false. It is also apples to oranges across countries with different reporting systems. Addis Ababa’s death registration is not reliable enough for clean comparisons, and there is no standard public source for Fallujah to support “ten times higher.”
“Real numbers are five to ten times worse” has no evidence.
That multiplier appears nowhere in FBI, MPD, DOJ, or reputable research. Independent fact checks call out these exaggerations directly.”
“No one is arrested for shoplifting” is false.
MPD makes retail theft arrests and publishes them. Nationally, shoplifting did rise in 2024 in many cities, but arrests exist and D.C. law allows warrantless arrests on probable cause. Saying “no one is arrested” is propaganda, not policy.
Yes, there was a commander suspended over stat changes.
That is a single, serious internal case now under investigation. The White House is using it to impeach all city data. Fact checks call out this leap from one case to “everything is fake” as a distortion.
What actually happened this week
Trump federalized D.C. policing for 30 days and deployed the National Guard, branding it “liberation.” Major outlets documented the deployment and the fact that it arrived as crime was falling, not rising. Trump is already floating ways to extend federal control beyond the 30‑day limit.
The pattern
Call a crisis. Discredit the baseline numbers. Declare yourself the only source of “real” data. Use the emergency to concentrate control. We saw the same branding move with “Liberation Day” tariffs. Now the same word is being used to sell soldiers in the streets.
Keep score like adults
If this is about safety, track it in public and over time. Here’s what to watch weekly and monthly:
Homicides, robberies, carjackings, assaults in MPD’s dashboard. The trend since 2023 matters more than a one‑day speech.
Clearance rates for violent crime. If “liberation” works, more cases should be solved, not just swept.
Arrest mix during the surge. AP reports many of the first arrests were minor violations. If the crackdown is mostly ordinance and encampment clears, it is theater.
Independent syntheses, not talking points. Council on Criminal Justice city panels for national context.
TOW
The numbers do not match the speech. 2024 violent crime went down hard, and 2025 continued that improvement before the “takeover.” The “world’s worst” rhetoric is built on shaky comparisons and an evidence‑free claim that real crime is five to ten times higher. This is not liberation. It is branding used to justify federal control.