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Donald Trump’s ability to spew offensive rhetoric within his rambling speeches seems to reach new highs daily.
The president’s latest soundbite came during a half-hour speech at the Museum of the Bible on Monday. Instead of discussing all things godly, he began to defend his views on D.C. crime and his efforts to address it by deploying the National Guard throughout the city.
While doing so, he accused city officials of inflating crime numbers and including domestic fights in the statistics, which toys with the numbers so he can’t claim victory over making “one of the most violent” cities safer.
It got offensive when he downplayed domestic disputes in the home, questioning whether those crimes should really be reported because it messes with his spotless crime rate.
“There’s no crime. They said crime’s down 87%,” Trump said. “They said, ‘No, no, no, it’s more than 87%. Virtually nothing.’ And much lesser things — things that take place in the home, they call ‘crime.'”
“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’s suggestion that domestic abuse reports are over-reported would be the direct opposite of decades of reports that say the events are actually under-reported.
The president’s downplaying of assault immediately drew criticism, and a White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, tried to spin the story and clean up his mess, saying, “He wasn’t talking about or downplaying domestic violence.”
“President Trump’s Executive Order to address crime in D.C. even specifically took action against domestic violence,” Jackson continued. “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.”
It’s officially been a month since Trump sent troops to D.C., and CNN reports that public data released by the Metropolitan Police Department reveals that violent crime and property crime are down, but tourism has dropped as well, making it hard on restaurants and cultural institutions like museums.
See social media’s reaction to his comments below.
