Trump Threatens D.C. Mayor: Fix Crime Stats Or Face ‘Total Federal Takeover’

President Donald Trump threatened early Friday morning to take “complete and total” control of Washington, D.C., if Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Metropolitan Police Department don’t address “false and highly inaccurate crime figures.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump praised the National Guard and local law enforcement for their significant presence on the capital’s streets as the administration seeks to address violent crime in D.C. Trump also said that D.C. has gone more than a week without a murder, a statistic that the Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to Fox News on Thursday.

“Washington, D.C. is SAFE AGAIN! The crowds are coming back, the spirit is high, and our D.C. National Guard and Police are doing a fantastic job. They are out in force, and are NOT PLAYING GAMES!!!” the president wrote.

Trump then called out Mayor Bowser, arguing that more work needs to be done to fix the city’s reporting of crime statistics.

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“Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City!” he said. “Washington D.C. will soon be great again!!!”

The D.C. Police Union, which represents 3,000 officers with the Metropolitan Police Department, has said that there are issues with the accuracy of the crime data reported by the police department. Mayor Bowser has highlighted the police department’s statistics, which have shown a significant decrease in violent crime in the past two years, to push back against Trump’s National Guard deployment and attempted federal takeover of the D.C. police.

“I think that there’s a possibility that crime has come down,” said D.C. Police Union President Gregg Pemberton, according to NBC News. Pemberton added, however, that it’s “preposterous” to believe that crime is down as much as police and city officials are claiming.

“What we know, what our members know, is that we go call to call to call out on the streets at night, going from robbery to carjacking to stabbing to shooting, and we just know that crime is ubiquitous, and it’s all in every quadrant of the city,” he said. “So to have people tell us, ‘well, crime is down, you shouldn’t be worried about that,’ that’s not the reality that we feel on the streets.”

Earlier this week, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into whether D.C. police officials have cooked the books on crime stats, The Washington Post reported. In May, a D.C. police commander was placed on leave over accusations that he altered crime data. The commander, Michael Pulliam, denied the allegations. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is leading the DOJ investigation and will likely look into the actions of multiple police officials.

When Trump first announced his operation to “make D.C. safe again” last week, the Justice Department and Attorney General Pam Bondi took complete control of the Metropolitan Police Department and named Drug Enforcement Administration head Terry Cole as the emergency police commissioner.

A federal judge, however, blocked the DOJ from taking complete control of the police department. The DOJ worked out a deal last Friday to leave local officials in charge of the department while Cole was put in charge of directing Mayor Bowser to provide police services as the attorney general “deems necessary and appropriate,” according to POLITICO.

Trump joined National Guard troops and federal agents on patrol Thursday evening, bringing them food and praising them for their work.

“You people are winners, and it’s such an honor to be with you,” Trump told the troops and law enforcement officers. “We’re going to make Washington, D.C., great again. We’re making the country great again.”