The White House on Friday attributed recent violent crime trends in U.S. cities to policies adopted by Democratic city leaders, saying the issues are present in cities regardless of the partisan control of their states as the administration intensifies talk of federal intervention.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that many of the nation’s highest-crime cities are run by Democrats and pointed to policies such as cashless bail and sanctuary resolutions as contributing factors. "If you look at the list of the top 20 high-crime cities in the United States, every single one — with the exception of one in Louisiana — is run by a Democrat," she said during a briefing, adding that those jurisdictions had supported "these disastrous policies which allow repeated career criminals back onto the streets."
Leavitt was responding to a question about whether the administration would work with Republican governors as well as Democratic leaders to address local crime surges. She cited examples of Democratic-run cities in Republican-led states, including Jackson, Mississippi, and Birmingham, Alabama, saying those cities had adopted policies she described as permissive. She noted that Jackson in 2019 eliminated cash bail for virtually all misdemeanor cases and said Birmingham’s city council unanimously passed a resolution in 2017 committing to sanctuary policies.
The White House has repeatedly highlighted its August federalization of Washington, D.C., police under Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act and has pointed to the results of that operation as a model it says reduced violence. The administration credited the D.C. operation with a decline in homicides and more than 2,000 arrests and said the effort demonstrated a cooperative approach with local leaders.
President Donald Trump has also publicly threatened to send National Guard forces to cities with high crime levels, including Chicago and Baltimore. Local officials in those jurisdictions have criticized such proposals. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker have said federal deployments would be unnecessary and described the measures as authoritarian.
Administration officials said the president is willing to work with any city or state that wants federal help to alter what the White House described as "horrible policies" and restore "law and order." Leavitt said the administration’s focus was on ending policies it views as enabling repeat violent offenders and that the challenge is present in "blue cities" even when they are located in states governed by Republicans.
Crime rates and policy responses have been a point of national debate since a rise in violent crime in 2020 that followed large protests and calls to reduce police budgets in many jurisdictions. Advocates for criminal justice reform argue changes such as limits on cash bail and reductions in pretrial detention aim to address inequities in the justice system, while critics say some reforms have hampered public safety and contributed to higher recidivism.
Local leaders have offered differing views on the need for federal assistance. Some city officials have welcomed resources and cooperation from federal partners, while others have resisted federal deployments, citing concerns about civil liberties and the effectiveness of militarized responses to urban crime.
The White House briefings and the president’s public statements make clear the administration intends to press the argument that policy choices at the city level are central to recent crime patterns and that federal action may be warranted in jurisdictions where local leaders do not change course. How many local and state officials will accept federal assistance, and what form that assistance would take beyond the D.C. operation, remained unclear as officials across the political spectrum continued to debate the balance between local control and federal intervention.