President Donald Trump‘s U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, former Fox News star Jeanine Pirro, announced today on social media that last night there were 52 arrests and nine illegal guns seized in the District. Pirro gave credit to Trump for his “surge to make D.C. safe and beautiful again.”
Pirro claimed that “this surge is now in high crime areas” and mentioned that they’re also “arresting individuals for assault on federal officers.”
(Last week she charged a former DOJ employee for throwing a Subway sandwich at an officer in D.C. — an act that did not occur in a high crime area.)
Note: Based on MPD data, DC’s average number of daily adult arrests in 2024 was about 55 (total 20,386), so 52 in one night is roughly commensurate with the daily average.
Last night in DC: 52 arrests. 9 illegal guns seized.
Thanks to President Trump’s law enforcement surge, criminals are on notice. The mission is simple—make DC safe again, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. pic.twitter.com/W2sxK9FYNJ— Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) August 19, 2025
Also in D.C. today, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller met with some of the 800 National Guard troops deployed in the nation’s capital at a Shake Shack in Union Station. (Not generally considered a high crime area.)
While Vance told troops at Shake Shack that they’re “making a lot of progress” in D.C., according to NBC4 via police data, “Before the surge, about 39% of all arrests in D.C. occurred in Ward 7 and 8. Since the surge, the percentage is still 39%.” (Wards 7 and 8 are high crime areas.)
As seen and heard below, at Union Station, a reporter asked Vance, “Why are troops stationed here at Union Station and at the National Mall instead of areas where crime is statistically higher?”
REPORTER: Why are troops stationed here at Union Station and at the National Mall instead of areas where crime is higher?
JD VANCE: Crime is actually extremely high here at Union Station. You have vagrants. pic.twitter.com/hAOVY6RtlG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 20, 2025
With protestors yelling outside of the Shake Shack (heard in the background), Vance claimed: “Crime is actually extremely high right here at Union Station. You have vagrants, you have drug addicts, you have the chronically homeless, you have the mentally ill, who harass and threaten violence, who attack families, and they’ve done it for far too long.”
He referred to the people protesting outside of the restaurant as “crazy” and “communists.”
Vance added about the protestors: “It is kind of bizarre we have a bunch of old, primarily White people who are out there protesting the policies that keep people safe when they have never felt danger in their entire lives.”
Below is video of the protestors at Union Square.
DC police are clearing the public hallway below Vance and Hegseth’s event at Union Station
The noise was clearly audible upstairs pic.twitter.com/K71CJS3bho
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) August 20, 2025
Stephen Miller slammed the protestors, whom he degraded as “elderly” and “90 years old” by saying: “The voices that you hear out there, these crazy communists, they have no connection to the city. They have no families. They weren’t raised in this city. They have no one that they’re sending to school in this city. They have no jobs in this city. They have no connections to this community at all.”
(Miller’s dismissive contention that only elderly protestors showed up at the site is contradicted by numerous videos circulating on social media.)
Note: Vance added that he believed that crime statistics do not report the full scope of crime on the streets of the nation’s capital. When asked if he would provide evidence of Washington’s crime problem, the Vice President said, “You just have to look around – obviously D.C. has a terrible crime problem.”