President Donald Trump on Friday revealed one key measure he wants Republicans to include in an upcoming crime bill.
Trump said in response to a question from The Daily Signal that the crime bill must end cashless bail.
“When that came out … originally, when that came out the first time, that’s when you saw the real big crime start to happen. Cashless bail. What a disaster that is,” he said. “You murder somebody, you don’t have to put up bail, and you go out in the street, and you murder somebody else.”
In a post on Truth Social last week, Trump said he was working with congressional Republicans on comprehensive new legislation to combat crime.
“[House] Speaker Mike Johnson and [Senate Majority] Leader John Thune are working with me and other Republicans on a Comprehensive Crime Bill. It’s what our Country needs, and NOW! More to follow,” Trump wrote.
Over the summer congressional recess, DOJ officials spoke with a small group of Republican staffers about assembling a crime package, Politico reported.
Due to the Trump administration’s crime crackdown in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., has gone from “one of the most dangerous cities in our country to what they call a safe city,” Trump said.
Trump told The Daily Signal he is going to dinner in Washington, D.C., this week as a result of the reduction in crime.
“I wouldn’t have done that,” he said. “To be honest, I would’ve had an obligation not to do it before I came into office, or even at the very beginning when things were so corrupt and so dangerous out on the streets.”
In response to a question from The Daily Signal, the president criticized D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb for suing him for deploying the National Guard to Washington.
“But how about this: We just set a record on low crime in Washington, D.C., and we have a man suing us to let us go back to high crime,” Trump said.
Trump’s 30-day federalization of the D.C. police is set to end Sept. 10. He said he will need more time to make his changes to the city last.
“We’re going to have to be here for a little while to make this really work long term after we’re gone,” he said to The Daily Signal. “And so we’re going to meet that head on, and I suspect we’ll be very successful.
He said he can “always declare a national emergency” if Congress won’t act to extend his control over the police “because this was a national emergency.”
“But, right now, we have the safest city,” he said. “We have, now, one of the safe cities in the country. We had almost the worst, I mean, a city that was as bad as some of the horror shows that you’ve heard about for years.”