President Trump went out to dinner in downtown Washington on Tuesday night to underscore that it’s safe for residents to eat at restaurants again amid his crime crackdown and national guard deployment.
Mr. Trump grabbed a meal at Joe’s Stone Crab on 15th Street just a block from the White House with Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“We’re standing right in the middle of D.C., which as you know about, was a very unsafe place over the last 20 years and now it’s virtually no crime,” Mr. Trump said at the restaurant. “I wouldn’t have done this three months ago, four months ago – I certainly wouldn’t have done it a year ago.”
“This was one of the most unsafe cities in the country. Now it’s as safe as it is in the country,” the president continued. “Everybody should go out.”
Mr. Trump has pledged to go out for dinner – something he did not do during his first term – after he deployed the National Guard and federalized the police in Washington.
The Trump administration said the move was necessary to crack down on crime in the city.
In the first three weeks of Mr. Trump’s takeover of policing in Washington, property crime incidents dropped by 25% from the previous three-week period, while reported violent crime incidents fell by 10%.
Data from OpenTable revealed that after Mr. Trump announced his plan to crack down on crime, seated dinners in Washington had dropped off dramatically compared to last year.
On Aug. 11, the first day of the National Guard deployment, seated dinners at Washington restaurants had dipped 16% compared to the year prior. The next day, the number fell 31%, and there was a 20% slippage on the weekend.
The White House said those numbers, while correct, are misleading because the same week last year was Washington Restaurant Week.
The decline also has reversed itself in recent weeks.
On Monday, the number of seated dinners at Washington restaurants had dropped by 2% compared to a year earlier, according to the most recently available data from OpenTable. On Saturday, the number of dinners was also down about 2%.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.