So I see we have a few reporters here. So look, guys, what we want to do here was a couple of things. First of all, we [Inaudible] come and say thank you to the National Guard folks, to the cops, for actually keeping this place safe. If you look at what's happened in Washington D.C. in just the past nine days, we've seen a 35 percent reduction in violent crime.
We've seen over a 50 percent reduction in robberies. We are seeing really substantial effects because these guys are busting their ass. So I want to come here to highlight what they're doing, say thank you in person, obviously pass out a few burgers, but most of all, just do the best for the American people.
Look, we don't have to live like this. We do not have to allow our cities to be taken over by violence and by disorder and by chaos. You can actually do stuff. You can actually bring -- you can actually bring law and order to communities. You've just got to have the political willpower to do it. And I think you hear these guys outside here screaming at us. Of course, these are a bunch of crazy protesters.
But I'll tell you, a couple of years ago when I brought my kids here, they were being screamed at by violent vagrants and it was scaring the hell out of my kids. And one of the things that we've done already in Union Station in just nine days, is we've made it a place where people can walk around safely.
They can bring their kids again. They can -- they can see this beautiful monument, the architecture, they can have a meal with their friends and their loved ones because, again, we brought some law and order back to Washington D.C. So I want to thank Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller. I want to thank all the people, the guardsmen here and the police officers who have worked very hard.
And I know that we've traded now some violent crazy people who are screaming at kids with a few crazy liberals who are screaming at the vice president, but I think that's a very worthwhile trade to make because we want our people to be able to enjoy our beautiful cities. And the last thing I'll say is to the American people, D.C. is already safer than it was nine days ago, but we're going to make it safer still to come.
This is your city. You should feel free to come and visit here, have a meal, see all these incredible monuments and actually enjoy yourself, and that's what we're trying to make happen. And I think that if we set a standard in Washington D.C., the political willpower can bring some commonsense law and order back to these communities, then maybe some other communities and other cities will follow suit.
So it's kind of crazy. You hear these guys outside. They appear to hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities, but they do. The fact that D.C. a week ago had a higher murder rate than Trinidad and Tobago, which the United States State Department has said you shouldn't visit because it's unsafe.
We ought to be able to enjoy great American cities. That's what we're trying to do in the Trump administration. We want to thank all of our law enforcement and National Guardsmen for making it possible. We have a lot of progress in nine days. We're going to make a whole lot more. I'll let Pete and Stephen Miller say something and we'll take a few questions from the reporters.
Mr. Secretary.
Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I'll just start by saying yes and amen to everything you said. The American people, the residents of D.C. deserve a safe and beautiful city. That's our mission. That's what every one of these captains, lieutenants, staff sergeant, sergeant, specialist, privates, they're here because they're patriots who serve the country and believe we deserve a beautiful safe capital.
And when I talk to all of them, Stephen, we've all had a chance to talk to you about, they're proud of this mission. They're proud to be a part of making sure their own orders established here in the capital. We're resourcing them with everything they need, working with our law enforcement partners So the National Guard, the Defense Department is proud to be standing with you and the president in ensuring we have a safe capital that is beautiful, that residents can come visit.
And we're committed to this mission just like the one of the southern border and in Los Angeles. Our law enforcement officers deserve to be able to do their job safely and American citizens -- putting American citizens and our country first is something President Trump has emphasized from the beginning. So thank you to these troops.
I know I'd always like to get cheeseburger when I was in uniform, so I hope we could deliver a few of those. It's an honor to be here with you and also, Stephen, thanks for everything you're doing.
Thank you. And first of all, thank you to the vice president for bringing us here today, and Mr. Secretary, for your leadership and most importantly, the men and women of the National Guard. Here's the most important point, there are residents that lived in Washington, D.C. their entire lives. Their parents lived here, their grandparents lived here and they have lived for generations in intolerable conditions of crime and decay.
There are parts of the city where I lived in the city 20 years ago. There are places where I see graffiti that has been untouched for two decades. There are homeless encampments that have made it impossible for families to use public parks and public recreation for as long as I've lived here. There are hundreds of residents of this city who are shot in street violence every single year, making it one of the most violent cities on planet Earth.
And for too long, 99 percent of this city has been terrorized by one percent of the city. And the voices that you hear out there, those crazy communists, they have no roots, they have no connections to the city, they have no families they are raising this city. They have no one that they are sending to school in this city.
They have no jobs in this city. They have no connections to this community at all, but they're the ones who've been advocating for the one percent, the criminals, the killers, the rapists, the drug dealers. And I'm glad they're here today because me, Pete and the vice president are all going to leave here and inspired by them, we're going to add thousands more resources to this city to get the criminals and the gang members out of here.
We're going to dismantle those networks and we're going to prove that a city can serve for the law-abiding citizens who live there. We are not going to let the communists destroy a great American city, let alone the nation's capital. And let's just also address one other thing. All these demonstrators that you've seen out here in recent days, all of these elderly White hippies, they're not part of this city and never have been.
And by the way, most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C. are Black. This is not a city that has had any safety for its Black citizens for generations and President Trump is the one who is fixing that with the support of the Metropolitan Police Department, the support of the National Guard and our federal law enforcement officers.
So we're going to ignore these stupid White hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they're all over 90 years old, and we're going to get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington D.C.
Thank you, Stephen, a few questions.
Mr. Vice President, why are troops stationed here at Union Station on the National Mall instead of areas in D.C. where crime is statistically highest?
Well, if you've ever been to Union Station in the last few years with your family, you know the crime is actually extremely high right here in Union Station. You have vagrants, you have drug addicts, you have the chronically homeless, you have the mentally ill who harass, who threaten violence, who attack families and they've done it for far too long.
This should be a monument to American greatness. This should be a place where you can come and share a meal or go shopping with your family. It should not be a place where parents of small children are afraid to bring them, because to Stephens point, we've empowered criminals over the people who actually need public safety in this city.
So I think Union Station is a great example of what's possible when you actually have the political willpower to bring law and order and common decency back to the public spaces of the United States of America. So many Americans live in cities, they occupy these spaces, they know how unsafe they are and they would love to be able to just live their life in places like Union Station without violent criminals making it impossible.
We have changed so much in nine days and I thought it important to highlight how great of a space this could be, how easy it could be to actually enjoy something like Union Station if you just had politicians who stop prioritizing violent criminals over the public citizens who deserve public safety in their own communities.
And to add to that real quick. We talked to a first responder before we came up here who said this is their number one call location, is Union Station for first responders. So it's not as if this is insignificant. In many ways, this is part of the epicenter and we go to that and return it to the safe location that it should be. It also frees up resources around the city and you've seen a majority of the arrests happen in a lot of those places that need help.
Will you extend past 30 days? Will you extend past 30 days? And do you think you have Congressional -- will Congress go along with that?
Well, look, we'll ultimately let the president of United States determine where we are after 30 days of this emergency order. I think that we're going to make a lot of progress over the next 20 days. I think that we're nine days into this thing, but if the president, United States thinks that he has to extend this order to ensure that people have access to public safety, then that's exactly what he'll do. If he thinks he doesn't have to do that, obviously he'll make that determination.
But what we're going to do is try to empower these guys to do as good of a job as possible to bring public safety and order back to Washington D.C. This is the national, cultural and political capital of the world's greatest nation. And you talk to people, Black, Brown, White, so many of them are afraid to bring their kids into its public spaces.
It's a shame. It's a blight. It actually should make every American ashamed that the world's leading superpower, our national capital, was unsafe for families to walk around at night. That is a disgrace. We don't think that it's acceptable and thank God we have the presidential leadership to change it and that's exactly what we're trying to do.
Were crime statistics, manipulated by the D.C. police?
Well, I think the crime statistics all over our country were massively underreported because a lot of people would pick up the phone, they'd call somebody, they'd try to get help and nobody would show up. If you look at wait times at 911 response times all across our country, but certainly in Washington D.C., they were way too long.
And that wasn't because the D.C. police, that was because there was too much crime and too few law enforcement agents on the street to bring order and decency to this city. You talk to these guys. I talked to three police officers earlier, I talked to the National Guard, they are so happy that they've been empowered to do their job, which is to make American streets safe for American citizens.
And I think that empowerment is going to keep on going until we make America and D.C. in particular, a safe place again.
What evidence do you have, that the DOJ has? Are you going to be releasing it?
I'm sorry?
Are you going to be releasing evidence of this?
Of what? That D.C. has a terrible crime problem? You just got to look around. Obviously, D.C. has a terrible crime problem. The Department of Justice statistics back it up, the FBI statistics back it up, just talk to a resident of this city, this beautiful, great American city. Don't they deserve Ð- I mean, we talk about human rights.
We hear these people outside screaming free D.C., let's free D.C. from lawlessness. Let's free Washington D.C. from one of the highest murder rates in the entire world. Let's free Washington, D.C. so that young families can walk around and feel safe and secure. That's what we're trying to free D.C. from.
And as Stephen said, it's kind of bizarre that we have a bunch of old, primarily White people who are out there protesting the policies that keep people safe when they've never felt danger in their entire lives.
What cities are next? Are you going to target any other -- Mr. Vice President? Thank you, Mr. Vice President. What are your thoughts on the establishment media's criticisms of President Trump's push to end the Russia, Ukraine war?
Well, let these guys jump in. I mean, look, on the Russia-Ukraine war, we'll obviously have time to talk about that. I think the president campaigned on being a President of peace. He's already ended six wars. He's trying to end another. I think it's kind of disgraceful that the American media is attacking the president for trying to bring peace to the world.
But most importantly, the president is trying to bring peace to the streets of our own cities. I really can't overemphasize this enough. It's the greatest country in the world. We've got moms and dads and young families, shouldn't they be able to enjoy public spaces without vagrants taking away basic public safety from the American citizenry?
The fact that it's taken so long to bring common decency and law and order back to Washington D.C. is an indictment of a generation of failed leadership. And I hope these guys know how grateful we are that they're doing the job that so few -- so many failed to do. They're actually keeping the city safe. We're proud of you and we're grateful to you.
Polls show that a majority of D.C. residents don't support the guard. What's your message to them?
I'm sorry?
Polls show that a majority of D.C. residents don't support the guard here. So what's your message to the majority of D.C. residents?
I'm highly skeptical that a majority of D.C. residents don't want their city to have better public safety and more reasonable safety standards within Washington D.C. I don't know what poll you're talking about, maybe the same polls that said Kamala Harris will win the popular vote by 10 points. OK. We're going to stop there.
We're going to grab a quick bite with some of the soldiers here and the National Guardsmen who are keeping this city safe. Again, I just want to say we're grateful to these guys. You guys are making D.C. safe again. We're proud of you and we're grateful to you.
Thank you.
Thank you, press.