With her job as Washington, D.C.’s top prosecutor potentially on the line, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is coming to Donald Trump’s defense as he threatens lawsuits and demands retractions over reports that his surge of federalized troops into the nation’s capital has done little to combat crime. In a video posted to X, Pirro claimed that “the results have been undeniable” before a string of news clips of pundits and journalists noting plunging rates of violent crime and property crimes.
That column — “Trump wastes billions deploying National Guard troops to DC” — is at the center of the president’s latest defamation claims. Trump’s legal team has demanded that progressive think tank the Center for American Progress retract a report analyzing the administration’s National Guard deployments, which reportedly had no measurable impact on violent crime rates — or face a $5 billion lawsuit. Pirro then included newsreel footage of D.C. residents praising Trump’s deployments before cutting back to her ripping the USA Today op-ed in half.
Roughly one year ago, Trump began deploying thousands of National Guard troops to D.C. to curb violent crime and support immigration enforcement, part of a nationwide strategy that surged federal officers into Democratic-led cities in a show of force for his mass deportation efforts. Thousands of heavily armored and camouflage-clad troops have patrolled monuments, parks, subway stations and tourist-heavy streets of D.C. — an effort that the Trump administration told Congress has cost roughly $1.65 million a day. The city’s most recent local police budget totaled roughly $1.5 million daily.
But that surge of uniformed troops accounted for only a fraction — less than 2 percent — of criminal cases filed in D.C., according to a recent analysis from . The president also lashed out at the Center for American Progress and one of its employees who appeared on C-SPAN to discuss the organization’s July analysis that determined that the president’s decision to send federalized troops into American cities was largely ineffective — and at a cost of roughly $1.7 billion. The group’s lengthy report determined that, while Trump tries to take credit for plunging violent crime rates across the country, the trend started well before he entered office, and he is using those historic declines “to justify expanding policies that are unpopular, ineffective, and costly.” On average, the 11 cities where Trump deployed or threatened to deploy the National Guard saw a 14 percent decrease in violent crime and a 22 percent decrease in their murder rates from June 2024 to June 2025 — before the National Guard was first deployed to Los Angeles, according to the report.
Center for American Progress CEO Neera Tanden defended the analysis in a statement on Friday, stating that the group’s work “is grounded in rigorous, evidence-based research and analysis” and has studied the impacts of government policies in both Democratic and Republican administrations. A lawsuit is a transparent attempt to silence us. We will neither cower nor bend in the face of it.” Pirro’s latest video also follows Trump’s public demands that she prosecute a 67-year-old former Olympian who was accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Trump continues to insist that vandals damaged the pool while urging Pirro to “revisit her hastily made decision,” though he has also admitted that “some contractor error” played a role in the damage. In court filings this week, Pirro’s office indicated she isn’t ready to close the case. David Hearn asked a judge to dismiss the case with prejudice, which would prevent prosecutors from reviving felony charges against him for the same alleged crime.
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