ABC Anchor Admits Truth As Trump’s DC Crackdown Yields Big Results
President Donald Trump’s federalization of Washington, D.C.—which was initially met with mixed reactions—has yielded massive results on an issue that has long been hidden in plain view. Kyra Phillips, the anchor for ABC News, revealed on-air that she was “jumped” just two blocks from her Washington, D.C. studio, “during the past two years.”
Advertisement
Violent crime in the nation’s capital has reportedly dropped since 2023, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). Still, Phillips pointed out that multiple alleged incidents have taken place near ABC News’ Washington, D.C., bureau—including two network employees who were reportedly among the victims.
“We’ve been talking so much about the numbers and yeah, usually that’s how you play devil’s advocate, is you talk about, ‘Oh, well stats say crime is down.’ However, I can tell you firsthand here in downtown D.C. where we work right here around our bureau just in the past six months, you know, there were two people shot,” Phillips said. “One person died literally two blocks down here from the bureau.”
“It was within the last two years that I actually was jumped walking just two blocks down from here. And then just this morning one of my coworkers said her car was stolen a block away from the bureau,” she continued.
“So we can talk about the numbers going down, but crime is happening every single day because we’re all experiencing it firsthand while working and living down here,” Phillips continued.
While violent crime in Washington, D.C., is reportedly down 26% compared to 2024, the MPD’s crime tracker shows there have still been 99 homicides in the city so far in 2025.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, D.C. Police Commander Michael Pulliam is under investigation over allegations that he manipulated crime statistics, NBC4 Washington reported in July. The department suspended him, but Pulliam has denied any wrongdoing.
Federal agencies have embedded with local police, assisting in arrests, searches, and warrant executions while patrolling the city in unmarked vehicles, CNN noted further.
Advertisement
At the same time, immigration enforcement surged. Federal officials have arrested about 300 individuals in the district without legal immigration status — more than ten times the typical weekly number of ICE arrests in the city.
Officials told CNN that ICE agents have been accompanying MPD officers and intervening when individuals stopped or questioned are found to be in the country unlawfully.
In response to CNN’s findings, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson stated that the media was attempting to dismiss the “exceptional results” of Trump’s efforts in Washington, D.C.
“The drops in crime are not ‘moderate,’ they are life-changing for the countless of DC residents and visitors who have not been murdered, robbed, carjacked, or victims of overall violent crime in the last week,” Jackson said. “The priority of this operation remains getting violent criminals off the streets — regardless of immigration status.”
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser has imposed a four-night citywide curfew for residents under the age of 18, effective immediately, in response to a surge of youth-related violence and disorder that has gripped the nation’s capital recently.
National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., are now preparing for winter as leadership signals that their deployment could extend well into summer 2026.
According to emails filed in a new court document, Trump’s interim commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, General Leland Blanchard, instructed officers to “plan and prepare for a long-term persistent presence.”
In a message sent on September 17, 2025, to generals from other states, Blanchard said he had directed Guard units currently stationed in the District to “work quickly toward ‘wintering’ our formation,” indicating an extended mission in the nation’s capital.
While the current deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., is authorized through November 30, 2025, General Blanchard noted in his email that their presence could extend through “America 250,” the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration scheduled for the summer of 2026.
Although National Guard personnel are not permitted to make arrests directly, the Trump administration has credited their presence with contributing to a sharp drop in crime and a surge in law enforcement activity across the city.
Since the operation began on August 11, more than 2,000 arrests have been recorded — roughly 1,500 by the Metropolitan Police Department and the remainder by federal partners, including agents from ICE, CBP, the FBI, DEA, and ATF.
Trump ‘Briefed With Options’ Amid Stalled Iran Talks
The Trump administration on Wednesday continued to express optimism about negotiations with Iran, even as Iranian officials insist that no direct talks have taken place, according to reports.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister said no face-to-face meeting had occurred in Doha and that no direct negotiations with the United States were currently planned.
Despite Tehran’s position, President Donald Trump described the discussions as “very good,” apparently referring to indirect contacts involving U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner communicating through third-party intermediaries.
Vice President JD Vance struck a firmer tone the same day, warning that the United States could escalate its response if Iran refuses to cooperate or takes actions that further destabilize the Middle East.
His remarks underscored the administration’s message that while it remains open to a diplomatic resolution, additional measures remain on the table if negotiations fail.
“If Iran attempts to rebuild its nuclear program, threaten its neighbors and support terrorism, President Trump has options to deal with it,” Vance noted, without elaborating.
Earlier, a Wall Street Journal report claimed that Trump had been briefed on several military options, including “all-out war,” but Trump said he wanted to give diplomacy more time.
Vance additionally stated that the US “dropped bombs on Iran because it fired on ships, and we used leverage to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”
He went on to suggest that the U.S. could take that course of action again.
Vance also said the current talks are “to discuss the details and flow of maritime traffic.”
The vice president, addressing U.S. military personnel at a naval base in Virginia on Wednesday, also said that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back decades.
“If you look at what our own intelligence says about their nuclear program, they are further away from developing a nuclear bomb than they have ever been since basically the last 20 or 30 years,” Vance said, though he stopped short of Trump’s claim that the program had been “totally obliterated.”
“What the president asks you to accomplish is to destroy the defense industrial base of that country, so that if they ever decided to rebuild their military, or if they ever decided to rebuild that nuclear program, they would be harmless to do it. You did that exactly as well,” Vance added, per the Times of Israel.
The VP went on to say that Trump is now “negotiating from a position of strength because of you.”
“If the Iranians try to rebuild the nuclear program, the President’s got options. If the Iranians try to threaten their neighbors or fund terrorism, we’ve got options,” Vance continued.
“But what we must never do is drop bombs just for the sake of dropping bombs. And that is what the president will never ask you to do,” Vance added.
“He’ll ask you to go to war, yes. But when he asks you to go to war, he’ll tell you exactly what you’re going for,” the veep noted further.
“And I think that is what you should expect out of your political leadership.”
“What I noticed about the people who are attacking the administration for negotiating is that they are the very same people who, for example, encouraged us to just go a little bit further and just drop a few more bombs in places like Afghanistan,” he said.
“If you go back to the mistakes that were made, those very same people refused to say what we were dropping bombs for,” he added.
“We dropped some bombs a couple of days ago… Because the Iranians were shooting at commercial ships… We applied some leverage, and we’ve had free commercial transit for the last three days,” Vance told the naval personnel.
