Trump Visits Police and Troops in D.C. Amid Crackdown on Crime

President Donald Trump thanked police and troops at a Park Police Facility in Washington, D.C. as his Administration continues its effort to crack down on crime and exert control over the nation’s capital.

Around 300 officers from U.S. agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. marshals, and the National Guard, gathered outside the facility on Thursday night where Trump said he would join them to eat hamburgers cooked by the White House and pizzas “from a good place.”

“We’re going to make it safe, and we’re going to then go on to other places, but we’re going to stay here for a while. We want to make this absolutely perfect,” Trump said.

“We had a country that was laughed at a year ago,” Trump added. “They couldn’t understand what was happening. And it’s about leadership. But we had a country that was a dead country in many ways.”

Trump was accompanied by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump said he would patrol D.C. streets alongside the Metropolitan Police Department and National Guard troops.

“I’m going to be going out tonight, I think, with the police and with the military, of course. So we’re going to do a job,” Trump said in an interview with conservative talk show host Todd Starnes. “The National Guard is great. They’ve done a fantastic job.”

A White House official earlier told TIME that details of the evening were still being worked out. It wasn’t immediately clear how the Secret Service would manage the President riding around with law enforcement.

The move comes more than a week after Trump took control of the city’s police department and deployed hundreds of National Guard troops across the city to crack down on what he referred to as unacceptable levels of crime, despite statistics showing violent crime has declined in the city. The Trump Administration has claimed that crime statistics reported by the city do not accurately reflect the state of crime in the nation’s capital. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday that 630 total arrests have been made in Washington since federal officers were deployed around the city on Aug. 7. Of those, 251 were arrests of immigrants in the country illegally.

A Washington Post-Schar School poll published Wednesday found roughly 80% of D.C. residents opposed Trump’s executive order to federalize the city’s police department, and 65% do not think Trump’s actions will make the city safer.

Trump told officers outside the facility on Thursday that he plans to get D.C. “fixed up physically,” including by “regrassing” the parks in the capital.

“I know more about grass than any human being, I think, anywhere in the world,” Trump said, pointing to the Trump Organization’s ownership of several golf courses. “And we’re going to be regrassing all of your parks, all brand new sprinkler systems, the best that you can buy.”

On Wednesday, Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller met with National Guard troops on duty at Union Station, the city’s main train station, to thank them for their work. Protesters booed and shouted as the officials handed out burgers to the troops.

“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,” Miller said in response to the protesters. “And we’re going to get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington, D.C.”

—Miranda Jeyaretnam contributed reporting.