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The Situation Room

Trump Deploys National Guard to D.C. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired August 11, 2025 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I met with firemen and police. And I was saying hello to many people that were standing in front of their homes with yellow tape. You can't go in. You can't go on to the lot.

And those people wanted to start rebuilding the homes then and there. And the mayor said, we should be able to get them the permits within two years. I said, that's a shame, two years. Are you kidding? I'm going to get them the federal permit like almost immediately, two years.

And she drew it back, well, maybe one year. The place was booing her out of the place. They don't have their permits to build their homes. And now they're talking about putting -- this is among the most beautiful areas, was, in the country. Now they're talking about putting low-income housing there. Can you believe this?

I love low-income housing. I made money with low-income housing. I built low-income housing. I know more about low-income housing than luxury housing. I know about everything real estate. They want to replace some of those homes with low-income housing.

They haven't gotten their permits yet. We have gotten all the federal permits, which are much tougher to get, and it was done almost immediately through Lee Zeldin and federal environmental. And I watched the other day. Those people are angry.

And now they had tremendous -- they loved that area. They loved the whole big area, different places. But they loved it. It was all luxury stuff and beautiful stuff. And some wasn't that luxury, but the level of love for that neighborhood, their neighborhoods, was incredible.

And you know what? I watch people on television there. They want to go. They want to leave. They have lost their spirit. They have lost their heart, because the mayor is incompetent. And Gavin Newscum is incompetent. Got a good line of bullshit, but that's about it. He's incompetent.

And you have -- Los Angeles is -- it's amazing. I called -- the first thing I did, I got the Olympics to go there. I was the one that got it. And by a rare thing that happened, I will be the president. I was very upset because I got the Olympics, and I said, I won't be president when it comes, but bad things happened. And illegal things happened. Really illegal things happened. Now it

turns out one good thing was I'm going to be the president for the Olympics for 2050, for 250, which is going to be fantastic, and also for the World Cup. So we have a lot of good things. And I hope 250 is going to be --threat the anniversary is going to be the best.

But when I looked at those people, and I saw last night on television that they still don't have their permits, it's a disgrace what's happened in Los Angeles.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Thank you.

The China tariff deadline is tonight. But do you plan to extend that?

TRUMP: We will see what happens. China has been -- we have been dealing very nicely with China, as you probably have heard. They have tremendous tariffs that they're paying to the United States of America. And we will see what happens.

They have been dealing quite nicely. The relationship is very good with President -- with President Xi and myself.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Mr. President, you mentioned your upcoming meeting with President Putin.

TRUMP: Yes.

QUESTION: Can tell us what you hope to get out of that and whether you would consider inviting President Zelenskyy to join you?

TRUMP: So you have to understand, there's a war that should have never happened. This is a war that wouldn't have happened if I were president. It would have never happened. It wasn't -- it was the apple of his eye. I got along very well with President Putin.

But if you look, under President Bush, they took a lot of territory. Under President Obama, they took a lot of territory. Under Biden, they essentially took the whole thing. You know, it's just a question of time. Under Trump, you know what they took? Nothing. Nothing.

I was the one that said, you can't build your pipeline that was half- built. I came in. I stopped the pipeline. It's called Nord Stream 2. Nobody knows that. Nobody ever heard of Nord Stream 2. You might have not even heard it, biggest pipeline in the world. I stopped it.

I was not a friend of Russia, but I got along well with Putin. It's always good to get along with other countries if possible. But that doesn't mean you roll over like Biden did. Biden came in and he immediately approved the pipeline. I couldn't believe it. Then they say, Trump wasn't tough on Russia.

I wasn't tough? I was the toughest. Putin said, if you're not tough, I would hate like hell to see you -- I stopped the biggest economic development job, the biggest job that Russia had ever built. I stopped it. It was dead. And this low-I.Q. president came in and he let them build the pipeline and supply oil and gas all over Europe, you know?

So this is really a feel-out meeting a little bit. And President Putin invited me to get involved. He wants to get involved. I think, I believe he wants to get it over with. Now, I have said that a few times. Then I have been disappointed, because I'd have like a great call with him and then missiles would be lobbed into Kyiv or some other place, and you would have 60 people laying on a road dying.

I said, that's cold. That's cold. But it's a violent war; 5,000 to 7,000 people a week are dying. And there's nobody from here. They're all Russian and Ukrainian people and some people from the city. It's a much smaller number, but still those missiles do damage and they kill a lot of people, but mostly soldiers.

[11:35:18]

And they're young soldiers, although, in the case of Ukraine, they're getting much older. They're drafting 60-year-olds now. It's a terrible thing to witness. And I think I have an obligation. Look, this is Joe Biden's war. This is not my war. I made a deal with NATO a month ago. You covered it very accurately, actually, where we don't pay anything anymore.

We're not paying anything. They are buying things from us, and NATO is paying us. I got it raised from 2 percent of GDP to 5 percent. And they're paying us for everything that we send. We're not paying. But Biden approved $350 billion. Europe has spent $100 billion.

The money that's been spent and the death is incredible. It's the worst thing that's happened, by far the worst that's happened since World War II. So I'm going in to speak to Vladimir Putin. And I'm going to be telling him, you got to end this war. You got to end it. And he wasn't going to mess with me. He was -- this war would have never happened.

You know, we had a discussion about it one time, and we never had that discussion again. It would have never happened. And when the election was rigged and then Biden took office, which is -- barely took office. The autopen took office. Bad things started happening. Bad things, stupid things were said, and it ended up in a war.

And the big -- and I don't believe this will happen anymore because I have that pretty well covered. This could end up in a Third World War. This could have been a Third World War. I don't think that's going to happen now.

But I thought it was very respectful that the president of Russia is coming to our country, as opposed to us going to his country or even a third-party place. But I think we will have constructive conversations. Then, after that meeting, immediately, maybe as I'm flying out, maybe as I'm leaving the room, I will be calling the European leaders, who I get along with very well. And I have a great relationship, I think, with all of them. And I get

along with Zelenskyy, but I disagree with what he's done, very, very severely disagree. This is a war that should have never happened. Wouldn't have happened. But I will be speaking to Zelenskyy. The next meeting will be with Zelenskyy and Putin or Zelenskyy and Putin and me.

I will be there if they need. But I want to have a meeting set up between the two leaders. I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy was saying, well, I have to get constitutional approval. I mean, he's got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap, because there will be some land swapping going on.

I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody, to the good, for the good of Ukraine, good stuff, not bad stuff, also some bad stuff for both. So there's good and there's bad. But it's very complex because you have lines that are very uneven. And there will be some swapping. There will be some changes in land.

And the word that they will use is, they make changes. We're going to change the lines, the battle lines. Russia has occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They have occupied some very prime territory. We're going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine. But they have taken some very prime territory. They have taken largely ocean.

In real estate, we call it oceanfront property. That's always the most valuable property. If you're on a lake, a river, or an ocean, it's always the best property. Well, Ukraine -- a lot of people don't know that Ukraine was largely 1,000 miles of ocean. That's gone, other than one small area, Odesa. It's a small area. There's just a little bit of water left.

So I'm going to go and see the parameters. Now, I may leave and say, good luck and that will be the end. I may say, this is not going to be settled. I mean, there are those that believe that Putin wanted all of Ukraine. I happen to be one of them, by the way. I think, if it weren't for me, he would not be even talking to anybody else right now.

But I'm going to meet with him. We're going to see what the parameters are. I'm then going to call up President Zelenskyy and the European leaders right after the meeting, yes. And I'm going to tell him what kind of a deal. I'm not going to make a deal. It's not up to me to make a deal. I think a deal should be made for both.

I think Russia has to get back into building their country. It's a massive country. I think they have 11 time zones, if you can believe it. It's a massive -- it's -- by far, from the standpoint of land, it's by far the largest. They have tremendous potential in Russia to do well. They're not doing well. Their economy is not doing well right now, because it's been very well disturbed by this.

[11:40:05]

It doesn't help when the president of the United States tells their largest or second largest oil buyer that we're putting a 50 percent tariff on you if you buy oil from Russia. That was a big blow.

And then they say, gee, he wasn't so tough. Nobody else would have done that. And I haven't stopped there. I mean, look, I was all set to do things far bigger than that. But I got a call that they'd like to meet. And I'm going to see what they want to meet about it. I'd like to see a cease-fire.

I'd like to see the best deal that could be made for both parties. It takes two to tango, right? So, ultimately, I will have a meeting next week. I had a great relationship with him, considering the fact that I was not nice to him because of the pipeline. I ended the pipeline.

I also gave the Javelins. Do you ever hear of a Javelin? Javelin is called a tank buster. They say that Obama gave them sheets and I gave them Javelins. If it weren't for me, all those tanks that were destroyed at the first days of the war, because the tanks got stuck in the mud -- some commander made a better -- they would have been -- they would have been in Kyiv in four hours going down the highway.

But a Russian general made a brilliant decision to go through the farmland instead. And they just had torrential rains, and the rains were so bad, and it was mud, and those tanks got stuck in the mud. I don't know who that general is, but knowing Vladimir, he's probably not around any longer, because all those tanks were stuck in the mud, and they went along with the Javelins.

I got -- I gave them the Javelins. You know that, right? I gave them Javelins. They gave them sheets. But I'm going to meet with President Putin, and we're going to see what he has in mind. And if it's a fair deal, I will reveal it to the European Union leaders and to the NATO leaders, and also to President Zelenskyy.

I think, out of respect, I will call him first, and then I will call them after. And I may say, lots of luck. Keep fighting. Or I may say, we can make a deal. I will tell you this. I have seen a poll coming out of Ukraine; 88 percent of the people would like to see a deal made.

And if you go back three years, everybody was gung-ho for war. Everybody's gung-ho for war until you have it. It's an amazing thing. I had it with a couple of countries where I couldn't get a deal done with one particular country. And I just couldn't. A guy's great. He's a friend of mine, great, good leader, tough as hell.

I couldn't get the deal done. And then he went into war for a short period of time. You know where I'm talking about, first term. And it was nasty, guys being killed all over the place. And he went through one week of war and I was able to get the deal done. He said, this is nasty.

Yes, please.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Just want to follow up on what you were saying, first of all, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not invited on Friday? TRUMP: He wasn't a part of it. I would say he could go, but he's gone

to a lot of meetings. He's been there for 3.5 years. Nothing happened.

QUESTION: And what is the definition...

TRUMP: I mean, do you want somebody that's been doing this for 3.5 years? What's the definition of a good deal? I will tell you after I hear what the deal is, because there could be many definitions.

You're talking about a very large and complex situation. Now, I was telling you, the war that I just settled with Azerbaijan and with, as you know, in Armenia, was almost as complex as this one, having to do with routes, trade.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... successful meeting on Friday with Vladimir Putin?

TRUMP: Well, we're going to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin. And at the end of that meeting, probably in the first two minutes, I will know exactly whether or not a deal can be made.

QUESTION: How will you know that?

TRUMP: Because that's what I do. I make deals.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Yes. Thank you, Mr. President.

I'm going to ask you two questions, one about China, one about Russia, if I could,. On China, your administration agreed to send the most advanced -- or advanced Nvidia and AMD chips to...

TRUMP: No, obsolete. No.

QUESTION: Obsolete chip, well, and then 15 percent of the profits.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: You mean the 20s. No, no. That's -- this is an old chip that China already has.

And I deal with Jensen, who's a great guy, and Nvidia. The chip that we're talking about, the H20, it's an old chip. China already has it in a different form, different name, but they have it. Or they have a combination of two that will make up for it and even then some.

Now, Jensen also has -- Jensen is a very brilliant guy. And Jensen also has a new chip, the Blackwell. Do you know what the Blackwell is? The Blackwell is super-duper advanced. I wouldn't make a deal with that, although it's possible I'd make a deal, a somewhat enhanced, in a negative way, Blackwell.

[11:45:06]

In other words, take 30 percent to 50 percent off of it. But that's the latest and the greatest in the world. Nobody has it. They won't have it for five years. But the H20 is obsolete. You know, it's one of those things, but it still has a market.

So I said, listen, I want 20 percent if I'm going to prove this for you, for the country, for our country, for the U.S. I don't want it myself. Every time I say like, like 747, I want, I want, yes, for the Air Force. That's all I just wanted. So when I say I want 20, I want for the country. I only care about the country. I don't care about myself.

And he said, would you make it 15? So we negotiate a little deal. So he's selling a essentially old chip, that Huawei has a similar chip, a chip that does the same thing. And I said, good, if I'm going to give it to you, because they have a -- they have a stopper, what we call a stopper, not allowed to do it, a restrictive -- it's really known as a restrictive covenant.

And I said, if I'm going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something, because I'm giving you a release. I released them only from the H20. Now, on the Blackwell, I think he's coming to see me again about that, but that will be an unenhanced version of the big one.

Like, I don't know if it. We will sometimes sell fighter jets to a country and we will give them 20 percent less than we have. You know what I mean, right? That's just it.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Do you see a time, Mr. President, when there could be normal trade between the U.S. and Russia should your meeting go well, should there be peace?

TRUMP: I do. Russia has a very valuable piece of land. If Vladimir Putin would go toward business, instead of toward war -- it's a warring nation. That's what they do. They fight a lot of wars.

A friend of mine said, Russia is tough because they just keep on fighting. They beat Hitler. So did we. And they beat Napoleon. You know, they have been doing this for a long time. I asked a question to a very, very smart man that some people like and some people don't like Viktor Orban, right, from Hungary, the head of Hungary. And he's in that same area and knows the two countries very well.

I said -- this was before Biden didn't do anything to get us out of it. He could have gotten us out of that. It would have never happened. I said, so can Russia be beaten by Ukraine? He looked at me like, what a stupid question. He said, Russia is a massive country. And they win their country and they win their life through wars. They fight wars. That's what they do.

He said, China beats you with trade. Russia beats you with war. That was a very interesting statement. China is not beating us with trade, not when I'm in charge. But they were beating Biden with trade, but they never beat us with trade. Don't forget, China had to pay $400 billion worth of tariffs when I was last time. That was last time.

And if we didn't have COVID, all of this stuff would already -- we would be loaded. We're finding hundreds of billions of dollars of cash is pouring into our country now because of tariffs. And all we're doing is, we're doing what they do to us. It's so beautiful to see it.

They find -- they found last month, as you saw, $25 billion of excess cash flow. They say, where did it come from? I said, I will tell you where it came from. It came from a place called tariffs. And we're doing very well. We're really doing well.

But I expect to have a meeting with Putin that I think it'll be good, but it might be bad. And I have -- hey, I'm here for one reason, to get rid of a war that somebody else started. Should have never happened. And if I could end it, great, complex war, a lot of bad blood, a lot of bad blood.

But Zelenskyy's been there for 3.5 years. So, if you put them in a room -- now, I will say this. Ultimately, I'm going to put the two of them in a room. I will be there or I won't be there. And I think it'll get solved.

Yes, please.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

TRUMP: Excuse me. I'm going to suggest, because unless -- could you -- do you have any other questions...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: ... on D.C.? Because I don't want them -- I don't want them to be -- wait, wait, wait. These are -- these are incredible people. I don't want them to be standing up here on subjects that -- does anybody have a question of them? And then -- and then you guys can leave.

(CROSSTALK)

[11:50:01]

OK, a question.

Brian (ph), go ahead.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. How are you?

TRUMP: And, by the way, this is only on D.C. And then they're going to leave, because it's unfair to have them stand up here all day long.

Brian.

QUESTION: I agree. I have got two questions for you, first about D.C. This is personal for me as well. Last year, I was robbed on the

streets by one of these teenage thugs, had a gun, got away with it. Let's talk about the effort that, between law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges, because it's a recycling belt. Like, these kids go, they don't fear the police. They know it.

If you talk about how we have got to get these judges and put these kids behind bars...

TRUMP: Right.

QUESTION: ... adult crimes deserve adult penalties. And my second question after you answer that, please.

JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: You want me to answer it?

QUESTION: Whoever wants to take it.

PIRRO: OK. OK. It's real -- do you want me to answer it?

TRUMP: Go ahead.

(LAUGHTER)

PIRRO: Here's the problem.

Assuming that they're 17 years -- older than 17 years old, I can get the case. If they're under 18 years of age, I can only get the case if it's murder, rob one, rape. Even if they shoot a gun, but don't kill you, I can't get it. So the law has to be changed.

As the president said, cashless bail, that has to be changed, all right? Then, even assuming I get the case, I get jurisdiction, I get a conviction, the D.C. Council has given the judges the ability to give probation on shootings. And so then it's up to them.

All of these things, the Youth Rehabilitation, Incarceration Reduction Act, and now they want to seal records. So if we work hard, we get a conviction, they want to wipe it out. So that needs all to be changed.

QUESTION: OK, Mr. President...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Pam, would you answer that also.

(CROSSTALK)

PAM BONDI, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Yes, and just back to that topic, let's be clear, though. We're going to charge them. And we're going to track every single thing they do throughout every step of the court process and report back to you and let all of you know what's happening to them, because the people who are prosecuting them, the judges who are trying them, they also need to be held accountable.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: This is the most people we have ever seen in this briefing.

TRUMP: I have never seen...

QUESTION: Ever, right?

TRUMP: I have never seen any -- where's Karoline? Where's my superstar? Karoline -- is Karoline in the back? Where's Karoline?

Come here, Karoline. Come here, Karoline.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Come here. Is she doing a good job, by the way? Come here.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Is this the largest crowd we've -- that you have ever seen?

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yes. This is definitely the most packed briefing, and I think all of you would agree. I think it's why we need to build a ballroom.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Brian, go ahead.

QUESTION: My question is this. You're building the big, beautiful ballroom.

TRUMP: Yes.

QUESTION: Could we build a big, beautiful Briefing Room...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... more seats?

TRUMP: No, I don't want to do that. I don't want you to be comfortable.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: So -- so -- no, I don't want to make life comfortable.

So, look, look, look, let's just do this. Let's do this. It's going to be a big thing. We're going to Russia. That's going to be a big deal. What happens happens. I will let you know what happens. You will be the first to know. I will be calling the European leaders. I'm going with totally -- I mean, we have a lot of talks. They're great people. They're great leaders, actually. And they want

to get back -- honestly, as one of them said, I have O.D.ed on trying to settle Ukraine. They have O.D.ed, meaning they have overdosed on the settlement of Ukraine, not a nice expression, but, boy, is it accurate. They're tired of it. They want to get back to spending money on their countries.

They're in -- we're into -- Biden gave them $350 billion. Europe gave $100 billion. It should be much more than that. It shouldn't have been that kind of -- they should have had equalization, but they didn't. But you know what? It's still a lot of money. They want to get back to building their own countries. They really want it resolved.

My relationship with the European leaders, as you saw, is extremely good. Like, it's perfect. It's beautiful. Wait.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Wait, wait, wait.

And we're going to try -- I will be in touch with them. I have five of them call me. You think it's easy. There are a lot of European leaders, but they rely on me, very much rely on me. If it wasn't for me, this thing would never get solved until the last person breathing is dead.

QUESTION: Would you talk to them before the meeting, Mr. President?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Yes, I do. I'm talking to them right now.

So I'm talking to the European leaders. I will be talking to President Zelenskyy. I'm going to get everybody's ideas. I go into that thing fully loaded right up there, and we're going to see what happens. Now, I think one of two things is going to happen. It could be a good meeting and we will go a step further, we will get it done.

[11:55:02]

I'd like to see a cease-fire very, very quickly, very quickly. I'd like to see it immediately, but I'd like to see it very quickly. And we're going to be dealing with the European leaders, and we're going to be dealing with President Zelenskyy. And hopefully we're going to have a great success.

As far as this, what we did today -- and I think you were here for D.C. more so than even Russia, because Russia will be a couple -- we have a couple of days to go. But the Russia is going to be very interesting. But, to me, what is very exciting, and we're going to take back our capital. We're going to make it beautiful again, but we're going to make it, more importantly, safe again.

It's going to be so safe. It's going to be a model. And then we will look at other cities also. But other cities are studying what we're doing. And you have some capable people in other cities. They can do it too. But we have a great group of professionals.

We're going to have a safe, beautiful capital, and it's going to happen very quickly. Thank you all. Thank you all very much.

(CROSSTALK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, so there you heard the president of the United States and his top Cabinet members addressing some very, very sensitive issues, including what's going on here in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

Once again, welcome to our special coverage here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Pamela, it was more than an hour he started this news conference, and it's been going on and on, answering a bunch of questions.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Yes, and this is significant, because what he announced today is a federal takeover of D.C. police and deploying the National Guard.

I mean, this is, as far as I know, unprecedented to hear it.

BLITZER: The National Guard and potentially other U.S. military troops down the road.

BROWN: Exactly, and he made it clear that this could just be the beginning, that it might not just be D.C. And I think that that is significant as well.

And, of course, this is an extraordinary move by the president.

I want to bring in our Brian Todd here.

Brian, we're already getting reaction from D.C. councilmembers.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are, Pamela and Wolf, this coming into CNN from Councilmember Charles Allen of the Sixth Ward in D.C.

His post is -- quote -- "The president taking over local control of MPD and putting the U.S. military onto the streets of D.C. under the guise of public safety is wrong. It's an extreme, outrageous and dangerous move for our city and the safety of all of our residents.'

He's the first city councilmember to react to this whole thing. None of them had reacted really last week to this in any real measure. This is the first time a city councilmember has reacted and come out strongly on this. We're also reaching out to Mayor Muriel Bowser's office and the office of the Metropolitan Washington Police Department for their response.

We started to reach out to them while this news conference was going on. No word back from them yet. The mayor has been fairly muted in her comments on this. She did speak out yesterday in an interview, but did not openly criticize the president for this. It's an extraordinary move. We have to point out never before in

American history has the U.S. president taken over control of the Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Police Department. How is this going to work on the streets? How is it going to work from a command-and- control standpoint?

That is a huge, huge question. And, of course, his threat to do this in other cities, we will see how that plays out. I think you have got to see how it really plays out here first.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Right. And we should also note that he talked about moving the homeless population in D.C., thousands of people, far away without offering those specifics.

TODD: Right. Yes.

BLITZER: He didn't say where they were going.

I want to bring in our senior White House reporter, Kevin Liptak.

Kevin, you have been monitoring this very, very closely. What jumps out at you?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, and I think this president's steps here to federalize the D.C. police force certainly very significant.

What we didn't hear from the president was how long that would last. The statute that he's using, the D.C. Home Rule Act, allows for initial federalization for 48 hours before notifying Congress. He said that he was doing that. So, beyond that, we don't know exactly how long it would last.

The other thing that stuck out was the president raising open the possibility that he would use active-duty troops as part of this effort, saying that they would be ready as needed to join the federal guard -- or National Guard to help support law enforcement in the city.

And you really did hear the president paint quite a dystopian picture of Washington, D.C., saying that it was overtaken by violent gangs, by bloodthirsty criminals, using this imagery that doesn't necessarily comport with a lot of people's experience in the city, but also with what the actual numbers show.

Statistics do show violent crime in Washington is falling since reaching a peak in 2023. The president's aides dispute some of those figures. You heard the president come out saying that some of those statistics might have been cooked, but, really, when you look at the numbers, what the president is painting is an image that doesn't necessarily match up with what the figures show, but also with what a lot of people's experience in the city is, and so a significant step by the president certainly today.

BLITZER: All right, Kevin Liptak at the White House for us.

Kevin, thank you very, very much.

[12:00:00]

And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us for our special coverage this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media, @wolfblitzer and @pamelabrowncnn. We'll see you back here tomorrow morning and every weekday morning, 10 am Eastern.

BROWN: Inside Politics with our friend and colleague, Dana Bash, is next right after a short break.