D.C. Families Call BS on Trump’s Biggest Claim About National Guard

The National Guard presence in Washington hasn’t put a dent in violent crime in the nation’s capital.

At least, that’s the reality for the families of local murder victims, who claim that the Trump administration is ignoring their plight in order to push a narrative that crime has been practically eradicated from Washington, D.C.

There were at least 128 murders in the nation’s capital over the course of 2025, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department.

One of those murders involved 17-year-old Tristan Johnson, who was shot and killed in November over what his family believed was the attempted theft of his favorite jacket. Just two weeks later, Donald Trump completely bypassed Johnson’s death to tell the nation that the city hadn’t “had a murder in six months.”

The boy’s mother, Juanita Sampler, told The New York Times that bold-faced lies about crime in the city were “heartbreaking.”

“For the president to say there’s no murders? That’s heartbreaking, that’s devastating to me,” she told the newspaper. “That’s my son. He is someone. He is somebody. His name was Tristan Johnson.”

Washington was a critical component of Trump’s agenda when he returned to office in January. Alongside other Democrat-led cities such as Los Angeles and Seattle, Trump used Washington to push a baseless claim that America’s cities have been consumed by violence—violence that could only be settled by the federalization of the target areas’ law enforcement.

That resulted in the deployment of thousands of National Guard members to different cities across the country, whom the administration used to assist ICE agents and safeguard its immigration agenda. So far, that has involved tearing parents from their children and deporting people, without trial, to a Salvadoran prison well known for its systemic torture practices and inmate deaths.

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Associated Press in November that Trump’s strategy had transformed Washington “from a crime-ridden mess into a beautiful, clean, safe city.” In a statement to the Times for Monday’s story, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that the president had “done more than any elected official in recent history to address violent crime in cities around the country.”

Homicides rates in Washington have gone down, but it doesn’t seem that the National Guard has had anything to do with it. Washington now experiences roughly seven killings per month, as opposed to 2024 when it had 12 murders per month on average. But those rates were already on the decline before Trump ordered troops to occupy the capital in September.

The material truth of Washington’s crime figures have not been flattering for Trump’s attempted rebrand. Instead, he’s claimed that crime has fallen to “virtually nothing” and that the city has “no crime”—unfounded assertions that have left real victims feeling utterly forgotten.

“I want the world to know about my son,” Carlena Durbin, the mother of shooting victim Jermaine Durbin, told the Times. “He had a family. He was loved. I want his story out so at least Trump can see that too.”

Carlitos Ricardo Parias—the TikTok streamer and immigration journalist who was shot by ICE in south Los Angeles this October—has had his indictment dropped by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olgin on Saturday dismissed the indictment on the grounds that Parias was not given access to counsel while in ICE detention, and the government did not abide by the court deadline to release the body cam footage from the shooting.

ICE initially claimed that Parias, who goes by Richard LA online, was pulled over using standard operating procedures. According to the affidavit, Parias ignored commands to exit his vehicle, hitting two law enforcement vehicles before “accelerating aggressively” with his car. But U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli directly contradicted the government’s argument by revealing the agents “boxed him in,” which is not considered standard procedure for a traffic stop.

CNN reported that an ICE officer confronted Parias and used his weapon to smash Parias’s window, according to a law enforcement source who spoke to the outlet. Authorities believe the agent’s weapon fired while he was attempting to grab Parias, striking Parias and ricocheting to hit a deputy marshal. Parias was then charged with assault.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has spent her entire career profusely defending President Trump and his MAGA agenda. But their last conversation reportedly left her stunned, as he said he attacked both her and the survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Greene fought for the release of the Epstein files for months, eventually teaming up with Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, who were able to successfully force the administration to begin to release some heavily redacted files with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

When Greene implored Trump to invite some of Epstein’s female victims to the Oval Office in a show of support in September, she told the New York Times Magazine, he berated her, telling her that they didn’t deserve the honor. That was the last in-person conversation they had.

“How did all of this end up to a point where it was about releasing files about women who were raped, and not the serious things that I think truly matter about helping to get our economy stabilized again?” she said. “Help reduce the cost of living, fix the housing market, fix health insurance—for the love of God, what the [expletive] is the matter with these people?”

Her last text exchange with Trump occurred two months later, in which she told the president about the fears she held for the safety of her family, given a death threat against her son she’d received that morning, following Trump publicly rebuking her as a traitor. He responded with a long message that completely ignored her fears and attacked her personally once again.

The administration responded with complete disdain.

“President Trump remains the undisputed leader of the greatest and fastest growing political movement in American history—the MAGA movement,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told the Times. “On the other hand, Congresswoman Greene is quitting on her constituents in the middle of her term and abandoning the consequential fight we’re in—we don’t have time for her petty bitterness.”

The race to replace Donald Trump is on, but no one seems particularly keen on his successor.

Despite his supporters openly encouraging him to ignore the Constitution, Trump has reportedly told his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles “a couple of times” that he knows a third term isn’t possible. And that leaves many in MAGA looking for what comes next.

Turning Point USA, the organization that energized young voters to turn out for Trump, has recently reoriented its focus on Vice President JD Vance ahead of the 2028 election. Vance, according to the Charlie Kirk-founded conservative nonprofit, has the chops to take Trump’s spot on the next Republican presidential ticket. There’s just one glaring flaw: No one seems to like him.

A CNN poll conducted earlier this month found that just 22 percent of Republicans support Vance’s bid for the presidency. They cited his “intelligence” as a key factor in his potential success with American voters, as well as the likelihood that he would continue Trump’s agenda.

The president’s suggestions as to who could top the Republican presidential ticket in 2028 have been so quiet that they’re practically murmurs. Without ever explicitly signaling his support for Vance to lead the party, Trump has lauded his number two, publicly describing Vance as “very capable” and the “most likely” choice to front the Republican ticket.

Vance has not yet announced a formal bid for the Oval Office, but that hasn’t stopped major Republicans from chiming in with their support. State Secretary Marco Rubio told Vanity Fair that he would back Vance rather than challenge him for the next GOP presidential nomination, while Representative Anna Paulina Luna has also shown her support for the 41-year-old Ohioan.

Turning Point’s new leader and Kirk’s partying, gold suit–wearing widow Erika Kirk made waves with her own support for the vice president after she intimately embraced him on stage in October, weeks after her husband’s assassination.

Erika Kirk and Turning Point formally endorsed Vance for president at the group’s conference earlier this month, pledging to help get him elected.

Somehow, Vance is the best that the party’s got—as of right now. No other GOP figure, including longtime presidential wannabes State Secretary Marco Rubio and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, eclipsed five percent in the CNN poll.

The largest group of respondents—some 64 percent of those polled—said they had “no one specific in mind” to top the 2028 ticket, suggesting an open playing field in which just about anyone could step in to win the Republican nomination.

Still, several of Trump’s most ardent supporters—including his first term chief strategist Steve Bannon—have advocated that the president should attempt to seek a third term. Vance, Bannon claimed in August, is simply “not tough enough” for the job.

Russia has apparently not agreed to a ceasefire, according to Donald Trump.

The U.S. president told reporters Sunday that Ukraine’s near-term peace prospects with Russia did not include an end to the violence.

“Did [Russian President Vladimir] Putin agree to a ceasefire to allow a referendum to take place?” a journalist asked Trump Sunday evening during a Palm Beach press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“Not a ceasefire, and that’s one of the points that we’re working on right now,” Trump said. “He feels that look, you know, they’re fighting and to stop—and then if they have to start again, which is a possibility, he doesn’t want to be in that position. I understand that position. The president feels strongly about that, or something.”

“You know you have to understand the other side,” Trump insisted, speaking of the Russian dictator while just steps away from Zelenskiy. “I’m on the side of peace, I’m on the side of stopping the war.”

The detail adds to a growing pile of evidence that Russia isn’t negotiating in good faith to end its assault on Ukraine. The hostile foreign power has offered virtually nothing—not even temporary peace—to resolve the nearly four-year conflict. Yet it has been gifted unprecedented capitulations from the Trump administration, upending longstanding U.S. policy in the process.

Last month, the Trump administration unveiled a 28-point peace plan that catered to some of Russia’s most outrageous demands, such as requiring Ukraine to swear off NATO membership and to hand Moscow Crimea and the eastern Donbas region.

Still, Ukraine is pushing toward a resolution. In the weeks since Trump unveiled his plan, Zelenskiy and his team have drafted their own version of a peace plan, which he told reporters Sunday was “90 percent agreed to,” noting that the U.S.-Ukraine security guarantees were “100 percent agreed” to.

The sensitive issue of ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia, however, was still up in the air.

“I would not say agreed, but we’re getting closer to an agreement on that, and that’s a big issue. Certainly, that’s one of the big issues, and … it’s unresolved,” Trump said Sunday.

More than 13,300 civilians have been killed and 31,700 injured in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, according to a United Nations report from June. Last week, Russia bombed Kyiv, devastating portions of Ukraine’s war-torn capital and killing at least one person while injuring 27.

Trump pledged on the campaign trail that he would end the war on his first day in office, but still the conflict has dragged on, in large part due to Moscow’s tireless and ever-shifting demands. On Sunday, Trump told reporters that he has “no deadline” to resolve the war.

By Monday morning, Russian officials suggested that Moscow’s position could change yet again as they accused Ukrainian forces of attempting to attack Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region.

President Trump is claiming to have successfully bombed a “big facility” in Venezuela in yet another act of aggression and sign of the administration’s interventionist goals in the region. 

“We just knocked out—I don’t know if you read or you saw—they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told GOP donor John Catsimatidis on his Friday radio show.

A staffer close to the situation later described the target as a “drug facility.” And while details remain virtually nonexistent (how do we know this even happened?), the attack does align with the administration’s unsubstantiated narrative that the Venezuelan government is directly supporting drug traffickers. 

This is a major, violent escalation against Venezuela with absolutely zero explanation or justification to the American people. The so-called  “peace president” has bombed ships full of fishermen, stolen an oil tanker, threatened Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with regime change, and even given the CIA the greenlight to meddle there.

The Venezuelan government has yet to respond. 

Trump was later asked to shed more light on the apparent bombing while taking questions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. 

“Can you say anything more about the explosion in Venezuela that you mentioned in a radio interview?” a reporter asked. “Did the military do that?”

“Well it doesn’t matter, but there was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump replied. “They load the boats up with drugs. We hit all the boats, and now we hit the area.... It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement … and that is no longer around.” 

He also refused to confirm whether the attack was performed by the CIA, but said that he knew “exactly who it was” but didn’t “want to say who it was.”

This story has been updated.

Rogue MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says President Trump told her not to identify Jeffrey Epstein’s client list because his “friends” would be upset.

“My friends will get hurt,” the president told Greene, according to a New York Times Magazine interview published Monday. Trump called up the Georgia representative after she promised to identify the abusers in a September congressional hearing. One of MTG’s staffers added that Trump yelled at the congresswoman so loud that everyone in her office could hear it.

Trump also attacked the victims Greene was fighting for, so she turned to fellow Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, who were able to successfully force the administration to begin to release some heavily redacted files with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

“How did all of this end up to a point where it was about releasing files about women who were raped, and not the serious things that I think truly matter about helping to get our economy stabilized again?” she said. “Help reduce the cost of living, fix the housing market, fix health insurance—for the love of God, what the [expletive] is the matter with these people?”

Greene has made her distaste with Trump’s policymaking known, from Epstein, to endless war, to affordability. Her split with Trump is just one of many rifts within the GOP that will likely evolve as this second term drags on.

The president had yet another strange mark on his hands over Christmas, once again raising concerns that his health is not what he has claimed it to be.

Donald Trump—the oldest person to ever be elected president—was photographed with what appeared to be another bruise on Christmas Eve, this time marring his left hand.

The 79-year-old has repeatedly claimed that he is in pristine condition, brushing off public alarm over his deteriorating body.

Trump’s health has been a topic of concern since he was on the campaign trail, when reports circulated that he couldn’t remember the contents of cognitive exams he claimed to ace. Since then, the president has regularly been spotted with odd discolorations on his right hand.

He also routinely appears discombobulated and lethargic during critical meetings with world leaders. Over the course of the last year, Trump has fallen asleep roughly a dozen times during critical public appearances. It’s happened during Cabinet meetings, in the middle of bombastic military parades, while meeting leaders of critical allies, and even during the Pope’s funeral.

Concern only continued to grow when Trump appeared for 9/11 ceremonies in September with a sagging mouth and drooping expression, which some onlookers suggested could be a result of a stroke.

The following month, the president received MRI scans at Walter Reed Medical Center. Those tests are used by doctors to assess tumors, joint injuries, or heart conditions. At least one former White House physician questioned the timeline of Trump’s appointment, pointing out that his four-hour visit to the hospital was far longer than would be required by an MRI test. Nonetheless, Trump said the tests came back “perfect.”

Virtually no other topic—besides the Epstein files—irks Trump more, according to his advisers. Earlier this month, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s public appeal for the release of Trump’s medical records incited a wave of fury from the president. After Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that it was “OK with me” to release the MRI results, he took to Truth Social to accuse the one-time vice presidential candidate of being “incompetent.”

The MRI results, according to the White House physician, allegedly illustrated that Trump is “perfectly normal.”

Miami Herald investigative journalist Julie K. Brown—whose 2018 reporting essentially reopened the Jeffrey Epstein case—wants to know why her flight information is in the Epstein files. 

“Does somebody at the DOJ want to tell me why my American Airlines booking information and flights in July 2019 are part of the Epstein files (attached to a grand jury subpoena)?” she wrote Sunday on X. “As the flight itinerary includes my maiden name (and I did book this flight) why was the DOJ monitoring me?”

“I expected my name to be in the Epstein files, since the Miami Herald published the series ‘Perversion of Justice,’” Brown continued on her Substack. “But what I didn’t expect to see was an American Airlines flight record from 2019 with my full name on them, including my maiden name, which I don’t use professionally. It’s an unusual name, so it’s clear it’s me.” 

The released flight logs occurred during the first Trump administration, around the time of Epstein’s arrest, which begs the question: Why were they following the reporter who was instrumental in putting Epstein’s crimes back in the public eye?

If there’s more to this, then Brown may have another book to write.  

The Department of Homeland Security’s tasteless holiday shitposting may have just violated the United States Constitution.

The federal agency’s official X account published multiple posts Thursday that appeared to violate the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government actions that favor one religion over another.

“Rejoice America, Christ is born!” read one post containing a video montage of snowy scenery complete with a choir singing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

“Merry Christmas, America. We are blessed to share a nation and a Savior,” read another post.

The post also included a video montage that was clearly meant to evoke nostalgia, but it was more off-putting than anything else. The video featured archival footage of Donald Trump spliced into clips from popular holiday movies. It even included a photograph of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem holding a Christmas tree in Chicago, where she launched a deadly large-scale immigration operation, to really put the eerie in cheery.

Increasingly, it seems the Trump administration views the separation between church and state as merely a suggestion.

It’s fitting that DHS would be the source of this blatant violation, as Noem’s ethnic cleansing approach to homeland security is transparently rooted in xenophobia and Christian nationalism. And the president has continually leaned into Christian nationalist rhetoric in order to please his conservative base.

“They say separation between church and state … I said, ‘All right, let’s forget about that for one time,’” Trump said earlier this spring during a National Prayer Day event.

DHS also did its fair share of disgusting holiday posting that didn’t violate the Constitution. One post referring to “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” read: “This Christmas, our hearts grow as the illegal population shrinks.” But the Trump administration’s continued efforts to tear apart families and communities demonstrates just the opposite.