“We have almost no crime anymore in Washington, D.C.”

D.C.'s own police data refutes this: in less than two months of 2026, the city recorded nine homicides, 126 assaults with a dangerous weapon, and 322 motor vehicle thefts, according to Metropolitan Police Department figures cited by NBC News. That is real crime affecting real victims, not "almost no crime."

One major violent crime category was actually rising when Trump spoke: assault with a dangerous weapon was the only category that increased in 2026, per MPD data, a fact that flatly contradicts the picture of a crime-free capital.

Crime in D.C. has genuinely fallen, but the decline long predates Trump's takeover of D.C. policing. The Justice Department announced in December 2024, under Biden, that D.C. violent crime had hit a 30-year low, and MPD data showed declines from 2024 into 2025 across all violent and property crime categories. NBC News rated Trump's SOTU framing "exaggerated." "But it isn't accurate to say there is 'almost no crime' in Washington." — NBC News fact check of the 2026 State of the Union, February 25, 2026