“Trump Says ‘Tiny Fight with Wife’ Doesn’t Belong in Crime Stats”

WASHINGTON, DC: Don­ald Trump sparked a storm online on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 8, after down­play­ing a “lit­tle fight with the wife” while dis­cussing crime sta­tis­tics in Wash­ing­ton, DC. His con­tro­ver­sial remarks came dur­ing a speech at the Reli­gious Lib­er­ty Com­mis­sion meet­ing, fol­low­ing his August 7 order for a fed­er­al law enforce­ment surge to address ris­ing crime in the nation’s cap­i­tal.

Trump down­plays domes­tic dis­putes amid crime crack­down

Pres­i­dent Trump ignit­ed wide­spread debate when he appeared to min­i­mize domes­tic dis­putes as part of crime sta­tis­tics. Refer­ring to minor inci­dents as “a lit­tle fight with the wife,” Trump sug­gest­ed such cas­es shouldn’t be count­ed when mea­sur­ing crime in the city.

The remarks came as he high­light­ed the recent deploy­ment of fed­er­al law enforce­ment to DC, claim­ing the move trans­formed it from “the worst, most vio­lent city” into “a total­ly safe zone.”

“There’s no crime,” Trump declared. “They said crime is down 87 per­cent — no, no, it’s more than 87 per­cent, [it’s] vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing.” He added, “Much less­er things, things that hap­pen in the home, they call crime… If a man has a lit­tle fight with the wife, they say, ‘This was a crime,’ so now I can’t claim 100 per­cent. But we are a safe city.”

Accord­ing to Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Depart­ment (MPD) data released on Sep­tem­ber 1, over­all crime in Wash­ing­ton, DC dropped by 14%, with vio­lent crime decreas­ing by 39% com­pared to the same 25-day peri­od in 2024. With­in vio­lent crime, homi­cides fell by 58% and rob­beries by 57%.

Trump also sug­gest­ed that oth­er cities, like Chica­go, should fol­low DC’s exam­ple, ques­tion­ing why city offi­cials hadn’t request­ed fed­er­al assis­tance. “[I don’t know] why Chica­go isn’t call­ing us say­ing, ‘Please give us help,’” he said. His com­ments came as the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) launched a new immi­gra­tion crack­down focused on Chica­go and oth­er Demo­c­rat-led cities.

Inter­net erupts over Trump’s “fight with wife” com­ment

Trump’s con­tro­ver­sial remark about a “lit­tle fight with the wife in the home” quick­ly went viral, with a video clip rack­ing up over 9 mil­lion views and more than 1,600 com­ments with­in hours. Social media users weighed in with a wide range of reactions—some crit­i­ciz­ing him for down­play­ing domes­tic vio­lence, while oth­ers defend­ed his state­ment.

One user com­ment­ed, “Just because a mar­ried cou­ple argues doesn’t mean it’s domes­tic vio­lence!”

The clip sparked renewed debate about how domes­tic dis­putes are treat­ed in crime sta­tis­tics and whether polit­i­cal lead­ers should min­i­mize such issues for polit­i­cal gain.