Trump thinks domestic violence isn’t really a crime

President Donald Trump on Monday downplayed the seriousness of domestic violence, describing it as a “lesser crime” that is a “little fight” between a husband and a wife.

Trump made the comment during a speech at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, where he said that after sending in the National Guard to police civilians, the only crime that remains in the nation’s capital is domestic violence. He complained that including domestic violence in crime statistics is unfair to him, and said that if it wasn’t included that crime would be down 100%—which is a lie.

“Things that take place in the home, they call crime,” Trump said. “You know, they’ll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime, see? So now I can’t claim 100%.”

Of course, domestic violence is a crime—and a horrible one at that.

According to the Department of Justice, “Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, psychological, or technological actions or threats of actions or other patterns of coercive behavior that influence another person within an intimate partner relationship. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.”

Domestic violence “results in nearly 1,300 deaths and 2 million injuries every year in the United States,” according to the Emory University School of Medicine, which reported that three women are killed daily by intimate partners.

But the seriousness of domestic violence aside, Trump’s claim that crime is down 100% in D.C., since he called in the National Guard is absurd.

Since the National Guard deployment, violent crimes in D.C. declined by 23%, according to the BBC. But even that may not be the case, as crime experts say that crime data lags, so all of the crime that occurred may not yet be reported and included in the tally.

“Reporting [of crime] always lags so some of that decline is likely artificial. You probably need six weeks or so for incident-based reporting to catch up and make a comparison of the most recent period,” crime analyst Jeff Asher told the BBC.

Ultimately, negating domestic violence as a crime to try to make his autocratic National Guard deployment look more successful is disturbing.

But what else can you expect from a man who has been credibly accused of sexual assault by dozens of women, faced marital rape allegations from his late ex-wife Ivana Trump, is blocking the release of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and who banned rape survivor hotlines from providing resources to LGBTQ+ rape survivors.