Fox News Segment on D.C. Crime Inspired Trump’s Crackdown: Report

(Photo by Samuel Corum/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

President Donald Trump’s decision to wrest control of Washington D.C.’s policing was sparked by a Fox News segment on crime in the city after a former DOGE staffer was attacked, according to a White House adviser.

The move, announced by Trump in a presser on Monday, will put D.C. police under federal control and see the National Guard deployed as part of an unprecedented federal intervention.

In a new report detailing the inside story behind how the policy came to be, however, Axios White House reporter Marc Caputo revealed that it was a spot on Fox News, which nudged the president.

“When he saw a report on Fox about how bad it was in D.C., that was the final straw,” the aide said, according to Caputo. “He said he wanted it done. So we scrambled and got it done.”

While it is not clear what specific Fox News report influenced Trump, Caputo cites White House insiders who relayed that the president’s anger boiled over after seeing images of Edward Coristine, a former DOGE staffer nicknamed “Big Balls.”

Coristine was left bloodied in a street attack by a group of youths in the capital last week.