AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump has long talked about the importance of law and order. It's a theme that he returned to this week. He deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and took over the police force. Now, in D.C. and in other Democratic-led cities, Trump has often blamed what he calls radical left policies for crime. And while Democrats are quick to push back, they have often struggled to convince many voters. To break this down for us, we're joined now by NPR political reporter Elena Moore. Hi, Elena.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: Hey there.
CHANG: OK, so we're seeing Trump basically return to this message of law and order. Why is he revisiting this now in particular?
MOORE: Well, if you ask Democrats, they say it's a distraction from his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Democrats are also quick to point out that violent crime in D.C. hit a 30-year low last year, and other cities have made similar progress. But Americans feel differently. You know, a majority in a Gallup poll last fall described crime as an extremely or very serious problem. Republicans have long capitalized on that feeling, using it to paint Democrats as weak on crime. So now Trump is amplifying that.
CHANG: Wait, tell us more. What issues has Trump zeroed in on when it comes to crime?
MOORE: Well, the president has come out strongly against cashless bail, arguing it's the cause of violence in cities, though experts can't point to data that backs that up as of now. But that's far from the first time Trump has taken a policy that's supported by some progressives and used it to attack national Democrats more broadly. You know, take the issue of defund the police. That was the movement in 2020, and it led some city leaders to reduce police budgets and put that money towards other services. But at the same time, you know, a lot of national Democrats flat-out rejected the defund movement, including Joe Biden, who was then running for president. So Republicans were able to latch on to this, even though it was far from an official party policy.
CHANG: Wait, so then, would you say that this is a policy problem for Democrats or is it just a messaging failure?
MOORE: Well, you know, for people like Jon Cowan, who runs the centrist think tank Third Way, he says a lot of this does come down to bad Democratic policy.
JON COWAN: They created a much bigger opening for Trump to make this a winning issue for himself. Because for too many years, we were weak and in the wrong place on these fundamental issues of law and order.
MOORE: He told me Trump would be attacking Democrats no matter what the policy is, but he says the party has a lot of work to do to establish credibility. But at the same time, you know, establishing that credibility isn't easy. I talked to Bill de Blasio about this. He's the former Democratic mayor of New York City, and he told me that it was hard to demonstrate progress on fighting crime in the face of GOP attacks.
BILL DE BLASIO: It doesn't matter how much success you have - didn't matter in the eyes of the police unions, didn't matter in the eyes of the Republican Party. And I would struggle with it. I could not accept a world in which truth and perception were so radically out of whack.
MOORE: And worth noting, Ailsa, de Blasio did cut the NYPD's budget by $1 billion in order to shift money to other city services. And he told me this wasn't an embrace of the defund the police movement, but he also admitted he didn't make that distinction clear enough.
CHANG: Well, do other Democrats see a way to overcome this perception problem?
MOORE: I wanted to get Heidi Heitkamp's thoughts on that. She's the former senator from North Dakota - a Democrat in a red state. She told me that Democrats just need to do a better job validating voters' concerns instead of just labeling it a perception problem.
HEIDI HEITKAMP: That's insulting to the people who don't feel safe. Quit calling it a perception. Start saying, these are real concerns and real problems, and we need to have a discussion about what works and what doesn't work.
CHANG: Well, to that point, is President Trump exposing a deeper problem for Democrats here, you think?
MOORE: Well, he's the face of the GOP, and he has the world's largest megaphone. Democrats just don't. They aren't in power and don't have a leader, making it hard to unite on a message. And Trump is, for sure, taking advantage of that.
CHANG: That is NPR political reporter Elena Moore. Thank you, Elena.
MOORE: Thanks, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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