Trump's peacemaking dreams and D.C. pizza party

14:14Cat Zakrzewski:And she said that she does think that is a part of it for the president and that she hoped that all of us in the press briefing room also were trying to get into heaven. And that is one of the, you know, I think he's brought it up twice this week now that this is something that is on his mind. So I think when he's talking about this issue of Ukraine, it shows that he does see it as a big part of his legacy. He's also connected his push for peace in Ukraine to his campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize.

14:48Michael Birnbaum:One of the things that we do, we cover the daily news, but we also cover sort of the arc of the presidency and the arc of history and all of that stuff. I wonder if you guys have thoughts on whether this this represents Trump's efforts to cement his place in history. Yeah, you mentioned the Nobel Prize. To the extent that you can say, you know, is this sort of Trump making a big push on heaven and on earth to say, you know, this is what I stood for and this is how I want to be remembered?

15:16Cleve Wootson:This is a multi-front battle for his legacy. And I think that is the case, Cleve. You know, this is a president in his second term. He talks about a third term, but at least for now, he doesn't seem formally to be running. There's Trump 2028 hats in the gift shop. He does, and he showed off those Trump 2028 hats to fellow world leaders this week. But I do think that this is about his legacy and thinking about how he's going to be inscribed in the history books and, you know, something that goes beyond just work a day, domestic policy, but, you know, really shaping global conflicts and global events.

16:02Cleve Wootson:My sense is that a Nobel Peace Prize, which he's raised repeatedly, although he's sometimes skeptical that he'll actually get one, that would be a kind of gold marker on his legacy, but also, of course, resolving these conflicts. I think that he is thinking about how he's going to be remembered in history and sees this as a ticket both to the pearly gates and to a good write-up later on in some big books.

16:31Michael Birnbaum:OK, enough about who may or may not be getting into heaven. Let's take a quick break there. And when we come back, we'll talk about Trump's continued takeover of the Washington, D.C. police force and his appearance with law enforcement yesterday. We'll be right back.

17:16Cleve Wootson:We'll see you next time. with clear sourcing. And if we don't know the answer, we'll tell you. Ask the Post AI. Find it on WashingtonPost.com or in the app.

17:31Michael Birnbaum:We've been talking about Trump's mark on the globe, but we're talking here in the Washington Post office in D.C., where we're over a week into Trump's military deployment and police takeover of the city. Yesterday afternoon, he visited the U.S. Park Police Headquarters in southeast Washington. He brought pizza, and he said this effort had been a great success so far.

17:53Cleve Wootson:But the crime numbers are way down. I'm looking at, you saw some of the stats. They just read them out to me inside. They're numbers that we haven't seen here ever, actually ever.

18:04Michael Birnbaum:Kat, he also said he would spruce up parks in D.C. with new grass and a new sprinkler system. What do we know about whether crime is actually going down in response to this takeover?

18:15Cat Zakrzewski:So what we do know, Cleve, is that prior to this takeover, violent crime in Washington, D.C. was already going down from the levels that it was at in 2023. And the White House has been putting out statistics that show that since this effort, crime is down. I do think that having National Guard troops deployed all over the city and the level of enforcement action we've seen is having an impact day to day. But the question is, what is the long term impact of this on the city? How long will these troops be here? And is it actually changing any of the root causes of violence and crime in Washington, D.C.?

18:56Michael Birnbaum:Yeah, and Republicans and Democrats differ on the best way to address crime. You know, Democrats, especially in D.C., have talked about addressing root causes and getting at, you know, the societal ills that lead to crime and other issues. Whereas Trump, leading the Republican Party, has said, more police, more police, more police, and here's a little bit more police. And I wonder if, does Trump win the argument even if he's, you know, unable to sustain these crime drops?

19:26Cleve Wootson:I think that both sides here are going to use what's going on to fuel each of their arguments. And Trump will be able to say he's made some impact on crime in D.C. And I think that Democrats and certainly a lot of residents of Washington are going to say, you know, this is something that did not take into account local views, that this is something that was more about publicity than really kind of targeting the big crime problems that Washington does face. And, you know, we're like a week and a half into this. I do see more people around in some of the places where I am, but I'm not necessarily inhabiting the parts of Washington that have the deepest problems.

20:17Michael Birnbaum:One of the things that I've noticed is that they haven't been entirely transparent about who they're arresting, the types of arrests that they are making. When somebody is arrested, there's usually a police report and you can, you know, link an alleged crime to a person that is in jail or has received a citation. What do you make of that, Ken?

20:36Cat Zakrzewski:So there's a lot of questions around the transparency of this effort. There's also been instances, as the White House has been rolling this out, where they've cited incorrect data about what the state of crime was in D.C. prior to this takeover. And so it really calls into question, can you trust the information that the White House is putting out on this effort? And I think generally as reporters at The Washington Post, we have a huge Metro team who, you know, works very closely on covering what's happening on the ground in D.C. And certainly the way the information is coming out now is very different than it was just a couple weeks ago.

21:17Michael Birnbaum:Other White House officials have also been out there making appearances with law enforcement and promoting the takeover. This week, we saw Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegsseff, and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller go to Union Station. I wonder if they got Ani Ann's pretzels there, the big train station in D.C. And they did a media event thanking the National Guard for making D.C. safer. But while they were there, there were some protesters yelling, free D.C. They're people just not happy with what's going down in the city. Is that kind of protest what the Trump administration wants?

21:50Cleve Wootson:I think so. I mean, they are happy to portray Democrats as soft on crime. They're happy to get these kinds of images that they can project outside of Washington to the country saying, look, Democrats are not defending you. They're defending criminals. And that's not really what's happening in Washington. I mean, these are complaints about how this process is being handled. These are complaints about autonomy and who gets to decide and institutions. But I don't think that, you know, the administration is complaining when they're getting protested in this way.

22:32Michael Birnbaum:There's also an interesting paternalistic vibe that I've picked up on, you know, that the African-American residents of D.C. are more likely to be victims of the crime that happens in D.C. and we're protecting them from that crime. But there's also polling that says that the greater majority of people in D.C. don't want this takeover. Can you suss that out for us, Kat?

22:58Cat Zakrzewski:I would say that, one, it was very notable that Trump went to Anacostia yesterday with his meeting with police, a historically black neighborhood in D.C., where they're trying to send the message that, OK, we're not just focusing on these touristy areas, which was the initial criticism of the effort. But there is this real question of do people in the community want Trump there? And I think certainly a lot of the displays we've seen, the answer is no. The polling that The Washington Post has done shows the answer is no. But it raises the question of, is Trump really doing this for the residents of D.C.

23:35Cat Zakrzewski:or for his own base? Because obviously these images that he is projecting are playing on Fox News and on the channels that his base watches. And they're sending a message that he's tough on crime, which has been part of his political identity since he announced his run again for the presidency. He talked about this issue of crime in cities extensively. in his first speech announcing his campaign.

24:03Michael Birnbaum:One more thing, one thing just flashed across my screen. We are reporting that former National Security Advisor John Bolton's home has been raided by the FBI. Michael, I know you're in this room here with me, but you talk to him all the time. What do you know about this?

24:20Cleve Wootson:Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's 7 a.m. today, Friday. FBI agents raided the home of John Bolton. He lives in Bethesda. He was Trump's national security advisor during a large stretch of the first term.

24:35Michael Birnbaum:So, Michael, how did John Bolton go from being Trump's national security advisor to, you know, being on Trump's bad side and raided by the FBI?

24:46Cleve Wootson:So, you know, there was a time in the first term when Trump and John Bolton were relatively close. You know, Bolton is someone who for decades has been an extremely hawkish Republican foreign policy official. They broke in the first term. You know, they had a lot of disagreements in the end about, among other things, whether to negotiate with the Taliban. Trump ultimately cut Bolton out a lot of the foreign policy discussions in the first term. Bolton wrote a memoir that was quite critical of how Trump handled a lot of foreign policy decisions. He had to submit it for preclearance about whether he could publish some of the things he was talking about.

25:34Cleve Wootson:And a lot of things were denied. There was a big dispute and then ultimately an investigation into whether he had disclosed classified information. And so what seems to be happening today is an extension of that investigation. That's something that didn't continue during Biden's term, and it's a revival of an old dispute.

25:57Cat Zakrzewski:It certainly is, and it sends a message to people who criticize the president that there could be consequences for that, right? We've seen this concern since President Trump won re-election that he would use the powers of the presidency to punish those who have been critical of him. And we've seen that happen in instances where he's taken action against law firms, for instance, that were involved in litigation that was against him. We've seen, obviously, a number of examples where he's taken action, for instance, against Chris Krebs, who was the cybersecurity official during the first term who, you know, disputed his claims of election fraud.

26:42Cat Zakrzewski:And so certainly this is part of a broader pattern that we're seeing and one that people have been really worried about since Election Day. All right.

26:51Michael Birnbaum:So glad you guys were both able to talk about this developing story. We'll leave it there. That's it for today's episode. Thank you, Michael and Kat.

27:00Cleve Wootson:Thanks a lot, Cleve.

27:01Cat Zakrzewski:Thanks for having me on.

27:06Michael Birnbaum:Kat Zekreski is a White House reporter for The Post. Michael Birnbaum is a White House correspondent covering the Trump presidency and foreign policy. But before we go, we have one more important update.

27:19Cleve Wootson:Today's date is Thursday, July 24th. This will be the recording of a proper agreement of Ghislaine Maxwell.

27:30Michael Birnbaum:The Justice Department dropped some news on Friday afternoon. They released transcripts and audio recordings of an interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. She's the imprisoned associate of Jeffrey Epstein. She's currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking. The interview was conducted by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Good morning, Ms. Maxwell. How are you? Good morning, Mr. Black. Good. In the interview, which took place over two days this past July, Maxwell tells the Justice Department he never saw Trump act inappropriately. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.

28:09Michael Birnbaum:Days after the interview, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. For weeks, Trump's base has been calling for the release of more files from the Epstein case. It's important to note this interview was not part of the original cases against Maxwell and Epstein. So far, federal courts have blocked requests to unseal some of those files. This is a fast-moving story, and reporters at The Post are scrubbing through the audio and transcript as we record. So check out more updates on WashingtonPost.com. Today's episode was produced by Arjun Singh and mixed by Sean Carter.

28:45Michael Birnbaum:It was edited by Laura Benshoff. Thanks to politics editor David Lauder. Our team includes Rina Flores, Ted Muldoon, Alana Gordon, Ariel Plotnik, Rennie Sviernovsky, Sabby Robinson, Thomas Liu, Emma Talkoff, Peter Bresnan, Colby Itkowitz, Renita Jablonski, Elihe Izzati, and Martine Powers. I'm Cleve Woodson. Have a great weekend.

29:17Thank you.

29:47Cleve Wootson:exclusively on post journalism with clear sourcing. And if we don't know the answer, we'll tell you. Ask the Post AI. Find it on WashingtonPost.com or in the app.