White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was criticized after she defended President Donald Trump's suggestion that domestic violence isn't really a crime, saying during a press briefing that women will "make up" crimes to try to "undermine" Trump's ongoing crime crackdown.
Earlier this week, Trump erroneously claimed that crime statistics in Washington D.C. were inflated because “things that take place in the home, they call crime":
“They said, ‘Crime’s down 87 percent.’ I said, No, no, no — it’s more than 87 percent, virtually nothing. And much lesser things, things that take place in the home, they call crime. You know, they’ll do anything they can to find something…”
He added:
"If a man has a little fight with the wife they say ‘this was a crime, see?’”
When asked by a reporter to explain "what crimes Trump was referring to," Leavitt, without citing evidence, said:
“He wasn’t referring to crimes, that’s exactly the point he was making. The president is saying that these crimes will be made up and reported as a crime to undermine the great work that the federal task force is doing to reduce crime in Washington D.C."
"I think the president has every reason to believe that, given the efforts of many reporters in this room who actively seek to undermine the president and what he’s doing in our nation."
"We all know that deep inside you all agree with this because you all live here, and I’m sure you are very grateful for the administration’s efforts to make this city, which we all reside in, much safer for ourselves and our families.”
You can hear what she said in the video below.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline notes that every minute in the United States, an estimated 24 people experience rape, physical assault, or stalking by an intimate partner. This adds up to more than 12 million women and men in a single year.
Moreover, women between the ages of 18 and 34 face the highest risk, with most reporting repeated abuse by the same perpetrator. Among female victims, 77% of those aged 18 to 24, 76% of those 25 to 34, and 81% of those 35 to 49 had previously been targeted by the same offender.
Many have criticized Leavitt's remarks.
Leavitt's remarks are also striking because Trump faced allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault during his 1989 divorce from Ivana Trump.
In a deposition later cited in a 1993 book, Ivana claimed he pulled out “fistfuls of hair” and raped her. She later walked back the statement, saying she did not intend it “to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense,” and in 2015 added that she and her ex-husband “are the best of friends.”
Trump has not responded to the criticism; when he made his statements, he categorized Washington as “the worst, the most violent city” in America even though statistics indicate there has been a major crime decline in D.C. even before he deployed the National Guard in the city.
