US President Donald Trump on Friday hailed that his administration has accomplished what no other has in recent memory, boasting, “Nobody has done what we have done in seven months, a little more than seven months. When you think of it, we stopped seven wars.”
Trump made the remarks while hosting Republican lawmakers at the White House dinner event, using the occasion to link foreign policy wins to his expanding domestic security agenda.
Despite touting diplomatic achievements abroad, the president doubled down on controversial domestic moves, pledging to extend the use of federal force in cities experiencing crime surges, including Portland, Chicago, and New Orleans.
“Washington DC, it was the most unsafe city anywhere in the country, our capital. And after 12 days, it became known as a safe city,” Trump said, referencing his June decision to place the city’s Metropolitan Police under federal control and deploy the National Guard, a move that sparked a lawsuit from the city’s Democratic leadership.
In a separate legal setback, a California federal judge ruled earlier this week that the federal use of National Guard troops in immigration and drug operations violated the law. Nonetheless, Trump insisted Friday that his administration would not be deterred from what he described as a national campaign to restore law and order.
“When you look at Chicago, you have a governor that says things are okay with crime. Except that last weekend, 11 people were killed, and 68 people were wounded by gunshot,” he said. “We are going to make some other choices pretty soon.”
The president offered a similarly stern warning to Portland, Oregon, which he described as “burning to the ground,” blaming the violence on “professional paid agitators” allegedly funded by the political left. “We are going to stop them. We are going to stop it all,” he said.
New Orleans is next on the administration’s list of targeted interventions. “We are going to come into New Orleans, and we are going to make that place so safe… You are going to be safe within two weeks,” Trump promised, characterising the city’s crime as a collection of “headaches like murders.”
As Trump frames urban crime as a war in its own right, he continued to reference his foreign policy track record. He notably highlighted the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe: “The war that I thought was going to be the easiest is probably the most difficult, that is Ukraine and Russia.”
While offering few details, the president painted an optimistic picture of the economy, projecting an investment boom. “We are going to have over USD 17 trillion, and that number is going to go much higher than that, invested in our country,” he claimed.
The event also veered into personal territory, as Trump recounted what he called a media-driven hoax about his health. After missing a press conference, he said, “The fake news was at it again,” before delivering what he described as a “three-hour press conference” to disprove rumours.
Trump hosted roughly 100 members of Congress, mostly House Republicans and a few GOP senators, for what he called the first gathering of the “Rose Garden Club.” The dinner was held in the redesigned Rose Garden, now paved over and outfitted with outdoor tables and umbrellas reminiscent of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“We call it the Rose Garden Club. And it’s a club for senators, for congresspeople and for people in Washington, and frankly, people that can bring peace and success to our country,” Trump said, microphone in hand.
The dinner came just one day after Trump dined with tech titans Bill Gates, Tim Cook, and Mark Zuckerberg, a gathering originally planned for the Rose Garden but moved indoors due to rain. “I had the high-tech guys here, and they didn’t want to have rain on top of their beautiful heads,” Trump joked.
The dinner followed a week of legal and political tensions surrounding Trump’s domestic security policies.
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Input from agencies
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