Trump Cites Real Estate Background in DC Police Takeover

On Monday, President Donald Trump announced a temporary takeover of the Washington, D.C. police force, despite violent crime in the district being at a 30-year low. The move can, in part, be traced back to the president’s former life as a real estate developer.

In announcing the decision, Trump pointed to his real estate acumen as a strength for taking care of the problems he perceives D.C. to have, according to the New York Times. Trump pointed to “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor” as reasons for the takeover, though the prevailing incident appears to be a mugging attempt of a former DOGE staffer.

“It’s a natural instinct as a real estate person,” Trump said of his decision. “I was very good at that, and I was very good at fixing things up. I like fixing things up.”

Trump added that he was “going to start doing things that we know how to do, that I know how to do better than anybody, I guess, because of my experience from previous life.”

While Trump may be one of the most well-known real estate developers of all time — even before he became the two-time president of the United States — his real estate record has plenty of warts, from accusations of discrimination against Black tenants to casino bankruptcies to the recent civil fraud defeat in New York for allegedly inflating property values.

The relevance of Trump’s real estate experience in this situation is also debatable. Federalizing the local police force doesn’t appear to have any direct real estate impact, though a genuine reduction in crime could help improve property values.

What isn’t debatable is that Trump views many of his critical decisions through a real estate lens.

Ahead of a controversial meeting with Vladimir Putin, Trump compared land Russia took from Ukraine as “very prime territory,” or “oceanfront property” in his real estate parlance.

Earlier in this administration, Trump also infamously suggested displacing the Palestinian population of Gaza and turning the land into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” a pitch accompanied by an outlandish AI-generated video.

— Holden Walter-Warner