Chuck Schumer says he feels ‘perfectly safe’ walking around DC

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday dismissed Republicans who say Washington, D.C., has become too dangerous to walk the streets, insisting he feels “perfectly safe” even as violent crime and homicide rates continue to concern residents.

President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in Washington, D.C., on Monday and ordered the National Guard to help combat violent crime. In an interview with Aaron Parnas of “The Parnas Perspective,” Schumer described his regular early-morning walks around the Capitol and nearby monuments. Schumer brushed off GOP lawmakers who say the conditions of the city’s streets justify the federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department and Trump’s deployment of the National Guard.

“I walk around all the time. I wake up early in the morning sometimes and take a nice walk as the sun is rising, around some of the Capitol and the other monuments and things. And I feel perfectly safe. They’re full of it. Look, here’s what they’ve done, Aaron, plain and simple,” Schumer told Parnas. “Donald Trump wants to distract. That’s his game plan. It’s been his MO for his first term in the presidency and now. So he’s trying to make this a distraction.”

Schumer said the Senate had invoked an obscure Homeland Security Committee rule allowing five members to demand such records about Epstein, prompting what he called a defensive reaction from House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans.

“We’ve been confronting him on Epstein very successfully, left and right, so much so that Johnson had to dismiss, you know, had to send his House home early. And we called it the Epstein recess. We have found an arcane rule that if five members of our Homeland Security Committee demand documents, we should get them,” Schumer said. “When I attack them for sending the Deputy Attorney General, Trump’s lawyer, down to interview Ghislaine, they went crazy. They’re feeling it. And we’re not letting go.”

Major media outlets have amplified the Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD’s) claim that violent crime in Washington dropped 35% since 2024, but federal figures paint a different picture. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that 850 officers and agents made 23 arrests during the first night of Trump’s law-and-order push, targeting homicide, gun crimes, stalking, and narcotics trafficking. 

FBI statistics show violent crime has fallen only 10% since 2024 and remains slightly above 2018 levels. Unlike the FBI, the MPD’s tally excludes crimes such as felony and aggravated assault, counting only homicides, sex abuse cases, assaults with a dangerous weapon, and robberies. In May, the department suspended its police chief amid an investigation into whether he falsified data. By July, the D.C. Police Union publicly accused the MPD of inflating the reported crime drop.

A gang shooting in June killed 21-year-old congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym near a Metro stop. In May, gunfire outside the Capital Jewish Museum left two Israeli officials dead. Prosecutors have charged 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez with multiple counts of first-degree murder, federal hate crimes resulting in death, and assault with intent to kill while armed.

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