At the center of President Donald Trump’s effort to overhaul policing in Washington, D.C., stands a familiar figure: Jeanine Pirro.
Once known as a fiery commentator on The Five, Pirro now holds federal authority as the U.S. attorney for D.C., where she has been tasked with carrying out Trump’s vision of “Liberation Day.”
“The first order of government is the protection of its people,” Pirro said, vowing to help transform the nation’s capital into what she called a “shining city on a hill.”
Appearing on My View with Lara Trump over the weekend, she explained, “[President Trump] wants to make D.C. safe and beautiful, and part of my appointment here by the president was to follow through on that initiative. The federalization of the Metropolitan PD is something that I think is a great thing, and the agenda is very clear.”
Pirro emphasized that the move is about protecting residents, not restricting them, directly countering critics who have called the federal takeover heavy-handed.
A key focus, she said, will be tackling juvenile crime. Pirro argued that too many violent offenses committed by teens are handled in family courts, where the emphasis is on rehabilitation rather than accountability.
She dismissed the current system — which can include programs like “yoga” and “ice cream socials” — as insufficient when it comes to dealing with dangerous offenders.
“If I have a 17-year-old who shoots someone with a gun but doesn’t kill that person, I cannot prosecute them, investigate them. It goes to the family court. The mission there is rehabilitation… and that just isn’t cutting it with me or anyone else who’s a law enforcement professional,” Pirro said.
“For 30 years, I have fought to make criminals accountable and to protect victims. We are not doing enough to protect the victims in D.C.”
She also noted that the crisis has disproportionately harmed minority communities, pointing out that dozens of young African Americans have been killed in the last year and a half, with most cases still unsolved.
“We haven’t arrested them, we haven’t taken the guns from them — and that’s what the president understands, and that is my mission,” Pirro said.
According to her, early signs of progress are already visible: hundreds of arrests, dozens of illegal firearms seized, and large amounts of fentanyl removed from the streets — all in just the first week of the initiative.
At the same time, Pirro brushed off protests near the White House, describing them as “political theater” disguised as cultural events.
“They should kiss the ground at this point that you’ve got someone who wants to make this city safe again, who wants to make it clean again,” she told Fox & Friends Weekend. She warned that so-called “music festivals” were little more than rebranded gatherings fostering lawlessness.
“But here’s what the president’s going to do: he’s going to make a difference. We’re going to change the laws,” Pirro added.
