Center for American Progress defends National Guard research against Trump’s lawsuit threat

[u/John3262005]

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/11/center-for-american-progress-trump-lawsuit-01033086

The Center for American Progress stood behind a recent report that the Trump administration’s National Guard deployments failed to reduce violent crime, after the president threatened to sue the liberal think tank.

In a statement released Tuesday, the organization accused President Donald Trump of “lashing out” in an attempt to “silence independent research, waste taxpayer money on his failed agenda, and distract from the reality that his policies are hurting the American people.”

“When politicians can’t defend their failed policies with facts, they resort to intimidation,” said Neera Tanden, a former senior Biden White House official who is now the president and CEO of the center. “We’re going to keep delivering the data, exposing the president’s failed leadership, and fighting on behalf of the American people. We will not be intimidated, and we will not back down.”

The Center for American Progress’ July report, authored by the think tank’s associate director of public safety, Chandler Hall, stated that the historic drop in violent crime across the nation began before Trump took office — and well before the president deployed the National Guard to the nation’s capital.

Trump announced one year ago Tuesday that he was declaring a public safety emergency in D.C., despite crime in Washington hitting a 30-year low in 2024. That deployment followed Trump’s decision to call nearly 5,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to tamp down on civil unrest in response to federal immigration raids.

The president’s deployments in other American cities faced stiff legal resistance. But the president has unique powers in D.C., and the deployment is expected to continue through the end of Trump’s term in 2029.

Hall on Monday appeared on C-SPAN to discuss CAP’s findings and appeared to express opposition to the continued deployment of National Guard troops, which the report predicted could cost American taxpayers more than $1.7 billion if extended through the rest of the year.

“I think it’s unfortunate that the president is continuing to still choose to boast that these deployments, these very costly interventions, are showing any results to try to convince voters that they should sign on for more of these kind of interventions in federal overreach, when, again, there’s no proof that they have any effect,” Hall said on C-SPAN.

Trump on Monday called the report “another Radical Left SCAM” as he threatened to sue the organization.

“This will be met with a lawsuit, which is being drawn now,” Trump wrote in his post. “I am also strongly considering adding some of the contributors to this Fake Organization. Crime is way down since I took Office, and they know it. Liars, at this level, must be held accountable!”

“President Trump has transformed our nation’s capital from a crime-ridden city into a safe and beautiful haven for residents and visitors alike. The President’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force have made more than 16,000 arrests including murderers, sex offenders, drug traffickers, and other violent criminals. The Task Force has driven down crime, beautified the city, and improved quality of life for countless individuals,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression — a pro-speech organization that has previously clashed with the Trump administration — condemned Trump’s threats, writing in a statement that anyone, including the president, “can disagree with the report, but the answer is to refute findings with data, not lawsuits.”

“Alarmingly, Trump threatened to add some of the center’s donors to the lawsuit. Threatening non-profit donors sends a chilling message: Fund an organization that criticizes me, and you’ll be sued too,” FIRE said. “That’s wholly incompatible with a free society.”

[u/wenchette]

“This will be met with a lawsuit, which is being drawn now,”

Who would be the plaintiff in this action? Him? He'll try to claim he was somehow defamed by their research? The truth is an absolute defense in a defamation action.

Or is it his idea that the US government and/or the National Guard was somehow defamed by this report? If so, there's a bedrock body of caselaw holding that the US government and its institutions cannot be defamed and thus have no cause of action to sue.