Overview

• During Tuesday’s briefing new-media questioner Benny Johnson asked Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt if President Trump would consider awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, and Leavitt said she would ask the president and follow up
• The administration has taken temporary command of the Metropolitan Police Department, activated the National Guard, and deployed federal law enforcement in Washington, D.C., citing recent incidents including Coristine’s assault to justify the law-and-order push
• Critics point to Metropolitan Police Department data showing year-over-year declines in violent crime and note Home Rule Act restrictions as barriers to any long-term federal takeover of D.C. policing
• The exchange underscored a White House strategy of elevating influencers to back the president’s crime narrative and drew both praise from supporters like Elon Musk and ridicule from critics who labeled the moment a “clown show”
• Coristine, a former Department of Government Efficiency employee now at the Social Security Administration, was beaten on August 3 while defending a woman from an attempted carjacking, an incident that led to charges against two 15-year-old suspects