Trump dines out in DC for first time in his second term, asserting crime crackdown made city safe

By Donald Judd, Kristen Holmes, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump dined at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab in Washington, DC, Tuesday evening, his first foray to an outside eatery in the district since taking office in January.

Trump has eschewed the capital’s restaurant scene since returning to Washington, choosing instead to dine at the White House or occasionally at his nearby golf club in Sterling, Virginia. He was joined Tuesday by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Speaking to reporters outside the restaurant, Trump said his administration’s crackdown on DC crime was instrumental in his decision to dine out and suggested he’d announce an operation in another city as soon as tomorrow.

“We’ll be announcing another city that we’re going to very shortly — we’re working it out,” Trump said. “The governor of a certain state would love us to be there, and the mayor of a certain city in that same state would love us to be there. We’ll announce it probably tomorrow, and it’s going to be something where we’ll do like we did here.”

Trump has repeatedly waffled on whether he would send federal troops to Democratic-controlled cities like Chicago and Baltimore, and he enjoys unique authority in DC, which is not a state. He hailed his own efforts there just before sitting down for dinner.

“I wouldn’t have done this three months ago, four months ago, I certainly wouldn’t have done it a year ago,” Trump said. “This was one of the most unsafe cities in the country. Now it’s as safe as there is in the country, so we’re here with Cabinet members having dinner, and everybody should go out.”

A month after President Donald Trump’s administration effectively took over Washington, DC’s police department and surged federal law enforcement and troops across the capital, crime in the city is down and hundreds of people accused of being in the US illegally have been detained. But tourism numbers have declined, and some restaurants in the city are hurting for customers, CNN has previously reported.

Erika Polmar, Executive Director of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, praised Trump’s decision to dine out in DC and said it “shouldn’t be his last.”

“It’s never been more important for the Administration to recognize the important role restaurants and bars play in communities across the country,” she said in a statement. “The reality on the ground is tough. Reservations are down nationwide, costs remain high, and too many independent restaurants are operating on razor-thin margins.”

In an interview with a local CBS affiliate in 2019, Joe’s Stone Crab owner Stephen Sawitz said Trump would dine at their Miami location in the 1990s.

Privately, Trump has said Joe’s has the best stone crabs, and he’s on occasion sourced crabs from the establishment for his Mar-a-Lago club, according to a source familiar.

CNN’s Betsy Klein and Samantha Waldenberg contributed to this report.

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