“Safety will be restored,” Donald Trump declared from the Republican National Convention floor a decade ago. “The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens,” he said, promising to do so if elected president. “Keeping America Safe” has been a consistent Trump message ever since. It generally refers to violent crime, which Trump paints as out of control even as it continues declining to record lows across the nation, but it is also his pitch for agenda items like foreign policy and his administration’s mass deportation program.

Everybody deserves to be safe. The Vera Institute of Justice has written extensively about how the second Trump administration’s actions risk undermining the nation’s historic crime decline. But safety is about far more than the sort of violent street crime Donald Trump has spent his political career exploiting and exaggerating. It also means safety from disease outbreaks, unsafe food and water, environmental disasters, cyberattacks, transportation failures, gun violence, terrorism, and war. By these measures, the Trump administration’s record is deeply alarming.

1. Crime: Lowering crime is, ostensibly, the cornerstone of Trump’s “safety” agenda. And, as mentioned, violent crime rates—and especially the homicide rate—have declined significantly over the last few years. But while Trump and his cabinet are quick to take credit, these declines began long before Trump returned to office, and the Trump administration has seemed determined to cut, undermine, or otherwise roll back myriad programs and policies that likely played a significant part in these historic crime trends. The administration has cut thousands of employees from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. As of March 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) under Trump had dropped 23,000 criminal investigations, including 1,000 terrorism cases, in order to focus even more on immigration. And the indiscriminate DOJ grant cuts of last year killed or endangered countless programs and organizations that were directly contributing to greater public safety across the country. Trump also continually fearmongers around so-called “migrant crime”—yet evidence shows that undocumented immigration does not increase violent crime, “sanctuary policies” can actually make cities safer, and heightened immigration enforcement can undermine public safety.
2. Guns: Gun homicides have been falling since 2021, but the Trump administration rescinded millions of dollars in grants for gun violence prevention programs, is making it easier to get guns, less likely for gun dealers who violate the law to lose a license to sell guns, and more difficult for state and local governments to attempt to regulate guns themselves.
3. Public health: Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has consistently undermined public confidence in life-saving vaccines, which could lead directly to the resurgence of deadly childhood diseases, as evidenced by measles outbreaks across the nation in the past year. The administration’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization, cuts to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the shuttering of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have impaired the world’s ability to stop an Ebola virus outbreak. CDC cuts have also left the United States less prepared for another pandemic and struggling to respond to a hantavirus outbreak. Cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have further hurt countless people, including millions of veterans and their families. Trump’s executive order criminalizing people who live in homeless encampments, promoting sweeps, and forcing institutionalization will likely exacerbate the homelessness crisis and has turned policy away from proven solutions that break the cycle like safe, affordable housing.
4. Transportation: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) fired hundreds of employees and slashed the number of air traffic controllers it plans to hire, despite an ongoing shortage. Trump’s Department of Transportation (DOT) also disbanded the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, a group whose safety-related recommendations had historically been broadly accepted by FAA and Transportation Security Administration leadership. Meanwhile, DOT cuts and reduced enforcement mean the agency has, according to ProPublica, “opened 50 percent fewer investigations into vehicle safety defects [and] concluded 83 percent fewer enforcement cases against trucking and bus companies” under Trump compared to the Biden administration.
5. Oil and gas pipelines: Trump’s DOT, under the direction of dozens of political appointees who formerly worked for industries regulated by the agency, also drastically scaled back oil, gas, and hazardous material pipeline safety enforcement, with a 98 percent drop in penalties, and opened 58 percent fewer enforcement cases compared to the Biden administration. This increases the risk of leaks and ruptures that could both emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases and also directly endanger the health and safety of people who live near pipelines.
6. Food safety: Due to Trump’s deep staffing cuts at the Food and Drug Administration, inspections of foreign food facilities are now at an all-time low—despite a documented history of substandard facilities and a greater risk of foodborne illnesses from those foreign facilities.
7. Extreme weather and natural disasters: The Trump administration still plans to “close the chapter” on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and pull back funding for the agency, which has lost roughly a third of its full-time staff. The United States is coming up on hurricane season with “the smallest disaster workforce since 2021” and multiple major job vacancies.
8. Cybersecurity: Trump slashed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with grants for state and local cybersecurity efforts, which leaves people in the United States at greater risk for computer security hacks. For example, the Congressional Budget Office was hacked by a foreign nation-state actor, compromising lawmakers’ emails and key financial data. Moreover, DHS agents who once handled cybersecurity have been reassigned amid the administration’s single-minded focus on immigration enforcement.
9. Clean air and water: At the Environmental Protection Agency, the administration has massively rolled back enforcement actions to a historic low, and the DOJ environmental enforcement section is operating with a skeleton crew. This could lead to drastic repercussions for low-income communities, which are disproportionately exposed to pollution, as polluters have no one holding them accountable. There’s even evidence that exposure to pollution increases crime.
10. Drug overdose epidemic: The Trump administration’s massive cuts to Medicaid, drug research, and overdose-prevention efforts, and general hostility to harm-reduction efforts, are endangering the tremendous progress the United States has made in reducing drug overdose deaths over the past few years.

Across issue after issue, the pattern is the same: weakened oversight, gutted agencies, reduced enforcement, and fewer resources devoted to protecting the public. Trump cannot credibly claim to be making people safer while dismantling these systems. Real safety comes from investing in communities, institutions, and evidence-based policies that protect people’s well-being.