WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump announced major moves in a bid to squash what he has characterized as rampant crime in the nation’s capital, he also vowed another change in other U.S. states and cities: ending what he slammed as “no cash bail” policies.
”By the way, every place in the country where you have no cash bail is a disaster,” Trump said on Monday during a press conference in which he announced he was putting Washington’s police force under federal control and deploying national guard troops to the city.
The president specifically pointed to New York and Chicago, making the case that their states’ bail policies are what “started the problem.”
“I mean, bad politicians started it, bad leadership started it but that was the one thing that was central – no cash bail,” the president said.
He went on to pledge to “change the statute,” particularly in Chicago. He suggested he will urge Congress to pass legislation to do so and has already spoken with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche about it.
”We’ll count on the Republicans in Congress and Senate to vote,” he said. “We have the majority, so we’ll vote.”
“We don’t have a big majority, but we’ve gotten everything, including the great, big, beautiful bill,” he added, referring to the mega tax and spending legislation he championed that cleared Congress earlier this summer despite some questions at the end about whether it could make it over the finish line.
Illinois became the first state in the U.S. to eliminate its policy of allowing defendants to pay money to leave jail while awaiting trial when it passed a provision in its SAFE-T Act in 2021. The new policy then took effect in Sept. 2023, with proponents arguing it stops those accused of lower-level crimes who cannot afford bail from being kept in jail while wealthier defendants are let out and that those arrested for more serious crimes could still remain behind bars.
The law – which applies to the whole state of Illinois rather than just Chicago – instead enables judges to weigh factors like the type of crime and flight risk to decide whether a defendant should be kept in custody or released ahead of trial.
Data from the Chicago Police Department shows crime has dropped 15% from 2023, when the law took effect, to 2025. By the end of 2024, crime had fallen 12%, according to the department.
In New York, meanwhile, hours after Trump expressed his desire for Congress to take action on bail policy, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., took to X to announce that she would introduce legislation to change the state’s laws on the matter.
”President Trump has called for a federal ban on failed cashless bail that has led to a crime crisis in NY and across America,” the New York Republican wrote. “I will be leading legislation to end [Gov.] Kathy Hochul and NY’s failed bail reform once and for all to Save New York and Save America.”
While the state lawmakers in New York passed legislation in 2019 ending cash bail specifically for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies, parts of the reform has been rolled back in the years since.
Several other states, such as California and New Jersey, have moved away from the practice.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt specifically mentioned addressing cash bail policies during Tuesday’s White House press briefing when mentioning other changes on crime that Trump is looking to work with Congress to make when lawmakers return from August break.
