WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump held a roundtable discussion with the Fraternal Order of Police and senior cabinet officials regarding strategies and policies to support law enforcement at the White House on Thursday.

Officials made remarks for about 15 minutes before the media was removed from the State Dining Room so the group could meet in private.

Members of the order’s executive board were in attendance, representing approximately 400,000 law enforcement officers nationwide.

“Your members are the backbone of American law enforcement. We are grateful for your service,” Trump told the group. “This institution served as a powerful voice for brave men and women who risk their lives to protect communities all over our country, and do it as well as anybody, or better.”

The president reiterated his ongoing support for law and order.

“I’m proud to stand with you today as the most police president, I would say without question, in the history of America,” Trump said. “I don’t think anybody has been more for the police than I am.”

The commander-in-chief highlighted policy decisions made in recent years that he blamed for what he described as higher levels of crime and lower morale in police departments.

“In recent years, far-left radicals, Marxist prosecutors, soft-on-crime politicians making it impossible for you to do your jobs and do them the way you want to do them and only you know how to do them,” Trump said. “Under the Trump administration, those days are over.”

He said executive orders signed in the early days of his second term, including those to limit liability for law enforcement officials and to seek the death penalty for all suspects charged with murdering an officer, among others, will help protect agencies and individuals.

“Everything we do will give police the respect and protection and all of the resources that you need,” Trump said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi told the group that the Department of Justice is working to “support all men and women who wear the badge in this country.”

She said the department prioritizes increasing staffing levels through recruitment and retention efforts.

“We want the best and brightest to join your ranks just like you, and we want them to stay in your ranks,” Bondi said.

The Justice Department announced in May grant money totaling $157 million for agencies to find and hire approximately 1,200 new officers.

Department officials are also dismissing charges filed under President Joe Biden’s administration against police departments in Louisville, Ky., Albuquerque, N.M., Phoenix, Ariz., Trenton, N.Y., and the City of Oklahoma, among others.

“We believe in backing the blue, not just in word but in action,” Bondi said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump at a roundtable in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington on June 5, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Patrick Yoes, national president for the fraternal order, expressed gratitude for the opportunity to work with the administration while also noting the challenges agencies and departments face nationwide.

“Law enforcement officers find ourselves in a very difficult position where we have a serious problem recruiting,” he said.

Panel members told the president that staffing numbers have dropped precipitously in some areas over the past five years.

The District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department currently has more than 800 vacancies after losing approximately 600 officers in recent years, according to Gregg Pemberton, the department’s union chair.

He noted that Trump’s recently established task force targeting safety and security in Washington, D.C., is a welcome change for the city.

“This is the nation’s capital, and it belongs to everybody; it belongs to every American,“ Pemberton said. ”It should be a safe city. It should be a pinnacle of American society. It should represent the freedom and democracy that we all cherish so much.”

Gregg Pemberton, chairman of the D.C. Police Union, speaks at a roundtable in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington on June 5, 2025. U.S. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The discussion did not veer to the nearly 1,500 individuals pardoned in relation to the incidents that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, an issue where the president and the fraternal order, which backed him in all three of his presidential campaigns, differ.